How Wirecutter is switching up its content and audience strategy to tackle search changes
The New York Times’ product recommendation site Wirecutter – like other commerce-based publishers that rely on driving audiences to their sites to make money from affiliate links – is finding new ways to tweak SEO strategy, package content and expand coverage areas to continue growing revenue.
This comes at a tricky time, when the volatility of Google search referral traffic and algorithm updates means the platform is a less reliable source of content discovery and new audiences, especially for commerce-based publishers.
Leilani Han, Wirecutter’s director of commerce, said onstage at the Digiday Publishing Summit in Miami, Fla., last week that while it hasn’t become more difficult to convert readers to buy from Wirecutter’s product recommendations, the real challenge is finding those readers in the first place.
Continue reading this article on digiday.com. Sign up for Digiday newsletters to get the latest on media, marketing and the future of TV.
Related Knowledge Center: State of the business model
The traditional journalism business model has long since collapsed, and news organizations have shrunk or disappeared entirely. While a number of promising experiments are under way, the public has not shown a willingness to buy what news organizations are selling.
Related Knowledge Center: Inside the newsroom
As newsrooms struggle with rickety business models and precarious finances — as well as new technologies — they are deploying an array of editorial responses.
The Times and its critics | Washington Post mortem