Tag Archives: SEO

Content Marketing Case Study: It Sure Looks Like PR to Me

Posted on October 29, 2012 by | 5 Comments

Wordstream’s infographic that supported their campaign generated fantastic results for them. (Click on the image to see the full size version.)

A blog post on search engine authority SEOMoz titled “How I Got a Link from the Wall Street Journal” offers some real instruction for PR pros on linking content – and public relations outputs – with measurable, top-line business results.

It’s worth noting that the author of the post – and the content marketing campaign discussed – is Larry Kim, the founder and CTO of Wordstream, a search marketing firm.  (There’s another link for you, Larry – I know you’re counting.)  In short, he is a data-driven quant, C-suite denizen and SEO guru.  And within his case study is some very important guidance for public relations pros.

Think strategically (and holistically) about online pickup.

The first lesson to be derived from Larry’s post is this:  PR should think more deliberately about the value to be had for the organizations we’re promoting in the online mentions and “pick up” we generate — and not just in terms of PR outcomes.   In this day and age, the content we publish digitally can provide a variety of benefits to an organization.  The content, for example, can be mapped your customers’ buying process by your marketing team, and re-purposed.  And the content can generate potent search engine visibility – if you manage the language and linking correctly.  Optimizing press releases and other content can certainly help, however, it’s important to think beyond one granular message, and think instead in terms of how messages can improve web site search rank and provide content that aids potential customers as they make buying decisions.

Defining SEO benefits

What do I mean by “good link” and “significant SEO benefits”?  Search engine optimization is the art and science of fine tuning a web site’s content (among other things) so it shows up on the first page of search results for specific, targeted keywords and phrases.

A “good link” is one that includes one of those target terms, and links back to related pages on your web site.   Here’s how Larry defined his objective of garnering a “good link” from the WSJ.

“Real, editorial links from the WSJ. But not just any link. Ideally, links in an article that:

  • In some way mentioned WordStream (my company) so that we could get a bit of media exposure out of this effort
  • Links to both our homepage and contained to a deep page on our site with relevant anchor text.“

Now, as we all know, the sort of placement Larry in talking about – real, editorial placement – is right in PR’s wheelhouse.   How many of us are working with our web marketing teams and thinking about search terms and deep links when we’re developing our PR campaigns and planning our tactics?  Anecdotally, from the many conversations I’ve had with PR teams over the years, I’m going to venture to guess that the answer to that question is “Not many.”

A good link from a high-profile, high-authority news site – whether it’s the Wall St. Journal or an important niche publication – can provide lift in search rankings for your web site, which is a proven driver of business results, as well as fuel for social conversations.   The content we publish, and the results it generates across the enterprise – is all connected.

Newsworthy content & a good news hook

As one continues reading Larry’s post, it reads more-and more like a modern guide on how to get more PR pick up. He emphasized the need for newsworthy, unique content that was written for the WSJ readership, not a bunch of search experts.

Further on in the case, Larry also addresses the vital necessity of a solid news hook, and how he went about identifying the hook for his “content marketing” campaign.

Finally, by now we know that press releases with multimedia generate better results than plain text.  Larry knows the power of visuals too, and made an infographic central to his campaign.

This *really* sounds like PR now, doesn’t it?

The importance of high-value links & a new definition of “pick up”

I’m prepared to argue that generating high-value links from credible media and blogs should be a key goal of many PR campaigns.   This is a new facet to that old standard in our business – achieving editorial “pick up,” and it’s one that our peers in marketing are really good at measuring.  The teams who manage web marking, in particular, generally have really good insight into the performance of different web site content in terms of the generation of qualified traffic and leads, conversion rate and search rank.   There’s no reason why the content PR deploys can’t be tweaked in order to work in tandem with other content deployed by the organization.  This ‘tweaking’ isn’t onerous.  It just requires a little collaboration with the web marketing team, getting organized, and then being sure to use target terms in PR content, and linking those terms to relevant web site pages. In addition to synching publishing strategies, the same should also be done for measurement at well.  It’s not unreasonable to imagine a scenario in which a press release, for example, is measured in terms of resulting high-value media links, leads generated and search marketing value.

