News site delfi.ee needs no introduction. It is probably the most visited website in Estonia. Strateeg ja Delfi cooperated like this SEO (search engine optimization) as well UXin terms of (user experience). In terms of SEO results, news portals are very different from conventional e-shops, websites and blogs. Delfi produces a lot of original content, more than 300 unique articles are published in one day, but it is not created with Google in mind. In order to write news, journalists generally do not do keyword research, and the subject areas are instead developed in the context of historical portals, magazines and newspapers. It did SEO and UX analyses Strateegvery exciting for me.
The client turned to us to get:
- overview Delfi position in Google compared to competitors
- an overview of your technical strengths and weaknesses in both SEO and UX (user experience) contexts
- a training program and materials to help journalists make the most of search engine traffic
- feedback Delfi from user experience as expert evaluation and user tests
It means that Strateegwas not assigned Delfi not to improve numerical results, but to help get an overview of the current state of an extremely large page and make specific recommendations.
Step 1: SEO training for journalists
Delfi In the media, writing texts looks very different from journalist to journalist. Writing about beauty trends for the fashion columns of the women's magazine Anne ja Stiil and Delfi operational reporting of traffic accidents in the crime category are very different in nature, but both end up on the same portal. Strateeg put together a general considering this SEO training, which would provide both reporters and editors with a basic understanding of search engines:
- How do search engines work?
- How should a news portal optimize for search?
- How to find topics by looking at trends, competitors and keywords?
- How to make written content like Google?
In order for the effect of the training to last, the trainings were carried out physically on site, a video recording and an e-book about the SEO of the news site were made. The 50-page e-book was developed from training materials and enables journalists to do just that after the training Delfi to use important SEO tricks on a regular basis.
Step 2: SEO technical audit
Kuna delfi.ee's volume is so large and the coverage of topics is very broad, then the company did not have a complete picture of how Delfil compares to competitors. Also, the platform of the news portal had recently undergone major technical updates, and the aim was to ensure the best possible indexability and clarity for search engines.
- Assessing the overall SEO health of a page
- Audit of technical SEO condition and possibilities
- Observation and analysis of competitors
- Prioritization and examples of recommended actions
We made comprehensive presentations to the client's various departments (IT, marketing, editorial) about the parts of SEO that concern them. IT was interested in technical SEO, and we created a prioritized technical to-do list to simplify their work. Marketing and editorial were interested in the general overview, and after the presentation they were left with a comprehensive and detailed report of the findings to work through.
Step 3: User Experience Audit
UX or user experience audit the aim was to assess how visitors behave on the portal and what patterns of behavior emerge. Based on the audit, it was possible to offer solutions and opportunities to provide a better experience. The audit brought together a large amount of data from various sources into one whole: Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Microsoft Clarity and other solutions used by the customer.
The audit consisted of the following steps:
- Analytics Summary: visitor origin, segments, devices, browsers, etc.;
- Comparison with competitors: both statistical comparison with third-party tools (Semrush, Gemius, Similarweb) and heuristic analysis;
- Observations: monitored hot cards, scroll cards and session recordings in different parts of the portal.
As a result, there was an expert assessment with different hypotheses about which activities could improve the user experience.
Step 4: Conduct user tests
It was very important for the client to ask for feedback from real users. Expert judgment and statistics answer the question "what?", but only real users can answer the question "why?". To get an idea of what is going on in the minds of the visitors Delfit scrolling, five Strateeg through user tests using Sharewell platform.
Different segments were included in the user tests. Delfis has both free and paid content, so the company wanted to understand whether subscribers to paid content behave differently from readers of free content. In addition, mobile and desktop experiences were examined separately. A total of 6 hours of user tests confirmed many hypotheses (for example, that Delfis there is so much different content that the average visitor cannot keep up with everything), but also made the client discuss difficult topics internally (for example, whether to use a historical or statistical approach in navigation).
Results
Thanks to the cooperation, it was possible Delfi As a media company (journalists, IT, marketing, etc.) to become significantly more aware of the operation of search engines and their current status. The client was satisfied that objectively it is Delfi Googles was in a better position compared to its competitors, but thanks to the prioritized technical to-do list, an opportunity also arose strateegto move forward.
Several new ideas were found to improve the user experience, and at the same time it was confirmed that regular subscribers are satisfied and for fans there is Delfi part of life.
The whole process was a big collaboration with the client, and during a year and a half we met constantly to go over all the findings thoroughly. The various departments were left with more than 200 pages of detailed materials from the collaboration so that they would remember everything later. The prioritized list with nearly 100 different recommendations was also very valuable for the client. The most critical of these can be solved Delfi to properly improve both search engine and user experience results.
Feedback
We have an extremely comprehensive portal, the audience of which is essentially the entire Estonian nation. It is very difficult to constantly monitor the current state of SEO and UX of a news site of this size. That's why we were happy to work with experts to get an in-depth look at where we stand. We were able to confirm many hypotheses and thus gained confidence strateeggo forward with age.
Piret Põldoja - ädirector of line development
