Books

‘SEO Playbook for News Publishers’ is a nine-chapter guide designed for journalists, editors, and strategic roles in any newsroom or digital media outlet. This guide is the English edition of the book ‘Manual de instrucciones SEO para medios’ written by Clara Soteras and edited by the newsletter Tendenci@s by Ismael Nafría.

Originally published in Spanish in June 2025, both in print and digital formats, the book received an enthusiastic response from journalists, editors, strategy directors, and SEO and digital marketing professionals. Following this positive feedback from the Spanish-speaking community, we’re excited to announce the release of the English edition, making the manual accessible to an even wider audience.

‘SEO Playbook for News Publishers’ is not just a simple translation of the manual you can read in Spanish, with recommendations for journalists and editors of a media outlet, but rather a fully adapted edition for the English-speaking audience, with new practical examples, use cases, and screenshots and images tailored to all the concepts explained in the book.

The concepts of the book do not change, nor does the style and dedication with which both Ismael and I have worked on this edition, taking care of every detail as always to make it truly useful for the reader. In it, you will find examples such as Donald Trump’s Top Stories or how to work on breaking news like a hurricane through Google Trends, considering whether to headline with “hurricane,” “storm,” or “cyclone”, depending on the trending searches.

It also includes examples of English headlines in Google Discover, to check and understand how content is prioritized and optimized in this language in countries such as the United States. Obviously, the English edition of the manual also incorporates an extensive chapter on planning news and articles for the United States elections. How should we approach this major topic in order to rank and build authority when the midterm elections begin, for example?

Finally, you won’t miss seeing how AI Overviews are being displayed, the AI-powered results in Google search, in the United States or other English-speaking countries, viewing results for conversational and evergreen searches on desktop and mobile.

It is a compilation of all the chapters that Clara Soteras, a consultant specializing in SEO for news and digital strategy, has published in the Tendenci@s newsletter by journalist, author, and digital media consultant Ismael Nafría. 

These are the chapters of the “SEO Playbook for News Publishers”:

1. Breaking News: How to Handle Live News in the Newsroom
2. Forget Traditional SEO: What Is Google Discover?
3. Toolkit for Spotting Emerging Trends
4. Building a Winning Strategy for Google Discover
5. How to Plan a Content Strategy for Elections
6. The 5 Basic Technical Checks Every Media Outlet Should Do
7. Beyond Real-Time: What Is E-E-A-T? The Key Factor in Building Authority as a Media Outlet
8. How to Build a Successful Audience Team: Roles and Soft Skills
9. Bonus T: AI Comes to Google… How Will AI Overviews Impact SEO Traffic for Publishers?