Borrowing a few pages from Larry’s playbook is a good idea for PR.  Simply put, we can leverage the press releases and other content we produce, publish and syndicate to impact far more than the goals set for the PR department and the outcomes the organization usually expect from the public relations team.

Author Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media and has written extensively on how public relations, content marketing and search intersect.

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Balancing Substance with Attention: Creating Content That Attracts & Appeals

Posted on October 2, 2012 by | 6 Comments

I’ve long thought that the discipline of search engine optimization (namely, the art and science of getting your web site positioned high in search engine results for specific keywords) offers great lessons for PR and content marketers.   A blog post on SEOMoz today titled “What Kind of Content Gets Links in 2012?” offers an unusually rich trove of data and ideas for communicators to consider, and it got me thinking about different the different types of visibility our content generates.

Some readers skim quickly over content, others spend a lot more time on the page.   Some readers will share links to the content you publish, others will click through the links you serve.  With some readers, the opportunity to connect is fleeting.  Others may make a greater commitment to your content, such as bookmarking it for future reference, or linking to it from their blog.

The Linkers & the Sharers

For simplicity’s sake, let’s create two audience groups – the Sharers, who consume and share content at high speed, and the Linkers, who engage with content more deeply.    (Admittedly, these two groups are very generalized, but for the sake of this discussion, we’ll focus on commonalities, not particulars.)  The Sharer and Linker behaviors are different, and a lot can be learned from asking how they differ, and why.

Marketers would say the Sharers are at the top of the marketing funnel – in the Awareness stage.  They are like butterflies in a field of flowers, flitting about and sampling many.  They haven’t committed.  The Linkers are further along in the content consumption / decision making process, moving into the Consideration (and maybe even the Preference) stages as they mull over, click through and re-read your content.

Both represent vitally important audience groups.  The Sharers may one day evolve into Linkers.  In the meantime, this group helps amplify your messages when they share links to your content on social networks.   The Linkers, especially when they link to your content from their blogs, create lasting traction that search engines value.  And, of course, they represent a qualified audience that’s valuable to the organization, because they’re more likely to take the action the company is encouraging, whether that’s registering for an event, buying a product or subscribing to a service.

Is it possible for communicators to serve both? 

In an earlier post, I talked about embedding multiple calls to action within press releases and other content, in order to appeal to (and engage) different audiences.  Chris Sietsema, in a recent post on Convince & Convert titled “Creating Social Substance: Talkable & Useful Content” starts to plumb this issue, discussing the differences between creating talkable and useful content, which my context, appeal to the Sharers and Linkers, in that order.  I believe we can take that a step further, and appeal to different types of readers, by paying attention to how we format our content.

The best practices for press releases and other content we’ve long advocated on this blog are especially important when it comes to attracting sharers’ more fleeting attention.  To garner readers, the following tactics are especially important:

  • Write a headline that’s around 120 characters and put your most important keyword within the first 65 characters of your 120 character headline.
  • Include an image in your content.
  • Embed an anchor text link (or two) in the text to give readers who are interested a path to follow.
  • Make it easy for readers to scan the content – use bullet points, numbered lists and paragraph sub-heads.

However, appealing to Linkers requires longer, more complex and robust content.  In fact, the SEOMoz post today backs this up, finding a correlation between longer content, and the number of web sites that had drawn links to the content:  longer content elicited more inbound links.  This might seem surprising, given that many SEO gurus and purveyors of blog best practices suggest we eschew longer-form content on our digital properties.   Clearly, even in today’s sound-byte, 140-character communications culture, there is still real demand for more detailed, useful information.

In my mind, the charge for communicators is pretty clear.  We shouldn’t shy away from the longer content that attracts Linkers, helps create more qualified leads and, as SEOMoz noted, can be a valuable source of inbound links.  Nor should we go overboard.  Our content portfolios should contain a mix of content – in terms of length, character, purpose and medium.  But crafting content that is designed to support people who are moving from the Awareness stage into the Consideration and Preference stages of the buying cycle is good practice.  We should certainly still adhere to the best practices noted above when we create longer-form content, in order to attract some Sharers while also serving our Linkers well.

