NESS 2022: How the SEO Conference Shaped the Community

This post was sponsored by NESS. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the sponsor.

“This has been a dream of mine for so many years, to do an SEO conference focused solely on publishers.”

– NESS & John Shehata, Founder of NewzDash.com, Global VP of Audience Development at Condé Nast

Working in SEO is a constant learning experience – there is always something new to discover, and when Shehata and Barry Adams founded the News and Editorial SEO Summit (NESS), they did so with that principle in mind.

“People who say they’re really good at SEO are probably either lying or grossly overestimating how good they really are.”

– Barry Adams, co-founder of NESS & SEO Consultant, Digital Controversy

“No matter how long you’ve been doing it and how experienced you think you might be, you’ll always have those moments where you’re totally and utterly stumped, and you just have no idea what’s going on.

“We are always learning. There is never a dull moment in SEO. It’s a very fast-moving industry with ever-evolving search engines, ever-evolving user behavior, ever-evolving websites, so nobody knows everything.”

With NESS, Shehata and Adams are building a special community within the SEO world for continued growth and discovery.

NESS Is A First-Of-Its-Kind SEO Conference

NESS is dedicated exclusively to news publishers looking to join together and share SEO knowledge.

Attendees of this online conference have the opportunity to learn from the best experts in the news industry.

Whether you’re a journalist or editor involved in publishing daily news content, or an SEO professional looking to improve your knowledge in the field, NESS is a valuable online conference you simply can’t miss!

NESS Is Creating A Community

When NESS officially launched in 2021, a long-time dream came true.

Seeing how neglected the news SEO community was, Shehata sprang into action.

“I went to a lot of event organizers and asked them to do this conference, but they turned me down… And about two years ago, I decided that I would do it, and I would fund it myself, and I’m going to go with it. And if it’s a win, it’s a win; if it’s a loss, it’s a loss. But I thought there would be a good community that could come to this conference.”

The goal of the inaugural event was to sell 100 tickets; they ended up with over 600 attendees from all over the world, over 50% of which were from outside the US.

People from massive global publishing organizations to news microsites focused on small regional areas called from various time zones to share their experiences, leave comments, give feedback and exchange information.

“I think that’s something that sets our conference apart,” Adams said. “It’s a niche within a niche conference.”

Shehata and Adams quickly realized that news SEO was a niche worth serving and specializing in.

“What impressed me the most,” Adams continued, “is the generosity of the speakers and attendees in sharing their knowledge and learnings with others who may be their direct competitors. There seems to be a genuine sense of community that ‘we’re all in this together, we’re all doing the same things, we’re not enemies of each other, we’re allies of each other, we’re trying to do the same thing. the same, which is to generate great journalism and make sure that the largest possible audience has the opportunity to read it’. And I hope that we can continue that for years to come and continue to serve that community to the best of our ability.”

NESS Is Serving The Community

NESS is specifically presented as a virtual conference so you can have a low cost of attendance. Shehata’s top priorities when creating NESS were to share knowledge and give back.

“A publisher can send 30 people to attend, this would never happen with a traditional conference where they charge $2,000 [per ticket]… The other thing is I really believe in giving back. Last year was the pandemic and it was a difficult time for a lot of people, so we said, ‘How can we help?’ And last year, we gave about 30 free tickets to any SEO who got fired or fired,” Shehata said.

“We also give free tickets to SEOs from developing countries who can’t afford the conference. So we try every year to do good, and I think this is the ultimate goal. Regardless of whether you’re an SEO or not, you have to give back to the community and do good.”

This year, NESS also led a fundraising campaign for the Red Cross relief efforts in Ukraine, encouraging attendees to donate and matching their donations up to $5,000.

NESS Pioneers Online Conference Community Engagement

Rather than a one-way broadcast with speakers simply speaking to the audience, NESS promotes two-way engagement, allowing attendees to join in the conversation.

The live chat feed allows guests to comment, ask questions, and vote during a presentation.

NESS also enables participation through virtual tables of around eight people who can talk to the speaker, ask questions, network and more.

