Chat With Louisa Frahm | News SEO, AI Search & The Future Of Digital Publishing

Host: Sean Barber -   / seanrbarber   - He & Him In this episode of Chat With Sean, I’m joined by Louisa Frahm, an experienced SEO strategist who has worked with some of the world’s biggest media and publishing brands including ESPN, Google, LA Times, People Magazine, TMZ, Yahoo, and E! Online. Louisa has built her career specialising in news SEO, audience strategy, and helping editorial teams understand how search can support their content goals. She has also recently launched her own search consultancy, Frahm Focus. In this conversation, we look at why news SEO is such a unique discipline, how search strategies differ across entertainment, sports, and breaking news environments, and why successful SEO in publishing requires far more than simply optimising articles. Louisa shares her experience working inside some of the biggest newsrooms in the world, explaining how SEOs can build trust with journalists, train editorial teams, and create sustainable search cultures where SEO becomes embedded into the content workflow. We also discuss the future of publishing in an AI-driven search landscape, the rise of Google Discover, personalised search, Reddit, multimodal content, and why SEOs increasingly need to think beyond rankings and become audience strategists. Louisa discusses: Why news SEO is fundamentally different from traditional SEO The challenges of working in fast-paced editorial environments How SEOs can build relationships with journalists and editorial teams Why education and training are essential for scalable SEO success How to create SEO advocates within newsrooms Why performance measurement is changing beyond clicks and page views The impact of AI Overviews and AI search on publishers Why publishers need to think beyond Google Search results How Google Discover and personalised search are changing visibility Why SEO teams need to collaborate more closely with social, video, and editorial teams Topics covered include: The differences between SEO for news, entertainment, sports, and traditional websites Working as the only SEO within large editorial organisations Managing the speed and pressure of breaking news SEO Training journalists and editors to understand search behaviour Building trust between SEO teams and editorial teams Using performance data and “receipts” to prove SEO value Creating post-mortem reports after major editorial events Preparing SEO guides ahead of major news moments and tentpole events Google I/O, AI Mode, and the changing search experience The impact of AI Overviews on publisher traffic and click-through rates Why publishers need to diversify beyond Google TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, and the growth of alternative search behaviours Multimodal search and creating content across different formats The rise of audience strategy as the next evolution of SEO Google Discover, preferred sources, and personalised search How user-generated content is influencing search visibility Breaking down silos between SEO, social, video, and editorial teams How to get more value from Google Trends data Using regional, seasonal, and rising query insights for content planning Connect with Louisa -   / louisa-frahm-67710922   Thank you to our partner, SEO Gets, the easy-to-use analytics and reporting tool for your GSC & GA4 data. Be sure to check out the tool and use code search10 for 10% off: https://seogets.com/ ⏱️ Chapters 00:00 – Introduction: Louisa Frahm and her SEO journey 02:00 – Why news SEO is different from traditional SEO 06:00 – Working inside major newsrooms and managing content at scale 10:00 – Building SEO advocates within editorial teams 14:00 – Google I/O, AI Mode and the future of search 18:00 – AI Overviews, publisher challenges and changing user behaviour 22:00 – AI, misinformation and why real journalism matters 26:00 – Why SEOs need to become audience strategists 30:00 – Breaking down silos between search, social and editorial teams 34:00 – The future of publishers in an AI-driven search world 38:00 – Training journalists and building trust with editorial teams 42:00 – Measuring SEO success beyond clicks and page views 46:00 – Google Discover, personalised search and preferred sources 50:00 – Reddit, user-generated content and multimodal search 54:00 – Google Trends: finding insights beyond surface-level data 58:00 – Final thoughts: the evolving role of SEO in publishing 01:00:00 – Wrap-up Watch / Listen on Spotify: https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/... Get curated digital marketing news and essential channel updates sent directly via WhatsApp: https://www.whatsapp.com/channel/0029...