Author Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media.

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How to Write Press Releases that Work

Posted on September 11, 2012 by | 5 Comments

Yesterday at the Ragan Communications Best Practices Summit, Ruth Sarfaty of Spark PR and I gave a presentation on the subject of press release best practices.  This particular discussion is one I have often, and the answer is ever-evolving.   I say “ever-evolving” because we operate in a fluid environment today.    The algorithms that dictate what we see in social networks and search engines can change dramatically day-to day,  rendering last week’s best practice a worthless tactic today.

“Releases have changed and so have we,” noted my co-presenter Ruth. “While press releases may be intended primarily for journalists, let’s not forget the long tail who tweet and retweet your news!”

Here is the most current iteration of my “best practices” deck, along with the case study Ruth presented of our work together on the study of press releases and social media we did with CrowdFactory.  It’s long and comprehensive.  I’m not going to re-type all the details here (you can easily access the whole thing via Slideshare, just click on the image at the top of this post) but a couple points are worth emphasizing.

Their house, their rules.

It’s important to remember a few things about the search engines and social networks that drive so much visibility for our messages today:

1) Google does not exist to promote your press releases.  Many people forget that the reason Google exists is to return a profit to their shareholders.  They do so by selling ads.  Those ads are effective because of the immense utility most of us derive from using Google to search for stuff.    It’s very important to Google that people find their search engine useful. Ergo, the best way to get visibility in Google? Publish useful and interesting stuff.

2) Social networks are social.  Not commercial. Not advertorial (for the most part.)  People go on to Facebook to hang out, for example.  Twitter, however, is often about the exchange of information, especially niche info and breaking news.   Point is, if your message doesn’t fit the context of why people are using a particular social network, you’ll have difficulty gaining traction there.  You’ve heard the adage “Horses for courses” – well, the same applies for content and social networks. Content that plays well on Facebook won’t necessarily work on LinkedIn.

A lot of time and energy is spent on the optimization of press releases.  Without a doubt, some of the best practices outlined in the deck above will help improve message visibility.  However, at the end of the day, the best way to ensure your message is to provide content that is interesting and useful to your audience.

Author  Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

Related reading:

4 Essential Tips for Writing Effective Press Release Headlines

Rethinking Press Release Tactics to Meet Evolving Audience Preferences

Press Releases Shared More on Facebook, But Twitter Drives 30 Percent More Views

Writing Press Releases that Get Results

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The Cross-Platform Consumer: New Communication Imperatives

Posted on September 3, 2012 by | 6 Comments

A new study titled “The New Multi-Screen World: Understanding Cross-Platform Consumer Behavior” from Google suggests that reaching your audience on one device isn’t enough.  The research reveals that 90% of people use multiple devices – mobiles, PCs, tablets, smart phones, TVs – to accomplish a goal.

The study concluded there are two modes of multi-screen media consumption:

  • Sequential – where we move from one device to another to accomplish a goal.  An example of this would be researching a destination for a day trip at your PC, and then using your smart phone once you got there to make decisions about which restaurant to visit. According to the study, 9 out of 10 people use devices sequentially.
  • Simultaneous – when we use two or more devices at the same time.  The simplest example of this is watching TV, and tweeting about what you’re watching on your tablet. 77% of people watch TV with another device in hand.

 So what does this mean to marketers?  If anything this underscores the necessity of increasing our clock speeds and adopting an agile approach to engaging our audiences.  This reality is central to why PR Newswire has long advocated a multi-channel approach to distributing press releases and multimedia content.  It’s simply not enough to rely upon a web site or two any longer.

Additionally, Google makes several important conclusions about how consumers interact with information across devices:

  • Search is the connector between devices.  People use search engines to “pick up where they left off,” according to Google.
  • Turn “spur of the moment” activity into valuable opportunity.  The study suggests that 80% of searches from smart phones are done at the spur of the moment.  A great mobile presence can be instrumental in converting that opportunity into a sale.

