This Monday Note article offers a really eye-opening take on the real reason that newspapers are getting crushed online by aggregators like the Huffington Post – because they’re just not nearly as good at online marketing.
Here’s an excerpt:
On July 5th, The Wall Street Journal runs an editorial piece about Mitt Romney’s position on Obamacare.
The rather dull and generic “Romney’s Tax Confusion” title for this 1000 words article attracted a remarkable 938 comments.
But look at what the Huffington Post did: a 500 words treatment including a 300 words article, plus a 200 words excerpt of the WSJ opinion and a link back (completely useless). But, unlike the Journal, the HuffPo ran a much sexier headline: “Mitt Romney Is ‘Squandering Candidacy With Health Care Tax Snafu.
A choice of words that takes in account all Search Engine Optimization (SEO) prerequisites, using high yield words such as “Squandering”, “Snafu”, in conjunction with much sought-after topics such as “Romney” and “Health Care”. Altogether, this guarantees a nice blip on Google’s radar — and a considerable audience : 7000+ comments (7x more than the original), 600 Facebook shares, etc.
