News.com.au's Oliver Murray explains why quirky's out and SEO is in

Quirky is out and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) trends are in according to NewsCorp’s news.com.au's Editor Oliver Murray, or "Oli", as he prefers.

Oli spent several years working in regional news and local Sydney papers before joining news.com.au and moving up through the ranks to step into the top job.

Kicking off Season Three of it’s PR Darlings, Ollie lets co-hosts Jo Stone and Greer Quinn pick his brains about the best ways PRs can assist the digital behemoth cover the stories that make its audience tick (and click).

“If it’s a question we’re asking, it’s usually something Australia is asking,” Oli explains. "The big mistake PRs make when they pitch to us is they say, ‘I think this is going to be a great story from news.com because it's quirky’, but as a site, we've sort of moved past that.”

He recommends PRs watch what people are searching for on Google because that’s what news.com.au will be following up on for its audience.

Oli also reveals news.com.au’s current demographics and why the platform has onboarded a youth editor to drive the outlet’s youth strategy.

“We have about 12 million Australian readers every month, which is one in two Aussies,” he says. “The average reader for us is someone who wants to come to our site and just get the news in a very easy to understand way. They want to leave our website informed about the big news of the day, but they also want a little bit of distraction. And I think that's what we do a little bit better than other sites. It's not to just go to a site and get all the COVID news...but it's also, 'what are the big talking points from reality TV last night', or 'what's happening in crypto'?”

In this episode, It’s PR Darlings hands the “demystifying” mic to Ollie who unpacks the newsroom term “sell”.

It’s PR Darlings is produced by Jo Stone from Sticks and Stones PR and Greer Quinn from Forward Communications.

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