Imperatives for communicators:

  • Ensure that your web site is not only search friendly, but formatted for mobile devices too.  Be sure your phone number, location and other information people access most frequently on your web site (business hours, menus, products, special offers, etc.) render quickly and prominently for mobile users.
  • Coordinate online and off-line campaigns.   One famous example of a brand failing to do this is the Snickers campaign that featured made up words such as “hungerectomy” printed on a Snickers wrapper.  This campaign was purely analog, appearing on billboards, the sides of busses and in print.  However, the ad’s creators overlooked the fact that offline messaging drives online behavior.  They have any digital presences designed to capture online interest in the campaign, and they didn’t buy search engine ads against the very words upon which the ad campaign centered.  Understand that offline messaging will trigger online activity, and plan accordingly.

The Google study is interesting reading and underscores the connectedness of our audiences and how the advent of mobile devices has significantly changed the decision making process.  It’s critical for brands to develop intelligent presences everywhere their audience is going to look – from search engines to social networks and from print to mobile.

Author  Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

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How the PR Team Can Boost Web Site Ranking with Twitter

Posted on June 7, 2012 by | 1 Comment

According to a ground-breaking study (“Revolutionary study: We prove that tweets do affect rankings”) performed by UK digital agency Branded3, there is a strong positive correlation between the number of tweets of a URL, and its corresponding Google ranking.  The study suggests that a web page’s search rankings start to improve when its URL has received 50 tweets, but the real benefits start to accrue after a web site is tweeted more than 1,000 times.

Because much of the content an organization publishes originates with the public relations team, it’s important for communications pros to pause for a minute and consider how they can build rank and visibility for their organizations’ web sites by fine-tuning their Twitter strategy and integrating more strongly with their web marketing teams.

Organize and align PR, social media and search.

Taking advantage of Branded3’s findings to build search rank for a web site will take some planning and organization, and may require some organizations to develop more tightly-integrated communications plans as well as a more well-defined approach for sharing and tweeting press releases and other content on social networks.

  • With your web site marketing team, develop a list of key commercial web site pages your company wants to promote, along with the target keywords the web team is using in their optimization and SEM strategies.  These “target URLs” and “target terms” will need to be incorporated into the content you share socially.
  • Develop a solid Twitter presence, combining content curation with active social interaction and engagement.  Research (and stay current with) hash tag trends and usage in your particular area of interest.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you (i.e. RT and mention generously.)
  • Commit to using target terms, related hash tags and related URLs in press releases, press kits, blog posts, backgrounders, pitches and any other communications that could be tweeted or shared.

Make tweet generation the focus of strategies – and outcomes.

Organizations serious about increasing traction on Twitter for their messages will need to make a committed effort in order to achieve success.  There’s a lot more to this exercise than merely establishing a Twitter presence and tweeting the odd press release here and there.     Spending some time developing an understanding of what content your audience values (and will eagerly share of their own accord) is an important first step.  Other important approaches that can help your efforts include:

  • Tweet the target URLs consistently.  Rome wasn’t built in a day.  Generating 50 tweets (from your brand’s accounts, as well as followers and other industry denizens) won’t be too difficult, but getting to 1,000 and beyond will be another matter altogether. However, if you use the target URLs consistently, while also building engagement online, you will get there.
  • Make “ease of tweeting” a central tenant of your strategies.  When you e-mail a pitch to a journalist or blogger, be sure to include a link they can tweet.  Have your webmaster embed social sharing buttons in your online newsroom (and elsewhere on your web site) to encourage sharing.

Keep an eye on the tweet stream.  Thank and RT people who tweet about your brand.  Keep track of them and build relationships.

Tweet the content your organization produces creatively and consistently.  One press release might contain several different story angles or facts.  Tweet them all, uniquely, staggering them over time and using different (but relevant!) hash tags (if appropriate.)  You will increase the lifespan of your message, and the different tweets will appeal to different constituents.

Generating higher search rankings is a proven way to build sales, increase credibility and drive web site traffic for a brand.   The role of Twitter in determining search rank provides public relations professionals with another opportunity to deliver measurable results that will benefit the organization’s top line.

Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

We’ve just announced The Crowd-Sourced eBook: The Definitive Guide to Social Influencer Engagement and invite you to contribute.

Image via Branded3.

