4 global experts share SEO, data strategies to attract news audiences

By Mauricio Romero

Bogota, Colombia

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Online media is facing a shift where metrics such as Web site traffic are giving way to a focus on proximity, interaction, and understanding users to grow and retain audiences.

During INMA’s Webinar SEO and Data as the Core of Media Strategy to Attract Audiences, four media experts from Latin-America — Luis Baena, chief marketing officer of Prisa Media in Spain; Claudio Cabrera, vice president of audiences and editorial strategy at The Athletic/The New York Times in the United States; Javier Kraviez, chief digital officer of Argentina’s Clarín; and Diego Vallejo, chief digital officer of Colombia’s El Tiempo — shared their insights on the strategies they are implementing to remain relevant and maintain a healthy business.

The Webinar focused on how media companies prepare for major events, use data to inform and drive editorial decisions, and explore new markets to expand internationally.

Event strategy at The Athletic

The Athletic’s Cabrera discussed major events such as sports matches and the upcoming U.S. November 2024 elections: “The difference between sports events such as the World Cup or Super Bowl and elections is that sports events focus on the audience, while elections focus more on editorial quality.”

Claudio Cabrera, vice president of audiences and editorial strategy at The Athletic/The New York Times in the United States.
Claudio Cabrera, vice president of audiences and editorial strategy at The Athletic/The New York Times in the United States.

At outlets such as The New York Times, the focus is on how to provide better coverage of the elections than competitors, prioritising quality reporting over traffic numbers.

For sports, Cabrera explained metrics at The Athletic are slightly different, as they measure the number of fans for each team — be it baseball, basketball, or other sports. They track the growth of these groups and aim for a percentage increase in fan engagement, such as growing from 10% to 15%.

As part of their experiments, writers produce new content, known as a “content test,” for a specific sports league. If well-received, it’s replicated across other teams. They then analyse whether it performs well in terms of SEO and subscriptions by monitoring the strategy for six to eight months before assessing subscriber retention.

“When a registered user consumes five or six articles a week, the likelihood of them becoming a subscriber increases,” Cabrera emphasised.

Clarín’s user registration system

For the Argentine group Clarín, data plays a pivotal role. According to Kraviez, “Data is not just a piece of concrete information but the key to reaching a consensus … a consensus based on data, not opinion.”

Javier Kraviez, chief digital officer of Argentina’s Clarín.
Javier Kraviez, chief digital officer of Argentina’s Clarín.

Kraviez said the use of data is so important that no long-term project can be conceived without it as a strategic resource. He places more importance on registered user data than on metrics such as visits or session duration, which he considers “overhyped” and “irresponsibly misleading.”

Clarín has implemented a user registration system, collecting useful data every time someone clicks within their ecosystem, like name, reading habits, device, and more. But Kraviez stressed it’s not about collecting data for the sake of it but knowing what to do with that data.

El País’ local content, pricing

El País has been well-regarded in Latin America since its early days as a print newspaper, and its digital presence has only strengthened. A major attraction of El País is the localisation of its content, making it highly relevant to regional audiences, Baena said.

Luis Baena, chief marketing officer of Prisa Media in Spain.
Luis Baena, chief marketing officer of Prisa Media in Spain.

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the company adapted Spain’s subscription model for Latin America, adjusting prices to fit the region’s economy — €10 in Spain versus $5 in Latin America. Today, approximately 15% of El País’ 400,000 total subscribers come from Latin America. However, the challenge remains that El País is primarily favored by elites, limiting its reach among wider audiences.

El Tiempo’s SEO strategy

Vallejo of El Tiempo explained that balancing “vanity metrics” such as pageviews — which drive ad revenue — with a subscription models is difficult: “We’ve realised it’s a conversion funnel where we first attract a large audience, then gradually convert them into subscribers.”

; and Diego Vallejo, chief digital officer of Colombia’s El Tiempo.
; and Diego Vallejo, chief digital officer of Colombia’s El Tiempo.

Given the Colombian diaspora in the United States, El Tiempo decided to expand into this market, seeing a 150% growth in Hispanic audiences year-on-year thanks to a strong SEO strategy. However, Vallejo emphasised the importance of knowing when to “turn off” projects that aren’t growing or aren’t profitable.

About Mauricio Romero

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