Live Story SEO Guidelines
In Q1 2022, a new Live Story template was built to improve the live blogging experience across our Condé Nast sites. This template is great for covering live events, such as the Oscars or Met Gala, and should be used any time there will be continuous real-time blogging/coverage around a specific event or moment.
This template was designed with SEO in mind to include Live Blog Schema and other technical parameters that will allow for the page to acquire a LIVE badge and appear in the beta Live Story carousel (if present) within Google.
Plan Ahead:
Create 1 shared planning document for all stakeholder to work off of to plan timing, resources, on-page SEO, content plan, and any Product needs.
Best start time can usually be found by looking at hourly traffic to past years’ events in GA
Hold kickoff meeting with all stakeholders to go through shared planning document.
Work with Product to check all functionality before the planned publish day, including ability to promote on the Homepage.
Day Of:
Always start the SEO Title with the keyword (supplied by the SEO Team), but update the rest of it throughout the day/event highlighting news & updates
Why: This shows the freshness/relevance of the page to both users and Google, which will often also be more clickable to users than something generic written before the event (and CTR is a signal to Google, so good for SEO)
Always include introductory text in the body field that includes your target keyword to help provide context to Google and the new users who land on the page. Start with a robust intro of unique information with at least 150 words. Once the event starts fully and you see strong Google rankings, you can update and shorten the intro to speak to the current nature of the page rather than the anticipatory nature of the intro you would have written earlier.
If reusing a Live Story from a previous year, publish on a new slug (URL) the day-of by appending the year to it (for example, /live/grammys-2022/ at first and then /live/grammys-2023/) (best time to do this will be outlined in the planning doc, but the morning will generally be best). NOTE: At this time, the Product Team is needed to support this in real time, so plan ahead for Product support on weekends.
Why: This is because only new URLs are eligible for the Top Stories (news) section on Google SERPs, and are much more likely to appear in Google Discover.
Make sure the start day/time is when you will be starting to add posts. This is when the red LIVE badge will appear on SERPs. You can set the start time ahead of when the actual event will start if blogging will begin early, but do not set the event start day/time to be earlier than the day of the event. Also make sure the end day/time is accurate and does not tell Google to turn off the red LIVE badge before you are done posting. Extend end time to the day after the event if interest and coverage will continue.
Why: This tells Google when to show the red LIVE badge on SERPs and when to turn it off.
Add a video (if available) to the top of the intro, and make sure it is marked up correctly in Copilot. Ideally this will be a livestream, but if no livestream is available and you can embed a promotional video or similar, this is suggested.
Why: The thumbnail that appears on Google will get a play button overlay if the page has a video embedded, which should increase CTR from Google.
When linking to other content in individual posts, do not copy-paste from the content. Instead, describe in new words 1-2 highlights but don’t give it all away, and encourage them to see more in the linked article. Link to any pages with their keyword or similar.
Why: Avoid copying since duplicate content - even sentences on a page copied from another page - is not valued by Google as much as original content. Also this is not meant to be a hub like a Bundle page, but rather a content page where there is some information without always having to click into other pages. Anchor text signals that the page it links to is about that topic, so using the keyword here is a strong signal that can help that other page rank a bit better on Google.
Promote the Live Story from the Homepage (reach out to Product if you see problems here). For major events/tentpoles, link to the Live Story from a banner unit and temporarily link to it from the site navigation and footer. Pin the LIve Story to the top of a relevant Bundle page, if available
Why: Linking from the navigation and a banner on all pages is a very strong signal to Google that the page is very important, which makes it more competitive in SERPs.
As with all important or new content, link back to this page using its keyword from other pages as you publish them.
Why: Backlinks are critically important for SEO. Without backlinks we are signaling that this page is not as important to us as other pages about the event.
During the event, update with new posts every time there is a new major announcement or interesting information. Between these moments, post links to recent articles/content. Do not stop posting for long stretches of time.
Why: The frequency of posts is a signal for both Google and users as to how up-to-date this page is.
When possible and appropriate, add headings to your posts.
Why: This gives a more eye-catching appearance in the LIVE carousel on SERPs.
Functionality not yet enabled: When possible and appropriate, add images to your posts.
Why: This gives a more eye-catching appearance in the LIVE carousel on SERPs.
Day After:
If there are resources and user interest continues, keep updating this page after the event, making sure the end time set in Copilot is updated as well.
Why: Many events bring in a significant amount of traffic the day after the event - this can sometimes be the difference between increasing total event traffic YoY or not growing YoY.
Following the event, update with links to reaction and summary/list articles.
Why: This will continue to bring traffic to the page even after the event has ended.
When blogging has finished, update the introduction with a summary of the events
Why: This will give context to search engines and users who land on the page without having to scroll through all of the blog posts