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Google’s Knowledge Graph Of ‘Things’

Posted on May 17, 2012 by | Leave a comment

On May 16th Google announced their Knowledge Graph, a change to their search engine results pages that  is, in their words, ” a critical first step towards building the next generation of search, which taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like people do.”

The post talks a lot about “things,” nouns, entities, and their relationships to other things, and that is at the crux of the paradigm shift that Google is making. Mixed in with the search results we get back from Google they will be providing not just other phrases that are similar to or in some way related to the phrase you searched with, they’ll be making lateral links to ‘things related to the thing you’re searching for.’

There is  already much being written by others covering what to expect in the SERPs, so I’m not going to rehash that here.  The question I have about this is, what does this mean to content creators working in PR and marketing?

If you’re in content marketing or PR, should Google’s new way of looking at the information on the web change what you do?  And how do we optimize for this?

I don’t have complete answers, but perhaps I can contribute a little insight to move us towards an answer.

Press releases have always had the potential to be good quality search engine fodder: they’re reasonably well structured; they’re a good length; they’re often written by people who can; they’re fresh; they come with images, videos, links, and…. lots and lots of THINGS.

Press releases are packed with things and, importantly, they provide strong signals for Google to understand the relationships between those things.  Here is press release issued by PR Newswire’s parent company UBM plc.

Business4Better Comes to Anaheim, CA to Transform Community Involvement & Engagement

Entities in the Business4Better press release

Entities in the Business4Better press release

The release is about a new conference and exhibition that will help businesses and nonprofits work more closely together for their mutual benefit. In the release there are brands, companies, organizations, places, dates, people, quotes, logos, websites, etc. that all have relationships with one another.

From this release a search engine could learn that UBM plc is a company:

  • that is led by a person called David Levin,
  • is partnering with organizations called OneOC and City of Anaheim,
  • and that owns the Business4Better brand,
  • which is hosting an event in Anaheim CA.

And so on.  Here’s now these entities and the relationships between them might be categorized at a an abstract level that could be used by software:

Press release entity relationships

Press release entity relationships

So if I’m writing a blog post, or a product web page for my site, or a press release, does this all mean I have to do something different?  In the short term I’d say that if you’re writing good quality content that is clear and useful for your  audience, then no.  Everything you do will support Google’s attempts to understand the meaning behind your content.  In the long term all those good things you’re doing will continue to pay dividends, but new content strategies may emerge based on the G-Graph.

What about optimization? How do we optimize for the Knowledge Graph? Basically it’s too early to say.  Not every entity mentioned in every document on the Web will get a Graph, but patterns and best practices will emerge.  For now it’s a case of ‘steady as she goes’ and keep creating content your audience wants to consume and tweak it for search.  If I were to hazard a guess at the best long term strategy though, it would include content that clearly communicates the relationships between entities, and high levels of clarity consistently achieved over the long term.

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Press Release Best Practices: Accuracy, Newsworthiness & Illustration

Posted on April 26, 2012 by | 3 Comments

Last week I penned and article for Ragan’s PR Daily titled “The 5 Mistakes Press Release Writers Make” and followed that up with a more detailed post here titled, “The 6 Mistakes That Can Sink Press Release Visibility.”  I shared these on several PR discussion groups and solicited additional feedback from my fellow members, asking what other press release tips they would offer.

Newsworthiness

Newsworthiness was a prevalent theme, and was in fact echoed in a video interview by Steve Farnsworth (@steveology on Twitter) in which he asked EE Times editor in chief Junko Yoshida for her opinion on press releases (see the video at the top of this post.)

F. John Sbrana, Communications Coordinator at Vineland Public Schools near Philadelphia noted, “ I try to write short, interesting news stories and not “press releases”.

Tonya Hayes, a Bay Area PR pro, said “ I say “no” to some press releases. That means having the energy to say “no” to a CEO. If there is no news, it’s better to put the brakes on than to tick off the media. Or worse, have them ignore your next one. “

Images

Tracey Paleo, blogger and editor at Gia On The Move, noted in a comment on the Ragan story the importance visuals play when she’s evaluating a story. “When receiving press releases I almost 100% will follow up with a pr rep or whoever is sending when photos are included. Online readers are visual. So am I. Especially when talking about non-corporate content, i.e. arts & culture, events etc. It’s essential. Often what I see also are embedded links to internal host sites/pages (other than press release sites) where photos or video can be downloaded with a password. It’s a great alternative to getting caught in a spam blocker and completely helpful.”

