Search is becoming increasingly important in the world of news as growing numbers of people consume news online every day. The impact of this is that, instead of having to flick through an entire newspaper, readers can simply search for the news they want. It’s turned the culture of news writing and consumption on its head: editors no longer decide what people need-to-know because the power is in the hands of the consumer, deciding what they want-to-know.

This has lead to the rise of search-driven journalism, when traditionally trained journalists, and a rising number of internet-literate young journalists, modify their approach to news writing to incorporate keywords that catch the eye of Google’s algorithm.

This results in the same high level of quality written news content that you would see in a newspaper, but it’s been adapted for online searches.

Companies are increasingly seeing the business benefits of using online news providers to attract some of the millions of people who search for news to their websites. As well as boosting visitor numbers, this method of content marketing also boosts SEO activity to help with search engine rankings, enriches the experience of website visitors and creates stickiness to help generate repeat traffic.

Driven by a desire to achieve this at all times, there has been speculation across the online community that writers are focusing more on the number of hits that a story can attract, instead of the quality of writing. These claims even extend to traditional media, and everyone from the Washington Post to the Huffington Post have been mentioned.

These claims have naturally been negated by the traditional print media and online news providers alike. Good content generation doesn’t focus on one area of expertise and, whilst we include certain keywords in every single story we write, they naturally fit in to the story. The news team would never use a keyword that seems forced. Besides, the editorial filters we have in place ensure that this wouldn’t happen.

It’s my belief that it’s inexcusably poor journalism to write a story that includes words or phrases that relate to the day’s biggest news if they’re not relevant. For example, writing a story today about the most popular news would include keywords about the Koran and Pastor Terry Jones; David Cameron and his father’s death; Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the UK and Wayne Rooney, to name a few. It might be tempting for those of low journalistic integrity to try and get sky high hits through burying those keywords within a story, so Google sees them and deems the story relevant to a number of news searches.

I believe that even if this practise resulted in a surge of traffic, the long term cost would be the damage to numerous reputations.

It would damage the brand perception of the companies we write for, because the news wouldn’t be relevant. Any visitors would be unlikely to stay within the site because they searched for the latest news about Colleen and Wayne Rooney’s ‘crisis talks’ and instead were lead to a story and a website primarily about something seemingly random like a stationery supplier, for example.

It would damage the news team’s reputation, which has been built on the back of regularly producing high quality, relevant and industry specific news.

It would also damage my personal reputation because the majority of stories I write, like the rest of the team, carries my name next to it. I’m proud of the stories that carry my by-line.

I wouldn’t risk any of these factors for a short term surge in hits.

It’s similar to the old days when Fleet Street would pen extreme headlines and sensationalise stories to attract readers. Now, instead of resorting to the tabloidization of our stories to lure in an audience, we get stories listed on Google News. This means that when people search for certain keywords in Google News, if the story is relevant, it will appear in search results.

This is done with the help of our clients, who provide us with the relevant keywords and advise us as to the types of content we should be writing for them.

A good journalist will never need to resort to shoving a keyword into an unrelated story because there is so much news out there. All it takes is a little time and some good research and you can find news about anything in the world.

So whilst it might seem that online news is simply a popularity contest, as stories vie for hits from the millions of online news consumers, the reality is that online news providers aren’t so blinkered. We understand the value of quality journalism, which includes quality keywords in relevant stories, in the timely quest for a high ranking in Google, a boost in business and the strengthening of brand perception.