Running a Website: Horror SEO Edition

I’ve been running a horror site for about 3 years and have some FAQ’s that might help you when it comes to building/optimising your website. Don’t worry, these don’t just apply to horror sites, so if you discover a few SEO frights when reading this, there’s no need to scream…you can still sort them out.

Horror is a great niche to start a website in, with loads of ways to get involved. Unless you have a big budget, just remember that it’s easier to start in a sub-niche area, for example, horror games, movies, and short stories, than to start as a general horror site. Once you’re big enough, you can branch out from there!

In SEO, crawlability is like letting Google’s bots creep onto your website. If access is locked through poor links, they’ll move on without taking a peek. Indexing is what happens when a site has been successfully crawled. This is where Google decides if you’ll be welcomed onto their index or not. The scariest thing to happen here is a page that’s left hidden.

If your site is a news site, with frequent content, it can be easy for your ‘evergreen’ content to get lost amongst pages and pages of breaking news. I’d recommend having clear categories that allow you to organise your content, and ensure that the content you always want to rank is easily accessible and not hidden at the depths of your site. 

For sure! If you categorise your content effectively, I’d definitely recommend having an XML sitemap that’s organised based on category or type of content. You can even create a News sitemap – this helps get your content discovered in Google News & Discover, which is a great way of getting traffic for timely & trending content.

All of your typical technical recommendations still apply as they would for any other site – even your domain name can have a big impact. My site used to be an exact match domain, but its traffic was decimated (likely) by a Google core algorithm update. Once I had some free time earlier this year, I migrated to a new domain that was a bit more stylised (and much less exact match), and saw my traffic return! 

Your site structure is a maze where visitors (including Google’s crawlers) try to find their way. Your site speed, like a good trailer, needs to have viewers hooked. If it’s a slow burner, visitors will leave, attention drops off, and rankings will falter. 

I’m all for adding special effects, animations, and whatnot to your website, especially if you’re trying to create a creepy feel. I’d just be a little cautious that you’re still providing a good experience for your user. Does it work on desktop and mobile? How long does it take to load? Is it easy for users to read your content? 

Accessibility and performance definitely matter, but don’t strip away everything that makes your site engaging just to chase a perfect PageSpeed Insights score. Striking the right balance between creativity and usability is what really makes a great experience.

Think of content discovery like the clear build-up before a jumpscare, the open pan of the room, the tense music. Without clear signals like internal links, sitemaps, and fresh updates, even your best content can go unnoticed by both users and search engines. Schema is like the final reveal of the monster/ghost that’s been hidden this whole time – it’s structured data that helps Google understand what it’s looking at, giving it a better chance to be viewed.

If you have a long story that goes on for thousands of words, you can paginate the story (maybe have one chapter per URL) and canonicalise the page 2/3/4 etc. to the first page, so that new users only arrive at the first page. You don’t want a new user finding your story at Chapter 3!

Depending on the type of content, there’s a load of different schema that you can use to clearly define your content to search engines. For short stories, you can use the ShortStory schema, or for podcasts, you can use the PodcastEpisode schema. I’d recommend checking out schema.org to find a schema that’s relevant to you!

AI Overviews are a hot topic right now, especially as they can lead to traffic drops, which can be painful if your site relies on ads for revenue. I’d focus on making your content as useful, unique, and well-structured as possible so it has a chance to feature right at the top of those AI Overviews. 

At the same time, don’t let Search be your only lifeline. Branching out into other channels like social media and email newsletters can help you recover some of that lost traffic and build a more loyal audience.

You need to communicate across the world, and make sure your message doesn’t get lost in translation. Each region needs its own version of the site for it to make sense to them. Meanwhile, seasonal SEO happens once a year, and you need to prepare for the influx so your site doesn’t get overwhelmed. 

If you’re expecting a huge influx of traffic, I’d check that your website hosting plan allows for that many users – some plans only host up to 50,000 or 100,000 users in a month!

Horror is a great niche to start a website in, with loads of ways to get involved. Unless you have a big budget, just remember that it’s easier to start in a sub-niche area, for example, horror games, movies, and short stories, than to start as a general horror site. Once you’re big enough, you can branch out from there!