Kim Stevens, publisher of State Aviation Journal and Arizona Aviation Journal concurred.  “I believe in running photos with every article or brief we use in our aviation journals. I’m amazed at how many releases we get that don’t include any photos or even company logos – and this from major companies or organizations. Fortunately, we’ve built up quite a library, but it is frustrating to send an email asking if a photo is available. Although not my first choice, I find myself hitting delete more often rather than going photo-less or holding a story while we wait, and wait, and wait even longer for a photo.”

Michael Crabtree agreed. “ Always try to include images. From a recent survey, access to high res images was highly valued with 87% (of journalists) saying that’s (very) important.
http://www.pwrnewmedia.com/site09/archives/2011JournalistSurvey.html

Formatting basics:

In an interesting twist, many of the participants in the discussion highlighted issues that could be best described under the header of “Press Releases 101.”  The PR Newswire Content Services team would agree – though the end of the first quarter 2012, they found (and fixed) 27,414 client mistakes in press releases.  In particular, numerous people noted that spelling is a prevalent problem.

Gwen Watkins, the Botswana-based director at entreprenuers for Africa Ltd. was adamant, saying, “ Learn to spell! I sub 10-15 press releases every night for an online marketing magazine and am horrified at the careless spelling. The cardinal sin – misspelling your own client’s name, or company name, followed by misspelling an internationally recognized name or brand. It’s not as if Microsoft doesn’t help – more than half the mistakes are picked up for me by its Word spell check.”

Brevity was also a recurring theme.  From a user (and search engine) standpoint, a 400 word release is more effective than an 1800 word tome.

Yassir Islam, a Washington DC-based communications professional talked about how to combine brevity but still offer detail to those who need it, “I like to keep press releases to one page, if I can. You can always add links to fact sheets for those who want to dig deeper.”

Tactics for keeping the key messages of the press release front and center were also discussed, and to the points I made about developing focused messaging in both articles, I think that these tips are particularly important.

Caryn Starr, NYC-based owner of StarrGates Business Communications, noted that having a boilerplate about the company to keep too much ancillary information from creeping into the release.   That’s an excellent point, and segues nicely into some advice about the lede (or “lead” as some prefer.) Staci Harvatin, interactive communications & media melations coordinator at Saint Louis University Hospital, said, “One of my favorite press release tips is “don’t bury the lede.” Part of this falls under the “don’t lose focus “point, but I think it is important enough to restate. Also, I still write down my top three key messages before writing the release. I know many people do this in their head, but I like checking them off as I go along.”

When combined with the tips offered earlier that were really geared toward driving social interaction and online visibility, I think that these suggestions will really help communicators produce more effective content.  Do you have a favorite tip that we missed?  If so, share it below!

Author Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

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Google Webspam Update Means Opportunities for Great Content

Posted on April 25, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Google has started rolling out some of the algorithmic changes geared toward reducing the amount of webspam encountered by internet searchers.  Though this algo change will only affect about 3% of searches, and though the vast majority of press releases submitted to PR Newswire do not run afoul of the rules, there are still some key take-aways for PR from this change in search.

In a nutshell, what this means to the content creators and press release writers out there is that there is one set of rules for developing content. Worrying about keyword density and exact match anchor text links and packing page metadata with keyword have gone by the wayside into the dustbin of SEO history.  Instead, Google is advocating an approach that is heavily focused on providing value to your audience.  Google offers a succinct view on their Inside Search blog today (Another Step to Reward High Quality Sites):

“White hat” search engine optimizers often improve the usability of a site, help create great content, or make sites faster, which is good for both users and search engines. Good search engine optimization can also mean good marketing: thinking about creative ways to make a site more compelling, which can help with search engines as well as social media. The net result of making a great site is often greater awareness of that site on the web, which can translate into more people linking to or visiting a site.”