NESS 2022 News SEO Conference Highlights

“John and I, when we started planning this, we wanted talks that we ourselves would like to see delivered by experts in the field. So we select topics and speakers based on: ‘What would we like to see? What could we learn from, in terms of SEO specifically for news publishers?’”

Here are some highlights from the 2022 NESS lineup, along with key takeaways from each segment.

How To Successfully Implement Paywalls Without Affecting SEO

Leonie Roderick, The Times, and Ben Dilks, Sunday Times, tackled the dilemma where readers expect to read news content for free, but publishers still have to make money.

Top tips for implementing a successful paywall strategy include:

Get all the tips in the recorded session.

Using Automated Articles Successfully: Is It Possible?

This segment of the conference was presented by Carolyn Shelby, Vice President of Growth for Dawn Patrol LLC.

Matt Southern, Senior News Writer at Search Engine Journal and NESS 2022 attendee, noted the key takeaways from this talk:

“As much as SEO can help with news distribution and visibility, it shouldn’t guide the direction of news coverage. Shelby spoke at length about using SEO to help machines better understand their stories. He warned attendees not to let SEO change their journalistic standards. Covering a story because it presents an opportunity to rank for a popular keyword versus covering a story because it is the most interesting is an example of writing news for SEO. As a reporter, your top priority is to cover the stories that are most relevant to your audience, while SEO is a tool to help your audience find those stories.”

Top Stories: State Of The Union

This detailed presentation by Shehata featured data from NewzDash, a Google news monitoring system and ranking tracker specifically for news publishers.

“With all the tools that John has innovated,” Adams said, “he has a lot of data on what’s working in the mainstream news, what’s showing in the mainstream news at any given time, and how things have changed.”

Career Growth Panel: What Is Your Next Move?

One of the highest rated sessions within the conference, this panel included various types of SEO professionals who spoke about their experiences in the industry, how they got to their positions, the skills needed, etc.

“The importance of committing to a particular practice within SEO was a key point,” said Southern. “SEO is such a diverse field that aspiring to become an expert in all facets of commerce is not as realistic as it was in the early days of search marketing. In addition, the roles that companies are hiring for are becoming more specialized. If you are a passionate news SEO, becoming a news SEO expert is a viable career option.”

Get access to the full session, now!

Search Engine Journal’s NESS Experience

Members of our own team attended the conference; this is what they had to say:

“As a reporter covering industry news in SEO and digital marketing, NESS was an intersection of my career disciplines. It opened my eyes to the fact that there is a growing segment of SEO professionals focused solely on optimizing news articles for search engines.”

– Matt Southern, Senior News Writer at Search Engine Journal and NESS 2022 attendee

“Which was awesome! NESS is one of the most valuable SEO conferences where experts share their practical experience in publishing, which one can quickly turn into a practice and apply. Whether you are running a publication or a blog, it is a must visit”.

– Vahan Petrosyan, Director of IT and Infrastructure at Search Engine Journal and NESS 2022 attendee

Did you miss this year’s NESS event? You can access video recordings and presentations on their website.

What is a downside of Google News?

Since press releases published through a syndication platform can be viewed on multiple sites, Google fines companies because the same content appears on more than two sites. There is only little SEO value in using Google News because its rule set is always changing.

What are the benefits of Google News? With Google News, users can:

• Discover current events, world news and diverse content from different publishers.
• Subscribe to news providers and specific topics.
• Bookmark and share articles.
• Personalize the content in the “For You” section.

Is Google News app any good?

The new Google News experience is nice and tailored to my interests. Unfortunately, it won’t change the fact that many of today’s news sources are clickbait and of dubious quality. The “full image” feature only helps expose how much one source copied from others.

Is there anything better than Google News?

There are over 50 alternatives to Google News for a variety of platforms, including online/web-based, iPhone, Android, iPad, and Android tablet. The best alternative is Flipboard, which is free. Other great apps like Google News are News as Facts, Digg, TheFactual, and AllSides.

Is there a better Google alternative?

