This post exposes the reasons why most newly hosted news and entertainment blogs don’t rank well even after many years of existence.
I came today with a unique topic, and this is because of the kind of conversation I had with a blogger over the phone, he called after reading a post I titled Best SEO practice for Blogs in Nigeria.
Let me explain his scenario:
“He has been in the blogging business for over two years. His blog organic traffic is less than 20% of his total traffic over the years. His Domain Authority (DA) is only 13, Alexa Global Ranking is about 3 million. Google Adsense has yet to accept his blog into the AdSense program. He copies news and entertainment stories from other blogs and posts them on his blog. He gets most of his traffic via Nairaland, and by spending heavily on Facebook ads.“
One good thing about this guy is that he was optimistic that someday he would be a pro blogger linked to the popular Linda Ikeji. But how can he grow in blogging when he’s getting the whole thing wrong.
I told him this:
“Convince me why I should be reading news and entertainment stories from your blog against other top sites I already know. “
He was quiet as he had no answer to the question.
Don’t be shocked by my statement.
I believe every excellent businessperson must have sound strategies which he will use against his competitors, to get a portion of the market.
There is a reason why the word “Competition” exists in everyone’s dictionary, except for those who decided to tear off the page.
Most people see news and entertainment blogs as the easiest among other niches because the information they need to feed their blog with is right at their fingertips.
In the real sense, and on time intervals – this type of blog is the most difficult to manage, promote, and excel.
I’m not saying that someone can’t succeed doing news and entertainment blogs, am only saying that it is the most difficult in terms of getting good ranking and traffic, it takes a very long time to grow. Else you have so many funds to invest in it.
I will back up my reasons with some facts which I will explain below — saving the best for the last.
Table of Contents
Why Most News and Entertainment Blogs Don’t Rank
1. Stronger Competitors
Like other blogging niches in Nigeria, the news and entertainment niche has the strongest competitors.
Although new and entertainment niche has the highest audience, when you decide to go into it, you have to know that you will be competing with top blogs and news portals in Nigeria, including; Naija.ng (naij.com), Dailypost.ng, Naijaloaded.com.ng and Lindaikejisblog among others.
Your competition does not just stop there. Today in Nigeria, almost all the newspaper publishing companies run online news. Also, get ready to compete with, Vanguard, Punch, Premiumtimes, The nation, etc.
With all these blogs and portals, how would you quickly rank?
2. Familiar Readers
Most news and entertainment fans in Nigeria already have their favourite sites among the leading links where they get their daily information.
Once they want to read the news or get updated with an entertainment gist, they go straight to that website of their choice. Some of these groups of people have even bookmarked the site where they get this information.
I happen to be part of this group of people. I have already chosen where to read my news; I will hardly read your news blog.
3. Trust Issues
There have been lots of times in Nigeria when false information went viral, and all accusing fingers were pointing at mushroom bloggers.
No reasonable person will want to feed on false information. When intelligent people are reading news online, they make sure they are reading from a reputable and genuine news site for reference purposes.
You might not be a mushroom blogger, but as long as your blog is not yet famous, this group of people will not read it.
4. Google News
One of Google Search features is “Google News“.
To rank on Google News is a challenging task, as mainly the top players in the news industry rank here.
People who understand how Google Search works go to the news tab to get the latest news updates.
Trust me; your struggling news blog will not appear there so soon, the rules are much and separate SEO trick.
5. Little Keyword Impact
Like tech blogs, which are keywords optimized. The use and impact of keywords in news and entertainment blogs are limited. It is because of the nature of the title and structure; it’s more like storytelling in most cases.
Moreover, people hardly search for keywords in the news, because they are not aware of what is trending; they expect the news site to feed them with trending information.
Most will instead search for keywords like; news update, latest news, today news, etc.
If your news blog does not have high domain authority, it will never rank on the keywords as mentioned earlier – they are the most competitive.
6. News Time frame
Immediate urgent news is known as “Breaking News“, after some hours it may be called “Latest News“. By the next day, it may still be trending – but the audience willing to read it will reduce. Soon after it will become old news that no one will want to read. Before you know it – it will be outdated news.Â
What I mean by the explanation above is that you need immediate indexing for your news blog to grow. Which you may not get quickly. Maybe, by the time Google indexes the post – it’s already a piece of old news that no one will be searching.
7. News Apps
Some Nigerians no longer prolong their search for news or visit news websites, they make use of news apps that update them with breaking news.
You may consider having an app for your news and entertainment blog, but it won’t make people uninstall the app they already have because of yours.
8. Single Author
To keep your news blog visitors, you have to keep publishing enough news in your blog. A standard news or entertainment blog should have multiple authors focusing on different categories.
If it’s just a person, it will be much stress, and you will only be choosing the news you feel is essential, neglecting others who may be relevant to someone else. With this, your news blog will be scanty, chasing visitors away.
Why should I be reading your little news blog when I can easily navigate my browser to a multi-news portal to get more information?
9. Lack of Consistency
As a news blogger, you are expected to work round the clock daily. Any day you don’t publish information – your visitors will be angry and may never return.
It is also among the reasons you should have multiple authors.
10. Plagiarism
To grow your news blog to the next level – you should always be ready to rewrite most of your content. Most news bloggers in Nigeria today do simple copy and paste, which is very bad for search engine optimization.
That news is always identical does not mean you should copy and paste without making changes.
When you make changes to your news blog posts, Google Bots will see your content as unique content, thereby ranking you better.
Conclusion
The reasons, as mentioned above, are why most News and Entertainment Blogs don’t rank organically. If you can overcome them, then you will receive lots of organic traffic and make more money.
However, some news bloggers have used promotional strategies and are also making it big.
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Thanks alot this really helped me.
great work very nice blog thanks for sharing..
“Fantastic list! It’s always great to discover new entertainment blogs and stay updated with the latest news. Thanks for sharing this valuable resource. Can’t wait to explore these blogs!”