Professional communicators should be rubbing their hands in absolute glee. This is awesome news for the content creators amongst us, and the guidelines for success in search engines should look pretty familiar:

  • Listen to your audience. Know what’s on their minds and what challenges they are encountering.
  • Speak the language of your audience.  Kill the jargon.
  • Make being interesting and useful key goals for the content you develop. Does the content offer something that the reader can really use?

Watch for red flags and be demanding

If you’re the listener in chief for your brand or organization, it’s imperative that you share with your organization the intel you glean from social networks, web analytics and search results.  If the marketplace is clamoring for information and your organization is studiously silent on the subject, it’s time for a candid chat with the PR team, because chances are good that the silent treatment will eventually stop working. Likewise, if you wind up trying to use content to gloss over a bad product, it’s time to have a candid chat with the product team, using data and conversations from social channels to back up your point.  There’s only so much lipstick you can put on a pig, and let’s be realistic here – even if you do manage to wrassle a hog and keep it still long enough to actually apply the lipstick, the chances of the makeup lasting are nil.  This analogy, awkward as it is, holds true when it comes to trying to use content to mask larger, underlying business problems.   The glossy sheen of the content will soon wear thin.  This is nothing new.  The advent of social media has created an era of transparency unseen previously, and has brought the customer into many internal processes. With this change, Google is upping the same ante.

More changes are coming from Google.  The update announced today is not the “over-optimization” penalty.  However, the signals are clear.  Google is starting to do the same thing the millions of people populating social networks around the world have been doing for a while now: surfacing the most interesting content, which in effect rewards the creators of interesting and valuable information with increased visibility.

Related reading, if you’re interested:

SearchEngineLand: Google Launches Update Targeting Webspam In Search Results

SEO Round Table:  It’s Live: Google Over Optimization Algorithm (3% Of Searches Affected)

Beyond PR: What Google’s Over-Optimization Penalties Mean for PR

Modern PR: The Art & Science of Integrated Media Influence (white paper) – ideas, examples and advice for developing content (and the framework that supports its creation) that will have lasting traction with your audiences.

Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

Image courtesyof Flickr user Sean MacEntee.

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What Google’s Over-Optimization Penalties Mean For PR

Posted on April 20, 2012 by | 8 Comments

Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz offers fantastic advice today for avoiding the coming over-optimization penalties that Google has announced.   You can view his entire video here:

6 Changes Every SEO Should Make BEFORE the Over-Optimization Penalty Hits – Whiteboard Friday

Within the tips he offers are several that anyone who writes press releases should pay attention to.  Below, I summarize the issues Rand highlights, and describe the implications for PR.

1. Keyword stuffed page titles.  Page titles need to be authentic, and they need to sound like they were written by humans, for humans.  Repeating keywords over and over and unnatural phrasing are likely to be red flags.

Implication for PR:  Many newswires and other vendors turn your headline into the page title.  Keep this in mind and write headlines that are first and foremost designed to capture the interest of your audience and convey your story.

2.  Manipulative internal links, such as pointing to the same URL over and over again on one page.  Linking to the same page over and over isn’t helpful  (the first link is the only one that counts anyway.)  Use logical, useful links, link to different URLs, and use links that you want people to actually go to.  And mix up the phrases/words to which you link.

Implication for PR:  When you post a press release to your web site, or run it over a wire service, it does in fact become a web page.   Use – but don’t overuse – anchor text links in your press releases, and use them as a reader service, providing a call to action or more detailed information. Content that is stuffed with links is likely to be flagged by search engines.  Keep links to a minimum – one or two per release.

3.  Link filled footers, or more specifically a  bunch of exact anchor links at the bottom of the page that no one would ever really click on.  This is a decade old tactic.

Implication for PR:  Keep links to a minimum, as noted in #2.  Resist the urge to add lists of links to your press release.

4.  Text content blocks built for the engines.  The weird block of  keyword stuffed junk.  Spammy blocks of text that have no purpose other than to get the keyword into the text.  These will actually drive people away.   It’s dangerous because it provides very poor user experience.

