@polemicdigital.com and I have just recorded our latest pod! Discover more....

🚀 AI crawling and bot behaviour and how it impacts news publishers
🚀 LOTS of tactics to BOOST your visibility in AI search

Spotify: lnkd.in/e-fFM3B4
Apple Podcasts: lnkd.in/euZMxJze
YouTube: lnkd.in/eidC83ZQ

Google Trends, or rather the audience insights it shows, never ceases to amaze me. Most people search 'b to b' rather than 'b2b.' Mind BLOWN.

Human content is 8x more likely than AI to rank #1 on Google: Study New Semrush data shows human-written pages dominate top Google rankings, while AI content appears in lower Page 1 positions.

Trust in humans...

searchengineland.com/human-conten...

BREAKING: These are the kinds of news tweets that perform best For news publishers, links are life. But, as I reported last week, publishers appear to face a penalty when they link to their stories on X. I used Claude to scrape the 200 most recent tweets from 18 ...

Breaking :)

www.niemanlab.org/2026/04/brea...

I had a great time presenting on the topic of 'How To Survive The Zero Click Web' courtesy of @journalismnews.bsky.social and their fabulous new Source Code event.

Stay tuned for more events very soon.

www.journalism.co.uk/source-code-...

Luke Halls describes how the SEO team at The Times of London are responding to AI Summaries in the latest Beers and SEO podcast

Listen to the full episode now!

Spotify: lnkd.in/eYFZkBSP

Apple Podcasts: lnkd.in/eAvNhGst

YouTube: lnkd.in/eyDuZQjb

#seo #journalism #publishing #contentstrategy

Beers and SEO with Barry and Steve, episode 4 with Luke Halls

New episode of our Beers & SEO with Barry and @stevewb.bsky.social is out now!

In this one we're joined by Luke Halls, Head of SEO at The Times, and we dive into SEO for paywalled sites, Google Discover, Optimising headlines, chasing trends, and much more!

Link to the pod: plinkhq.com/i/1860544621

On the latest 'Beers & SEO with Barry and Steve' podcast @polemicdigital.com and I dive into the SEO and content strategy at The Times of London with Luke Halls.

Listen to the episode now!

Spotify: lnkd.in/eYFZkBSP

Apple Podcasts: lnkd.in/eAvNhGst

YouTube: lnkd.in/eyDuZQjb

#seo #journalism

Someone have a word with the bloke upstairs. This is not Spring.

a man in a suit is playing a keyboard while another man dances behind him ALT: a man in a suit is playing a keyboard while another man dances behind him

Fun fact. When testing an ai system, or any information system for that matter, I usually punch in topics I know A LOT about. My default topic is always 'Depeche Mode.' True fact.

I wrote a little piece on the danger of commodified news in today's attention economy.

“Be less commodified” is not a strategy. It is a diagnosis. If you want change, you need a much clearer internal language around value."
www.publishingstrategies.co.uk/p/commodifie...
#journalism #seo #publishing

I had a great chat with Björn Darko on his exceptional SEOPRESSO Podcast. No coffee was taken before this recording but I certainly spilt the 🫖 ☕ tea.

🎧 Listen now:
🎙️ Spotify: lnkd.in/eJtR6dY8
🎙️Apple Podcasts: lnkd.in/etnYYDgx
🎙️YouTube: lnkd.in/e4Ww7rfj

#seo #journalism #podcast #publishing

Exploring Editorial Content Strategy at Global South World Duncan Hooper, Consulting Editor Impactum Media, discusses a non-western approach to news growth.

Something a bit different for today's Stack. An interview with Duncan Hooper to find out how Global South World are working together to cut through digital noise and misinformation.

www.publishingstrategies.co.uk/p/global-sou...

#publishing #journalism #newsroom

49 Zero-Click Resilient Content Ideas for Publishers It's time to fight back.

Ahead of my SEO & AI Visibility Fundamentals course with JournalismUK on March 31st I wanted to share with you 49 ideas for creating Zero click resilient content.

www.publishingstrategies.co.uk/p/49-zero-cl...

#publishing #journalism #seo

Why the DOM matters for SEO and AI search visibility Why Publishers need to get closer to the code when understanding page optimisation.

In my latest Publishing Strategies substack I talk about the Document Object Model and why comparing source HTML with the rendered version of your page is a critical step in any visibility optimisation.

open.substack.com/pub/publishi...

#publishing #seo #ai #journalism

On March 31st I will be running my SEO & AI Visibility Fundamentals course in London - and I'd love to see you there!

