Byline article for local CNY news website

Overview

This article was designed to be "evergreen", meaning it could be placed on the news website and be ranked high for longer than time-sensitive pieces that became irrelevant to audiences over time. The goal was to increase clicks on the website and keep people on the site for longer, and other articles were frequently linked to this to drive traffic to it.

Problem & Solution

The news website was trying to keep local viewers on the site for longer and get them to click more links and therefore consume more content.

Goals/Requirements: • Make content evergreen so the article can stay up longer to attract readers • Entice locally-minded users to click on the headline by appealing to their values • Create content that reinforces the website's brand of being local news for the common person

Process

First, I identified a common belief in our audience looking at comments left on the publication's social media posts, and determined that people in the CNY area did not like big coffee chains for their lack of flavor, boring menus, etc.

Then, I researched some of the most popular small coffee shops in the Central New York area that people might like to see highlighted. I researched for a number of towns in the area, giving nods to even the tiniest and most niche coffee shops that had a cult following in their respective areas.

From there, I created this article, linking each blurb to the coffee shop I was writing about, and did research on each coffee shop to highlight their best features, be that menus, flavors, food, etc.

Results

Once this article was posted on the news website, it quickly became one of the top 5 best ranking articles on that website for over a month after publication.

Takeaways

This article helped me develop my research skills to find information that would be the most interesting and eye-catching to the website's audience.