BBC tweaks titles to improve visibility

Monday 30 November 2009 | By Heidi Scott, Gosh! Media Copywriter

Tags: SEO

Search engine optimisation for news websites is an interesting and tricky topic. News site copywriters need to make their headlines short and catchy to draw readers in, yet this may mean that key search phrases are omitted, leaving the site less visible to search engines.

The BBC recently announced its solution to this dilemma – introducing a two-tier system of headlines for its news pages. Titles on the front page, website indices, Ceefax and mobile 'phones will contain up to 33 characters (with spaces), while those on the actual pages of the news articles and on search engine results pages will be able to use up to 55 characters.

The new, longer headlines will aim to include any key words which one might expect a search engine user to type in when searching for news about any particular topic. They will also give hacks the chance to include the full names of those featuring in the news. For example, the shorter title of "Doctor 'responsible' says Jackson" on the home page might appear as the more informative – and, importantly, more visible – headline "Janet Jackson blames doctor for Michael's death". Equally, "Possible counter-bid for Cadbury" might transform into "Ferrero and Hershey in possible counter-bid for Cadbury".

In a blog post, the editor of the BBC News website, Steve Herrmann, says, "The practice of 'search engine optimisation' – making content in such a way that it is easily retrieved via search engines – is an important area for us and for others across the web. A growing number of users come to stories on the BBC site from places other than our own front page – for example search engines, other sites, personal recommendations, Twitter or RSS feeds."

In fact, around 29% of the UK traffic to the BBC News site comes through search engines such as Google and Bing.

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