All the details can be found on the @journalismnews.bsky.social website - but please reach for further details.

www.journalism.co.uk/training/seo...

#publishing #seo #journalism

My latest edition of Publishing Strategies includes:

🚀 Best times to publish to TikTok

🚀 Why is Aljazeera.com the most visited English language news site?

🚀 Video strategy at The Sun

🚀 Some class pods

www.publishingstrategies.co.uk/p/best-tikto...

#publishing #seo #marketing #journalism

The Power of Google Discover for Publishers with Nicola Agius YouTube video by Beers and SEO with Barry and Steve

The latest Beers and SEO with Barry & Steve Podcast is OUT. This week @polemicdigital.com and I are joined by Nicola Agius, Director of SEO and Discover at Reach. We discuss:

YouTube: youtu.be/2A-lcQfSJF8?...

Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/6Z0a...

Apple: Coming Soon

#publishing #seo #podcasts

SEO and AI: Visibility fundamentals 31 March 2026 - This hands-on course is designed to help journalists, editors, and newsroom leaders understand and master the new rules of visibility in 2026.

I'm very pleased to announce my new SEO & AI Visibility course in London on March 31st with JournalismUK. Sign up now to learn about the new visibility landscape:

www.journalism.co.uk/training/seo...

#publishing #seo #journalism

Publisher Growth Briefing #2: Google Discover Update, Bing Webmaster AI Tracker PLUS: New details about my forthcoming SEO & AI Visibility training course.

My latest Publisher Growth Briefing is OUT!

🚀 Google's Discover Core Update

🚀 Bing Webmaster Tool - NEW AI Performance update

🚀 News in the Digital Age Conference

🚀 My new SEO & AI Visibility Course

#publishing #marketing #seo #journalism

www.publishingstrategies.co.uk/p/publisher-...

Publisher Growth Briefing #1 A new weekly series looking at publisher audience growth stories that tickled my fancy.

A new weekly series looking at publisher audience growth stories that tickled my fancy.

www.publishingstrategies.co.uk/p/publisher-...

#publishing #marketing #journalsim #seo

What Newsrooms can Learn from Duolingo - The ULTIMATE audience engagement and retention app My name is Steve and I am a Duolingo addict.

What Newsrooms can learn from the The ULTIMATE audience engagement and retention app.

🦉 My Duolingo love story
🦉 5 takeaways for newsrooms
🦉 More Fun Please.

#publishing #marketing #journalsim

publishingstrategies.substack.com/p/how-newsro...

Opinion: All this talk of AI visibility is killing your news business SEO mastermind Steven Wilson-Beales takes over Content Aware to make the case that focusing too much on questions around AI search visibility is masking the real issues publishers need to solve.

The gloves are off.

www.gpp.io/noindex/opin...

#publishing #seo #marketing #journalism

Current status

Google to Let Publishers Opt Out of AI Overviews: What It Means for Content Owners Google prepares a news search optimisation tool, but will it be the answer to all publisher AI visibility prayers?

It's the talk of the publisher town and I have a few thoughts about it. WARNING: includes a reference to two fantasy novels. Can you guess which ones they are?

open.substack.com/pub/publishi...

#publishing #seo #marketing

Over the last few weeks we've seen a steady increase in sponsored results dominating search results. What does this mean for publishers investing in audience growth and subscriptions?

publishingstrategies.substack.com/p/should-you...

#publishing #marketing #seo #ppc

Here's @polemicdigital.com discussing the value of talking to your audience. We all say it's important, but do we actually do it?

#publishing #marketing

Spotify: lnkd.in/eBiEq--R

Apple: lnkd.in/eJrxM3CE

Google doesn't want you to create bite-sized chunks of your content Despite what you think works well for LLM and AI Search mentions, Google said this is not a long-term strategy.

Interesting. Tell that to the GEO content writer tools.

searchengineland.com/google-doesn...

I really enjoyed this chat with Sarah McDowell 🏳️‍🌈 about the importance (and challenge) of being able to focus. Plus, lots of tips you can apply to both your personal and professional life. Oh, and lots of top quality BANTS to boot.

player.captivate.fm/episode/9a4c...

On our latest 'Beers & SEO with Barry and Steve' we discussed why it's still essential to still invest in search optimisation in 2026. Links below to the pod.

I promise I will never say 'actuality of the fact' ever again @polemicdigital.com !

Spotify: lnkd.in/eTJDB4ch

Apple: lnkd.in/eCBWQfsn