From traditional media to digital world – Ana Belén Leíño
After 20 years working as an informatives producer, Ana Belén Leíño was forced to change the traditional media for the digital world when she was affected by one of the work reforms of Telemadrid. She maintains that more and more professionals decide to make the same change because “communication is part of the DNA of the digital environment”.
Ana Belén gives more explanations about this relationship and points out the similarities and differences between the physical and the digital environment. Likewise, she thinks about how SEO has affected how journalists work. Finally, she explains the peculiarities of his current work as SEO for shopping centers.
How is being a mom while working in the digital world?
Working in a digital environment has undoubtedly facilitated my personal life. The independence and autonomy that gives working in an online environment has undoubtedly led me to attend to my children in situations that require it in a timely manner.
I remember when one of my children got sick and I did not have the capacity to react, since I had to work on TV. Like many parents, I have to find a way to get by and the situation was quite stressful. Now I can do my work from any place and situation without problems.
How did you changed the media world for the digital world?
In 2013 I was affected by a work renovation in which most of the technical team of Telemadrid were dismissed. I had been an informative director for 20 years and experienced a mixture of fatigue and scarce labor saturation of the sector.
I did a personal SWOT and I concluded that my strength was the ability to study and the predisposition to learn and my opportunity were the circumstances of the market that were requiring qualified profiles in digital marketing and, in that year, both technological and social changes pointed to a exponential growth in the demand for these profiles.
I spent a year studying a specific master’s degree, dedicating myself completely to studying and preparing myself. It was one of the best decisions of my life.
Could you gives us some advice to do SEO on Media?
As I said before, it is a reality that direct traffic decreases as the user does not search for a specific medium but specific information.
Likewise, as we all know, traffic from social networks is increasing its demand and complication due to the fight against Fake News, clickbaiting… It is difficult for the media to find a solid channel of traffic through their social profiles.
My advice is that the media should adjust to a transformation that can inevitably lead to a traumatic situation and I think it can be remedied with an arduous SEO work that positions its contents in the first pages and responds to the demand for information from the Internet user . Some large headers are already doing it and the results are spectacular.
Why do you think that more and more communicators opt for the world of digital marketing?
I always say that being a graduate in Audiovisual Communication and exercising a large part of my career in media has greatly favored my “recycling” to the digital environment.
After all, communication is part of the DNA of the digital environment. I learned to capture the attention of the audience on television and now I’m still capturing it, although the channel is different and the actors too.
The basic structure of the communication environment remains, an emitter and a receiver. What has changed is the idiosyncrasy of each communicational actor. The audience before was much more faithful to a television channel, regardless of the content offered.
Transferred to the digital environment, the user of the web is less faithful, is always looking for new content and specific information, As SEOS, we work to give them the best answers. Direct traffic to a specific website is decreasing exponentially, hence the importance of good optimization.
Regarding the last actor of the communicative act, the receiver, has multiplied and divided into two very different types: the “human” user and the crawlers of the internet search engines.
Perhaps, the most complicated thing for communication professionals that have opted for digital marketing, is to understand that the process is no longer unidirectional and that the receiver and the emitter are constantly changing roles. No one is an omnipotent sender, anyone can be a source of information and the receiver turns to the sender when using social networks, for example.
Which particularities of SEO mobile do you find more interesting?
In my case, the change of route when optimizing a website. I was used to optimizing the desktop version first, now the origin of the traffic of the webs of my clients, in many cases more than 90%, coming from mobile devices, has made mobile optimization absolutely essential and a priority.
Do you think that SEO has greatly influenced the way digital journalists write?
I have been working with journalists for more than 20 years and I have never experienced a similar transformation in this sector. They have had to recycle and those who have not done so, in many cases, have been replaced by writers with SEO knowledge.
In my case, working with journalists in a digital medium was difficult at first. Not only are they asked for news or good writing. Now you must know certain technical aspects such as the SEO optimization of your article or the control of your specific traffic with new tools for doing so like Analytics, without forgetting your own personal brand in social networks.
They must know how to write for two recipients: the user and the search engines. I like to call this “new” profession “Seojournalism”.
Currently you are dedicated to SEO for shopping centers, what are their peculiarities?
The conversion of shopping centers is in the visit and shopping in the center, so we speak of an off-line environment. That is the biggest difficulty since the way to measure the objectives is difficult for being in an analog environment.
On the other hand, the websites of shopping centers are created as a mirror of their physical premises. In the end, what the user is looking for is a friendly place to spend a day shopping.
Like the usability of the center’s website, it must offer that comfort to the user. On the other hand, the variety in the commercial offer defines them, so there are essential microsites such as the directory of stores and their location. You have to identify these anchors and enhance their optimization.
What do we have to take into account to plan a good strategy for a shopping center? Can you give us some advice?
It is clear that geolocation is the key and becomes the root of any strategy for a shopping center in a digital environment. The keywords that give the best result for the search intention are “store + location” and we bet more and more for “promotion + store + location” with good results.
At the end of the day, it would be impossible to compete with the operators of the shopping centers that already have corporate websites with a high traffic and positioning level: Zara, Berska, Decathlon…
On the other hand, being very static sites, a content strategy within a blog or news gives results. In many cases, spectacular.
