Opening Bell: On Headlines & SEO

Greetings folks, it’s been too long since we addressed each other directly. I hope in the meantime you’ve been enjoying the gradual evolution of our content and the site itself as we adjust to the best take advantage of the Tumblr platform.

For example, you may have noticed many of our posts no longer feature headlines. Because one of our goals in launching a new online outlet is to provide transparency into both our editorial and publishing processes, I wanted to take a moment and explain the rationale behind the move.

Headlines serve two basic functions in traditional news sites: they help draw in readers by catching their attention and they help search engines locate the story for users interested in a related topic. Various other news organizations have come close to perfecting one or both areas and have doubtless enjoyed the resulting boost in pageviews, impresions, unique visitors and all those other metrics that sales people can pitch to advertisers.

Of course Stiff Jab doesn’t have any ads, nor any real revenue to speak of at the moment. Our goal is to provide the best writing on the East Coast fight scene and if we are successful the rest will take care of itself. I also don’t mind revealing that our search traffic is next to nothing because Google News has some sort of bias against sites hosted on Tumblr and has refused to add us to their listings despite the fact we feature more original reporting than half the boxing sites that are included.

But we choose to look at Tumblr as an editorial advantage rather than a constraint, and my experience using the site for myself has shown me that headlines are not a crucial part of the site’s single-feed experience. There are millions of Tumblr users out there and a lot of them are fight fans. Our hope is to provide enough coverage that they don’t feel the need to surf elsewhere.

Additionally, as someone that often spends his weekend watching fights on DVR or the Web I’m sensitive to the risk of spoilers for that big matchup you’ve been waiting to sit down and watch. If we can spare even a few of our readers that disappointment the switch would be well worth it.

Likewise we’ve been gradually expanding our Facebook page, which will hopefully serve as a parallel source of news and the best boxing content on Facebook. The goal is not to drive traffic back here, though the page will notify readers of our new content, but rather to exist as a Facebook boxing outlet that will make sure you know what happened in the weekend’s big fights.

Ultimately Stiff Jab’s goal is to adapt with the times and bring the best fight content to where you live, rather than making you come find us. Of course we’ll still feature longer essays and reports on here at at The Queensberry Rules, but in the meantime we hope you’ll recommend us on Tumblr, follow us on Twitter, and share your own thoughts about what works and what doesn’t in this new media age. We reserve the right to change our minds about everything and experiment wildly. We hope you’ll join us.