Live News Strategy for Engagement and SEO Performance

By Guest Contributor: Alex Lehner, Marketing Manager at Norkon

March 3rd, 2025

The digital publishing landscape is evolving rapidly and keeping up with technology and reader trends obliges publishers to adopt new strategies to stay competitive. One of the most powerful tools that has emerged in modern newsrooms is live blogging—a format that keeps audiences engaged, enhances SEO performance, and helps balance editorial goals with commercial imperatives.

This blog explores how leading news publishers across the world successfully leverage a live blog strategy, optimize their content for ranking higher in search engines, and drive audience engagement.

Inform Readers Minute By Minute With The Latest Live News

Live news coverage has become a crucial pillar of digital journalism. Readers expect instant updates, especially during major events such as elections, sports tournaments or Super Bowl, or critical events that might have an immediate impact on the lives of local communities. Beyond breaking the news, live blogs have become a critical tool to enable publishers to improve direct engagement with their audiences, increase dwell time, and improve visibility in search rankings.

As digital consumption habits evolve, traditional static reporting is giving way to more interactive and dynamic experiences. Publishers that embrace real-time storytelling stand to benefit not only from increased traffic but also from stronger audience retention.

November 2024 – The Minnesota Star Tribune reports on the US presidential elections with an engaging live blog using Live Center.

Bring Your Breaking News Headlines to the Top

Case in point: Sky breaks the Trump story first
Sky News was the first to break the news of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, solidifying its reputation for fast and accurate reporting. Their team leveraged a live blog format to provide rolling updates with new details and multimedia elements.

“Sky News was first with the push, including all the US network. That speed had a big impact on SEO. Within minutes of the push I could see more than 120,000 concurrent visits to the live blog from Google alone, and 100,000 of those were classified as new users – most from the US” shares Jimmy Rice in an interview. “For speed I set up a blog from my living room […]. Our live blog partner Norkon is super smooth and integrated into our CMS so it was just a case of writing a hello post outlining the story, filling in three boxes (teaser headline, SEO headline, standfirst), putting on a photo, and pressing publish. Less than five minutes and it was up”.

This strategic approach not only boosted engagement but also demonstrated the power of live news in capturing audience attention during high-stakes political moments.

While Sky News demonstrated the power of speed in breaking a major political story, TVNZ exemplify a strategic approach to long-term engagement and search ranking success.

Case in point: TVNZ boosts content ranking and reader engagement

TVNZ has significantly improved its SEO performance and content rankings by adopting a live news strategy that integrates continuous updates, multimedia, and audience interaction. By providing real-time coverage of major events, TVNZ successfully increased user engagement and dwell time—key factors that enhance search engine rankings.

“We couldn’t direct our audience to a specific part of the updated article easily, and embedding large numbers of videos and social media posts made our articles very heavy to load. Our audience could sometimes miss an update if they hadn’t refreshed the page” explained Veronica Schmidt, General Manager, Digital News and Content, TVNZ. ““We really wanted a tool that was easy for our team to use […]. It needed to be a great user experience for a wide range of content – from sports matches to political events to breaking news.”

TVNZ’s live blogs checked all the boxes to meet Google’s preference for fresh and relevant content. By frequently updating posts with new information, TVNZ maintained a strong presence in search rankings, often appearing at the top of search results for trending topics and making their live blogs a go-to source for real-time updates.

The success of TVNZ’s live strategy underscores the effectiveness of live news in driving engagement and SEO performance. By prioritizing real-time updates and interactive storytelling, publishers can not only meet audience expectations but also strengthen their digital presence in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Why Live Blogs Work Well For SEO

A study conducted by Chartbeat analyzed reader engagement on news sites and found that the average engagement time across all content is just 28 seconds. However, for live blogs, the average engagement time increases to 48 seconds, demonstrating their ability to hold audience attention longer than traditional articles.

This increased dwell time benefits publishers in multiple ways:
– Higher SEO rankings – Google favors content that keeps users engaged.
– Stronger reader retention – Live blogs encourage return visits for updates.
– More ad revenue opportunities – Longer engagement times lead to better monetization.

However, beyond search engines’ preference for fresh and relevant content, live blogs require specific SEO optimization techniques to stand out and rank higher than static articles. These steps are essential to ensure live blogs and other time-sensitive updates are immediately visible to readers and properly indexed by search engines.

Best SEO Practices for Live Blogs

To maximize SEO performance, best practices for news publishers include implementing the following best practices:

Structured Data Markup: Use structured data for each update to help Google recognize the content as a series of updates.
Initial Content & Context: A strong introduction or summary at the beginning ensures proper crawling and indexing.
Frequent Updates: Regularly add new content to keep the live blog relevant.
Visible Updates: Ensure all updates are accessible on the page for proper indexing.

These strategies have been successfully implemented by leading publishers, proving that live blogs are not just about real-time updates but also about long-term search visibility.

A 20-30% Traffic Increase with Live Blogs

Berlingske Media, a major news conglomerate in Denmark, intensified its live blogging efforts in November 2023 and was able to rapidly observe a 20-30% increase in web traffic.

Thanks to a frictionless team collaboration between live bloggers and the front page editor, the newspapers’ homepages are linked to critical posts in the live feed as developments occur. The agile approach and ease of use allow Berlingske’s journalists to initiate live blogs whenever necessary, making it a daily practice or as often as newsworthy events demand.

Belingske Media ramped up their live blogging efforts at the beginning of the Gaza war. Today, live blogs play a critical role in their live strategy to inform their readers first with breaking news.

Short, Informative and Comprehensive Content: Attracting the Masses Without Compromising Journalism

Depending on a news publication’s strategy, live blogs can serve as a powerful audience engagement tool. By keeping interactions on their own website instead of external platforms, publishers gain greater control over traffic, increase ad revenue, and showcase high-quality journalism to new visitors.

Today’s readers have developed a preference for consuming news in quick, digestible formats. They are accustomed to visually engaging content and often skim headlines rather than reading full articles. Live blogs offer a solution by delivering short, impactful updates while keeping the audience engaged on the publisher’s platform.