Live Blogs

A live blog reports on the unfolding of events in real-time. Rather than writing a conventional article after an event, live bloggers attempt to capture the experience on the spot, often using multimedia such as photos, videos, and sound clips. This reporting style has gained popularity with today’s audiences, who frequently seek instant and engaging content they can interact with while it is still happening.

Live blogs appear like regular news articles but show the latest updates in reverse chronological order with the timestamp of the latest post, as shown below

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The advantage of live blogs for publishers is that they appear in the Top Stories section of Google News with a red “Live” badge (if you have been approved after applying for the label) on the top-left corner of the news thumbnail, within the top stories carousel. This makes the news stand out, opening the doors for increased traffic potential.

Publishers can inform a search engine that the content they’re posting is a live blog, and not a regular article, by using liveblog structured data or markup in their HTML source code. In fact, it is the use of LiveBlogPosting structured data that could result in the red “Live” tag appearing on the top-left or bottom-left corner of the thumbnail.

4.6.2 Do Live Blogs Matter to SEO?

Yes, they do. What makes live blogs distinct from other kinds of content is the fact that they are updated very frequently. In the case of fast-moving topics such as sports fixtures, the content on a live blog may be updated as frequently as every few minutes.

This in turn has an impact on the following metrics important for SEO:

• Crawl Frequency or how frequently the content is crawled by search engines. Content that is very frequently updated gets crawled more often.
• Content Freshness or how recent the content on a page is. For topics such as news or current events, Google prefers to display the most recently updated content.
• Content Velocity or how often a website publishes new content.

The result is that for certain kinds of content, live blogs end up at the top of Google SERPs. For instance, when we Googled an ongoing sports fixture, such as a cricket match between India and Bangladesh in the ongoing T20 World Cup being held in Australia, all the top results pulled up by Google were live blogs:

Google’s reasoning behind this is simple. Its sophisticated algorithms are now capable of understanding the search intent behind specific queries. In this case, Google understands that most people Googling a sports fixture would be more interested in checking the scores and live updates of the match rather than reading a long-form, editorial deep-dive giving historical analysis and philosophical insights into the game.

Based on this, it shows at the top content which is closest to the search intent of its users, which in this case happen to be live blogs.

4.6.3 Challenges Publishers Face With Live Blogging

We know live blogs help with SEO. Yet, not many publishers utilize them to drive more traffic. Here’s why:

Trying to Run a Live Blog Like a Regular Page

Some publishers confuse a live blog with a regular blog that is just updated very quickly to cover specific seasonal or special events. While live blogging can, and has been done in the past without using specialized tools and methods, it can be very cumbersome. Publishers would need to manually enter every single update and users may have to keep refreshing their pages to see the updates. What’s worse, Google’s web crawlers may not even recognize such a setup as a live blog if it does not have the LiveBlogPosting schema, disqualifying it from being shown in Top Stories and having the red “Live” badge. This kills the SEO advantage that live blogging brings with it.

Not Having the Tools to Run a Live Blog

Live blogging typically requires the use of specialized software or plugins for CMS platforms that enable liveblogging. Since live blogging as an SEO strategy is a relatively new arrival on the digital publishing scene — it was only in 2015 that Google formally announced the release of the liveblog markup schema and its red “Live” button — many small to medium-sized digital publishers may not know how to implement a live blog on their website. This means they may not know which software or plugins to use to get started with live blogging.

Not Having the Technical Know How to Run a Live Blog

Live blogs require a certain basic level of familiarity with HTML coding in order to run efficiently because the LiveBlogPosting schema update is the heart of what separates a liveblog from a regular blog posting frequent updates. Large publishers have dedicated teams of developers and webmasters doing this for them. Small publishers may not be able to afford this. Even when using a plug-in or using the services of a third-party developer, it is good to be familiar with the basics of HTML required for routine live blog updating and troubleshooting.

4.6.4 High Priority

Now that we know the challenges that publishers face when trying to run a live blog, we look at the essential strategies that can help publishers overcome these challenges and use live blogging successfully to drive more traffic.

Implement the LiveBlogPosting Schema

The LiveBlogPosting schema is at the heart of live blogs. It is a markup that goes into the HTML source code of your website and tells Google’s crawler bots that the page is a live blog posting regular updates, and must be treated as such.

To implement the LiveBlogPosting schema, you must add code to your website. The code is written in JSON-LD, which is a format notation used for describing schema.

Even if they’re using a live blogging plug-in for their CMS, publishers must have a basic understanding of the LiveBlogPosting schema.

