The Canadian federal election — which saw huge voter turnout as Mark Carney and the Liberals won — led to a two-day traffic surge for the Toronto Star that more than quadrupled the traffic of its previous biggest planned news events.

The results were a major success for the Star’s SEO strategy, newsroom coordination and collaborative culture, said Executive Editor Grant Ellis. 

“A key driver was our cross-functional SEO council — made up of editorial, product, audience, and engineering leads — which meets weekly to set shared goals and quickly address performance issues,” Ellis said. “That foundation allowed our editors to apply high-impact audience tactics in real time as the election unfolded.”

The Star’s top story? Its live blog, which is a newly developed product launched for this election. Although the Star has had live experiences for years, it didn’t have a product or tool built for it. 

The live blog became a central destination for readers throughout the night, delivering high-impact updates and sharp analysis from top political writers and columnists.

“We only launched the blog template a few weeks prior to the election, but it was a huge success — beautiful clean design, urgent, and collaborative. It became a dynamic focal point for our coverage,” Ellis said. “Our automated results dashboard and riding-by-riding breakdowns also performed extremely well — these tools were clean, intuitive, and fast, giving users exactly what they needed without friction. Together, these elements drove millions of visits.”

To prepare for the election, the Star’s editorial team set out to treat its digital offering as seriously as broadcasters treat election night. 

What does that mean? 

Ellis explained: “This meant rigorous collaboration, both internally and with other departments. It meant creating a real rundown of what we would deploy across virtually every few minutes for the two whole days — stories, columns, live blog contributions, e-mail alerts, app pushes, etc.

“Everything was timebound, so that there would be no dead spots, but also flexible to respond to the news. The audience team provided us with SEO tracking and goals to make sure we went into the big night knowing what the reader really cared about and the questions they needed answered.”

Other highlights from Ellis:

How did you balance real-time reporting with contextual or analytical content?

To take some of the burden off of the staff political writers, we brought in some of our contributing columnists and reporters from other sections to grab some oars on the live blog. While several writers had to wear multiple hats, they knew going in whether their main focus was going to be live contributions or end-of-the night analysis and write-throughs.

What role did social media and platforms like Google and Apple News play in driving traffic?

Because of the Meta ban on news sites in Canada, social media was unexceptional — basically just a lot of X posts. But Google was our biggest traffic driver, especially organic search. While it was by far our biggest two-day period on Apple News with millions of views, it clearly was secondary to our much more lively, feature-rich site and app. The audience clearly prefers the open Web to walled gardens on nights like these.

Were there any surprises in audience behaviour or engagement patterns?

We expected a big audience to our data and automated riding results. We didn’t expect it to be the absolute tidal wave that ensued. We also didn’t expect it to stay near its crest hours past midnight.

What lessons or takeaways will you carry forward into your next big news event?

Whether the analogy is TV or even Broadway, treat a big election night like a real production. What did this mean for the Star? Having a table reading to go through your run of show. Your stars might be reporters and politicians, but also make sure everyone working election night has space to star in their own role. Have everyone in the same room and sitting near each other, including product, IT, out-of-town editors, masthead, etc. Slack has nothing on an old school newsroom.

What advice would you give to other newsrooms looking to grow audience during key political moments?

Tell your family members “I’m sorry” ahead of time. Certainly don’t say you’ll “probably be home by midnight.” 

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