How to increase pageviews for a news website when all the most common SEO strategies were already used, and they´ve reached a plateau of visits?

[Kenaum]

These clients are regional news’ websites which have already reached their apex of visits - most of these results were linked to the SEO strategies developed by our team in the past few years.

But now, the most common SEO strategies don't show the same effect: a higher number of pageviews.

What kind of strategies you suggest to increase this number?

Thank you!

[KingRosales]

Hey Kenneth,

You're welcome.

I understand what you mean when you say, "reached its visits plateau for our city size". But, thats only one issue and its not related to your task.

I think you're next steps would be to figure out what your content strategy is. So far, you've just mentioned you've done all the SEO you possibly can for the site, but after quickly glancing over the pages, etc, and based on your question, you need to start thinking about your content strategy and even UX as well.

I think the sites focus too much on making a buck with so many media placements and the homepage is just cluttered. There's a lot of resources out there, especially Whiteboard Friday videos to help you.

Personally, I can only read English, French and UX; Portuguese is not my forte What I mean to say is eventhough I can't read Portuguese, I understand what visitors are looking for, their visual and content expectations. So without me doing it for you, you should really take the time to analyze other news and content-related websites are doing within your region and outside as well.

Focus on your primary goal.

Feel free to PM me for other stuff.

[Kenaum]

Hello King!Thank you very much for your time and dedication to find a solution for us.As you've asked, the websites that we've mentioned are these ones:http://www.campograndenews.com.br/ - the problem here is that is a local news' website and it already reached its visits plateau for our city size. We have optimized the landing pages and created new ones, but we have no access into influencing the quality of the articles. They already have a partnership with a local movie theater, and offer tickets on Facebook "in exchange" for likes and shares.http://www.oestadoonline.com.br/ - they are also a news website, and we are working on optimizing keywords for link building and niche articles redirecting to their website, but it's going to reach a plateau soon, because it's also local news oriented. We are considering all your tips and now you'll be able to check the specific websites. Considering we have a large goal this year, to increase pageviews, we are working hard on finding more strategies to work combined and get even better results.

[DennisSeymour]

Itll always be the case. Youll hit a plateau eventually.

There will be some things you need to do, from A/B testing design tweaks (and extra features to push them to other pages)

or you can compile a list of keywords you are already ranking for but below #5 and work on those to move them to the top 3

or you can utilize other traffic channels such as social to push them to category pages so they can look at other news.

[Red_Spot_Interactive]

Look for long-tail industry related keywords, and write blog posts relevant to those of higher search volume.

[KingRosales]

Hi Kenneth,

I manage my own online newspaper network, 5 websites strong. All use the same theme/layout/design and they all depend on fresh unique content, social shares, layout and the UX.

Your question doesn't include many details and is quite vague so its going to be difficult to visualize what the website looks like in terms of UX, social media optimization and SEO related factors.

Increasing Pageviews, Not Visitors

Without looking at your pages, I can say one of the strategies to help increase pageviews (not visits), is promoting additional content within the body and sidebar of the news/landing page. And if you do include additional content within the body of the post, make sure its extremely relevant to the news content. Think of it in terms of accessorizing a wardrobe. My wife always tells me I have to wear a watch, belt, black socks (never white), yadda yadda yadda. But I don't get too detailed in terms of matching the accessories with my jeans and tshirt concept.

Let me give you another example. In retail online or brick and mortar, one goal is to always try to increase average basket size. Now in brick and mortar stores, its common to see candies and small easy things to grab at the checkout counter area. You're just about to put all your items down for the CSR to scan and you're attention gets taken away by a Snickers chocolate bar. You may decide to grab it, or you go on with what you already have. The same goes with online news content, any blog or site that wants to increase pageviews. In your case, it may not be the SEO strategies you're using aren't useful, it maybe that your news sites haven't adapted to the way people expect information to be given to them. - maybe your site is dated, UX-wise.

Rand did a video on building the Ultimate Product Page a year or so ago if I remember correctly. If you find it and watch it you'll see how he breaks down each element of content and suggests a placement for them to support the buying decision of that visitor.

Increasing Visits, Not Pageviews

I just wanted to clarify that visits and pageviews are not the same things. Unless you want to think of it that way, I can always update my answer. As an SEO, I'm constantly thinking of new ways to build links, optimize the technical aspects of the website, optimize the UX interface, etc. Have you tried A/B testing your post pages? Maybe it might be a good idea to test a couple of different layouts to see how your visitors engage differently with your content. If you give them something relevant to satisfy their curiosity with relevant content that originally brought them to your site, they're likely to stay on your site longer by visiting more pages and thus = increased pageviews.

If the SEO is sound and you've exhausted EVERYTHING, then leverage different channels:

• Social Media - Are your pages social media optimized? Some sites don't use the right mix of social media sharing buttons. For example, Some niches don't use stumbleupon. If you've had the button there for a year and nobody shared it on stumbleupon but you've had 956 Facebook shares and 40 Tweets, why waste the space IMO. But leverage your Facebook pages and build a strong audience there. A lot of my news sites get traffic from Facebook.
• Email Subscribers - Do you have a subscribe form? I look at my news websites as blogs. If you think about it, news sites are just glorified blogs with way more content; differently styled content, but still a blog in my eyes. Leverage your mailing list and send your subscribers updates to your posts.

Here's a tip for you, go to one of your campaign dashboards, and when you see the "Insights" section below, you'll find the latest Whiteboard Friday by Rand, "Is It Possible to Have Good SEO Simply by Having Great Content" - Check it out because it talks about what I just mentioned in the two bullet points above + more.

I hope this helps you out in any way.