The LiveBlogPosting schema defines a structure for liveblog posts. It includes the following properties —

• coverageStartTime
• coverageEndTime
• The title of the liveblog post.
• liveBlogUpdate – The date and time the liveblog post was last updated.This further includes the following:
  • datePublished – The date and time the liveblog post was published.
  • dateModified
  • headline
  • articleBody

Below, we show how all of this works together in practice. The screenshot below is of a live blog covering an ongoing cricket match between South Africa and Pakistan taking place in Sydney.

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When we right click on the page in Chrome and select View Page Source, this is the code we see:

Use a Live Blogging Plug-in

Since most bloggers use a CMS such as WordPress, it is much easier to simply use a WordPress plugin to enable live blogging schema rather than trying to hardcode the CMS. The most common live blogging plug-ins for WordPress are Liveblog, 24Liveblog and Arena.IM.

We’re describing the steps to install and use the 24Liveblog plug-in to create live blogs below. We’ve done this in two parts. The first part explains installing and activating the plug-in, and the second part explains how to create a live blog post using the plug-in.

Part 1 — Installing and Activating the Plug-in

1. Log in to your WordPress dashboard and head to the Plugins tab. Then click on Add New to see a list of all available plug-ins in the WordPress directory.
2. Search for the 24Liveblog plug-in and click on Install Now. You will also need to create an account with 24Liveblog to use the plug-in. To do this you will need to visit the 24Liveblog website and create an account.
3. Next, click on the Activate button to activate the plug-in. This will take you to the 24Liveblog website where you will need to enter your login information.

Part 2 — Creating a Live Blog Post Using the Plug-in

1. Start by heading over to your WordPress dashboard and creating a new post, just like you would do for a regular post, by going to Posts >> Add New.
2. Once you see the editor for the new post, save it as a draft, and make a note of the Permalink that is generated for this post. We will need this later.
3. Next, head over to the 24Liveblog website and click on Create Event.
4. You will now see a screen where you can choose the type of new event you want to create. We select Live Blog from the options.
5. This will open up a dialog box in which we need to enter the live blog’s properties. These are similar to the properties we discussed in the previous section when we covered the LiveBlogPosting schema, viz. start and end time of the coverage, title and description of the blog post. We also enter here the URL of the blog post which we had generated in step #2.
6. Clicking on Next will bring us to another box where we see options to add images, select language, grow our email list etc. We select these according to our requirements and click on next.
7. On the final screen, we see a button labeled Create Event. Click on this.
8. Next, we head back to our WordPress blog post. Click on the + button for selecting a block and in the search bar that opens up, look for 24liveblog. Once you see it, click on it.
9. This will open up a dialog box which will show you two options — Select a Live Blog and Create a Live Blog. We choose the first option.
10. In the final step, it will ask us to choose an event from the list of live blog events that we may have created. We choose the one we just created in 24liveblog and click on Update.

And that’s it. Our live blog is now ready to use on WordPress.

Editorial Strategies

Once you’ve got your live blog up and running, you will need to make certain decisions that will be crucial to how your live blog is viewed and indexed by Google. These include:

Update Frequency

The whole point of a live blog is to give readers updates in real time. Which means the frequency with which you update your blog is crucial to its success. This however does not mean updating more often is always better. Update frequency is a function of the niche you operate in. If you’re covering an election, posting an update every 30 minutes or even every hour would be acceptable. If on the other hand you are covering a sporting event which will be over within a couple of hours, an update which is 30 minutes old will appear stale, and hence likely to be deemed not very useful by Google for its users.

Deep Linking

Deep linking is providing easy access to the live blog’s content at the very beginning of the page. Think of it like a table of content for the live blog’s various updates. For instance, this is how the cricket score website cricketaddictor.com implements a deep linking strategy on its live blog covering the latest cricket match:

Clicking on each link takes the user to the relevant live update on the live blog page.

Update Links

If you are covering an event that stretches out across several days, such as an election, a good strategy to remain relevant in Google searches is to create a new link for your page with the day’s date in it. This gives another content freshness signal to Google and tells it that your live blog has the latest content.

Have a Live Blog Strategy

Being prepared for the technical implementation of a live blog is one part of the job. The other part involves having a content strategy for your live blog. Here are a few things to keep in mind when creating a good live blog strategy.

• Decide On Your Goals — Are you trying to provide a real-time account of an event? Or are you using it as a forum for commentary and analysis? Knowing your goals will help you focus your efforts and stay on track.

