BBC embarks on SEO journey

The BBC is set to begin producing headlines which put the news corporation in a better position for gaining traffic through search engine optimisation (SEO), it has been revealed.

In an official BBC blog, it was detailed that headlines are set to become longer to fit in more keywords and will now be created in two formats - with the main one on the front page and one other for the article itself.

Furthermore, while front page headlines will be between 31 and 33 characters in length, the longer headline will be up to 55 characters and keyword heavy.

Commenting on the news, Sam Tilston, online marketing director of vitabits.co.uk, said that like a number of other publications, the BBC is now optimising its content itself.

"They are not only optimising their headlines but also doing internal linking within the articles which is a very effective SEO method," he added.

Mr Tilston noted that this move to employ SEO techniques saw the BBC looking to remain an online leader, "rather than playing catch-up".

However, he warned that trying to get too many keywords into a headline could damage a brand's reputation and even result in a penalty from Google which would drop the website's rankings.

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