It’s getting harder to grow an online publishing brand. Not because people have stopped reading, and not because “SEO is dead,” but because the environment around publishing has changed in a few important, and often misunderstood, ways.

I see this most clearly when I talk to site owners who feel like they’re doing everything right, yet results are flat or slipping. Usually the problem isn’t effort, it’s where that effort is focused.

The ground has shifted (but not overnight)

For a long time, growth for publishing brands followed a fairly reliable pattern:

• publish consistently
• cover a topic thoroughly
• optimise reasonably well
• watch traffic grow over time

That still works in some cases, but far less predictably than it once did. Today, publishers are competing with much more consolidated search results, stronger brand bias in many niches, Google answering more questions directly, and audiences splitting attention across platforms. This means that old assumptions need revisiting.

The most common mistake I see

When growth stalls, the instinctive response is often to publish more, target more keywords, chase newer (often labour-intensive) formats, and tweak headlines endlessly. Sometimes those things help, but often they don’t.

What’s usually missing is a clear answer to a simpler question: what job is this content actually doing for the business? Traffic on its own is no longer a reliable proxy for value, and neither is ‘ranking for a lot of things.’

I see this pattern a lot. One publishing site I looked at recently had been producing a high volume of new content every week and ticking all the usual SEO boxes. On paper, everything looked healthy.

But when we stepped back, it was clear that most of that effort was going into pages that never really paid back, while a small handful of older, more focused pieces were doing the bulk of the work.

Growth hadn’t stalled because the team wasn’t working hard enough. It had stalled because their focus was spread too thinly.

What tends to matter more now

Across different publishing sites, a few patterns keep repeating. Brands that hold up better tend to:

• focus on a smaller number of genuinely useful content areas
• build recognisable expertise rather than broad coverage
• understand which pages drive loyalty, not just clicks
• invest in structure and clarity as much as volume

None of that is particularly flashy, and all of it is cumulative. Crucially, it requires saying no to a lot of tempting ideas. In fact, it’s what we were all told to do years ago: build brand equity and spend it on creating an everything site, a department store of content types. No need to feel embarrassed if that’s what your site looks like now, the goalposts have shifted and it’s not too late to recalibrate.

SEO isn’t the problem, but it’s not the whole answer

SEO still matters. A lot. But treating it as a standalone growth engine is where many publishers get stuck. The strongest results come when SEO is aligned with editorial priorities, grounded in audience needs, and used to support focus. Bin those 2000-line keyword spreadsheets, rein in your infinite fan-out.

SEO works best when it’s part of a strategy, not a substitute for one.

A calmer way to think about survival

Despite the dramatic headlines, most publishing brands aren’t about to die. What is happening is a slow sorting process where focused brands tend to compound, and unfocused ones gradually dilute.

The solution doesn’t involve radical reinvention, clean-slate migrations and huge sums of money to agencies. It does need clearer thinking, tighter prioritisation, and more deliberate decisions about what’s worth sustaining.

Where I usually start with publishers

When I work with publishing teams, we rarely begin with rankings or tools. We start by looking at:

• what the site is really known for
• which content still earns attention over time
• where effort isn’t paying back

From there, SEO becomes a way of reinforcing existing strengths. If your growth has slowed, that doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It usually just means the rules have changed, and your approach needs to catch up.

It’s not GEO, it’s not AI SEO… it’s Everything Optimisation

But on top of all this is a fundamental truth. It’s not just about content or code anymore. You’ve got to optimise everything (site speed, mobile experience, structure, tone of voice, branding, intent…) for everything (search, feeds, GenAI, social…).

Basically, being ‘pretty good’ isn’t cutting it anymore. Your strategy needs to be targeted, your content genuinely useful, and your brand authentic.

If you’re a publisher or content brand and want to chat about how to make this happen, connect with me on LinkedIn or pop a message to me below.

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