Overview

Hubbard Broadcasting was losing visibility in news search results. Optimization was needed to improve content accessibility and indexing. Recommendations and changes were rolled out across network of stations.

Project Scope

• Audit
• Technical SEO Consulting

Customer Site

• wdio.com

HUBBARD BROADCASTING

Hubbard Broadcasting's TV news stations were operating on a custom CMS platform. Built with legacy code by a previous IT team, the antiquated platform was hindering the stations' visibility in search results. Especially in Google News results.

Roadblocks had stopped all previous attempts by the stations to address these issues. Inadequate sitemaps, misconfigured structured data, and 3rd part content feeds were significant roadblocks. Partial fixes by individual stations left the collective in a scattered state. Pageviews were falling and with it, ad revenue sunk.

Solution

1. Audits of all news stations were done to comprehend and benchmark the situation.
2. Under the microscope was Google Search Console and Google News Publisher accounts, along with all related technical features on the site.
3. Specific audits were also done of schema, sitespeed, and sitemaps.
4. Results from the audits were presented as instructional documentation for each station on how to set up their station sites on Google News Publisher, Search Console

5. One station was guided through the instructional documentation, preparing to champion and help with partner stations with the set up process.

6. Consulting with Hubbard's IT team, a solution was devised to meet Google's sitemap requirements within the performance restrictions of the custom CMS platform.

7. During this partnership, we also assisted with transitioning all station sites onto SSL.

Results

• 160% increase in monthly traffic year over year (2018 vs 2019) onto the sites driving up ad revenue, non-brand traffic
• Assisted with before and after performance benchmarking to show progress to executive team / stakeholders in holding the company