Bing. The second most popular search engine in the world, Microsoft’s Bing is one of the few search engines that serve as a complete alternative to Google. The quality of the search results is comparable, as are additional services such as maps and business pages.

Is Microsoft news better than Google News?

Google News is better when it comes to managing feeds and finding content or news. You can control and add topics, blogs and magazines. Full Coverage and Timeline feature are beneficial. Microsoft News offers a better reading experience.

Can I trust Google News?

Google News is an ocean of trustworthy websites, while there are plenty of illegitimate, copy-paste, rewrite, fake news sites trying to trick you. Therefore, the appearance will be very difficult for new publishers. Therefore, it should be considered more trustworthy and responsible than the rest of the websites.

Can Google be trusted?

The surprising answer is yes, as long as you’re not a competitor, advertiser, or consumer. For years, it seems, Google lived up to its old motto, “Don’t be evil.” It also didn’t seem to do anything wrong in terms of product superiority. Google built its reputation as an ethical company that outperformed its competitors.

How does Google News make money?

Our ad technology helps news organizations make money by displaying ads on their websites, apps, and videos. Every year we pay billions of dollars directly to the publisher partners of our ad network.

Where is Google alert button?

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How do Google stories work?

Web stories are a visually rich full-screen content format for the web, allowing you to tap or swipe through stories. To consume content, you can tap or swipe through Web Stories. Google supports web stories, so you can find them on Google Search and Discover.

Are Google Web Stories free? Newsroom AI allows you to start creating Google Web Stories for free, with many features available. Even with the free version, you can embed stories on your website and start publishing your stories to Google.

Are Google web stories worth it?

Google Web Stories help your site, brand, product, or anything related rank higher in overall Google search results. Initially, this leads to a lot of SEO engagement and a good return on investment for your brand. They are another way to increase traffic to your website and help build your business.

Are Google web Stories good for SEO?

Note: The same SEO best practices for web pages also apply to Web Stories. A web story is still a web page. Like any website, providing high-quality content that is useful and interesting to your readers is the most important thing you can do.

Where do Google web stories show up?

Carousel in Google Discover: Web stories can appear in Google Discover on Android and iOS via the latest Google app in the form of a carousel near the top of the feed. The Carousel is available in the United States, India, and Brazil. The example web stories carousel is geared towards lifestyle content.

How long are Google web stories?

Google intended Web Stories to be video first. You favor video over all else, but you welcome audio, images, and animations that help you create a narrative. You can include text, but when you use it, aim for fewer than 280 characters, or about 40-70 words per page.

Where can I watch Google stories?

To view Google Spotlight Stories, use the YouTube app or the Google Spotlight Stories app. Google Spotlight Stories requires a fast connection such as Wi-Fi or LTE to download or stream content.

How do I get paid for writing articles on Google?

Sign up for the Google AdSense program, the website/blog you create will allow Google to approve you for the program. You will receive your own unique Publisher ID from Google. Use the Google AdSense program to earn money online. You will earn money from Google advertising on the web pages you create.

Can you get paid to make articles? While finding a quality paid job is difficult, it is not impossible. In fact, there are many publications that will pay you a premium to write for them. Making a living as a freelance writer means you’ll need to master how to get paid to write articles.

Can I post news articles on my website?

Yes. You can republish an article on your website as long as you have obtained permission from the copyright holder. Even if the article mentions you or your business, you still need permission to republish the entire article.

Can I post news articles on my website without breaking any copyright laws? As a general rule, any original work, whether it’s text, visual art, photos, or music, is protected by copyright law, which means you can’t reproduce it without the permission of the copyright owner.

Can you share news articles on your own website?

You can’t share someone’s work on your website just because it’s about you. This will amount to copyright infringement. If the article is important to you or your business, the first step is to contact the copyright owner. Once contacted, you can request permission to use the item.

Can I share a newspaper article on my blog?

The short answer is yes, but only if you have the author’s permission. And once you republish that content, be sure to use the canonical URL tag.

Can I post someone else’s blog on my website?

If you want to use someone else’s content, you must ensure that you: Get written permission: Enter into a formal agreement with the creator or through the terms of service on a user-generated content site.