• Establish a Timeline — How much time do you have in your liveblog? Knowing this will help you determine how much content to include. It’s also important to establish specific start and end times, so readers know when to expect it and when it will end.

• Choose a Format — Some people prefer to write up a chronological account of the events. Others prefer to break things down into categories (e.g., introductions, commentary, reactions). You can also use multimedia elements such as images and videos to add visual interest.

• Create a Preliminary Outline — Once you’ve established your goals and format, create a preliminary outline of what you plan to cover. This will help ensure that you don’t miss any key points and that your live blog flows smoothly from beginning to end.

• Review Your Outline Periodically — As the event unfolds, review it and update it as needed. This ensures that your liveblog contains the most up-to-date information.

4.6.5 Nice to Have

We’ve covered the essentials of live blogging. However, there are a few more things publishers would do well to keep in mind when running live blogs.

Testing dedicated Liveblog carousel inclusion

Having the ‘Live’ red label is still not a guarantee and in the past, it required whitelisting through Google’s Early Access Programe. The signup form for that program has been accessible here since at least 2016, however, there has been no new update since, which can be assumed that there is little support.

Enable Social Media Sharing

Allowing easy sharing of your live content across social media platforms will lead to increased visibility. In the screenshot below, we can see that the publisher has embedded share buttons for Twitter, Facebook and Reddit for each update on the live blog.

How to Do This: This can be done if the plug-in you use supports social media sharing. For instance, the 24liveblog plug-in we discussed above has built-in social media sharing features that allow live updates to be shared on various social media platforms.

Live Chat

Having live chat makes your live blog even more interactive. Most live blog plug-ins for WordPress such as 24liveblog come with in-built chat feature. For instance, the screenshot below is from the live blog of SCOTUSblog.com, a blog covering legal proceedings in the Supreme Court of the United States.

Below the live blog, the chat feature has been enabled in which users actively communicate with each other.

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4.6.6 Avoid These Common Pitfalls

Besides following the guidelines mentioned above, publishers would do well to stay clear of the following pitfalls when running a live blogs.

Making Long Posts

Live blogs are a medium meant for quick, instant reviews of important information. For this reason, it is important to keep posts and updates on a live blog short, concise and informative. It’s also a good idea to keep the style light and conversational rather than heavy, verbose and formal as the latter can be an impediment to getting a quick birds eye view of information.

Not Paying Attention to Timestamps

Every post and update on your live blog should be prefaced with a clear and unambiguous timestamp letting readers and web crawlers know when it was posted. This timestamp should also match with the information in the datePublished and dateModified fields of your liveBlogPosting schema. If this is not the case, then Google may not be able to interpret your content as the latest and most relevant for a particular query, which in turn will effect its SERP placement.

Example of a Live Blog Well Done

We now look at an example of a live blog well done and see how it has implemented the principles discussed so far.

Guardian Blogs

The Guardian is a leading British newspaper, and one which has mastered the live blog format for covering fast moving, topical events.

Below we see their live blog coverage of the Champions League soccer match Marseille and Totenham Hotspur. Here are a few things that stand out in this coverage:

1. Deep Linking — As discussed earlier, deep linking allows users to quickly navigate to specific important events within the live coverage. The Guardian have deployed an innovative and interactive deep linking strategy wherein links are placed in the form of an u timeline of events at the very top of the page.

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Users can navigate to important events before, during and after the game such as team news, the goals, half-time and full-time scores etc, from this timeline.

2. Timestamps — Each update on the live blog clearly mentions the time stamp with the exact time of the update. This is important because Google needs to be able to clearly and unambiguously read the time stamps on the post, and match them with the values in the datePublished and dateModified values in the liveBlogPosting schema to be able to show the latest results.

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3. Update Frequently — Football is a fast moving game in which the action unfolds quickly. During the match, the live blog updated its content nearly every minute, providing the latest updates to its users.

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4. Social Media Friendly — We can see that social media sharing from Facebook and Twitter has been enabled. More importantly, the updates aren’t too lengthy, making them ideal to be shared across platforms such as Twitter where posts are limited by character counts.

4.8.8 Actions and Takeaways

This module has given us an overview of what a live blog is, how it helps with SEO and how to go about running a live blog.

When liveblogging, it is important to pay attention to the liveBlogPosting schema as this what informs Google that the content being posted is a live blog, and not just another regular blog being updated very fast This schema is also what is responsible for getting the coveted red “live” badge, and helping a post appear in Top Stories, all of which help in driving traffic to the website. When live blogging, make sure your posts are brief and easily shareable on social media to maximize their impact.