Implication for PR:  Guard against any text that is riddled with keywords – including your boiler plate.  Because most releases include the same boilerplate over and over, it’s important that you dial back on keywords in the boilerplate, to avoid looking like a search engine spammer.  –

5. Large numbers of pages targeting similar keywords with slight variation between them but are essentially the same content.  What Rand is talking about here are pages on a web site that essentially say the same thing, but have slight variation in titles and keywords.

Implication for PR:   If you use a template for your press releases, this could be an issue, especially if there is little variation in your titles and throughout the body of the release.  With the emphasis on natural writing these days, it’s probably time to dump the template.  At the very least, be sure you write a fresh headline and lead, and change up some of the body text.

My theme this week has been “Write for people, not machines.”  At the end of the day, sticking to that simple advice will serve you well when it comes to authoring press releases.

Related reading:

Six Mistakes That Can Sink Press Release Visibility

The 3 Cornerstones of Building Lasting Online Visibility

Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

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6 Mistakes that Can Sink Press Release Visibility

Posted on April 19, 2012 by | 6 Comments

The press release is a tried-and-true public relations workhorse which (despite many premature reports of its death) remains one of the most popular communications formats for PR pros today.   That said, we can all agree that the last few years – heck, the last few months even – have seen tremendous change in how information is consumed.  To ensure your press releases are effective in reaching today’s wired audiences,  avoid these common mistakes that can sink your message’s visibility.

The six mistakes press release writers make:

1. Lack of focus: Many writers make the mistake of trying to cram too many themes into one message, with the intent of appealing to multiple audiences.

Here’s the problem an unfocused message can create. People seek specific information, and search engines reward it.  Unfocused content is likely to fall by the wayside in social networks, going unshared.  Furthermore, search engine algorithms – which are designed to analyze on-page content and categorize the information accordingly – are likely to conclude the content is effectively about ‘nothing’ when the focus is too watered down.

2. Unnatural writing:  From the ‘speed bump’ that starts many press releases, (e.g. “Company Name, a global innovator and provider of world-class end-to-end turnkey solutions for ….” to stilted quotes from execs declaring their excitement about some sort of mumbo-jumbo, many press releases are the antitheses of natural, interesting writing.

Jargon and stiff “corporate-speak” slow down (and turn off) readers, and they distance your audience from your organization by being less relatable.  Journalists conclude “Nothing new here…” and hit delete, and readers get through half the lead and then bail.  Additionally, search engines are amazingly good at detecting natural language, and they reward it.  Content that is too machine-like may be penalized.

3. One-dimensional formatting:  Many  news releases are written as though they’re going to be read off a sheet of typing paper, not a fluid and interactive environment.

Blocks of text and a lack of interactive links and sharing buttons bog down key messages and trap readers.  The simple act of embedding an anchor text link creates a call to action, inviting interested readers to take the next step and visit the web page you suggest.   And easy formatting changes such as using bulleted lists and bold-text paragraph headers capture attention when folks scan your content, and make it easy for socially-connected readers to discern key messages and share them on social networks.

4.Long and ponderous headlines:  Headlines exist to capture attention, not tell the whole story or perform an exercise in branding.  And the role of the headline is even more important today, because a good headline can also spark social sharing of your content, and help search engines index the content correctly.

When writing a headline, consider a few facts:

  • Search engines don’t index beyond the first 65 characters of the headline.
  • A study by Hubspot and PR Newswire found the optimal headline length is 120 characters for readers &  Tweeters alike
  • Headlines with numerals garner more readers (from the same Hubspot/PRN study)

(Link to the Hubspot/PRN info: Rethinking Press Release Tactics)

Our advice:

  • Write a headline that’s around 120 characters (no more, you want to leave ‘room’ for Twitter handles.)
  • Put your most important keyword within the first 65 characters of your 120 character headline.
  • And by all means, if can, include a numeral in the headline.  (Why do you think this post is titled as it is?)   Finally, if you need to add more detail, use a subhead.

5. Too many embedded links: Before you go on a linking spree after being inspired by item #3, please heed this caveat.  A link or two in a press release is great, but too many links in a body of text can have dire consequences for that content’s visibility.

Content that is peppered with hyperlinks is the press release equivalent of the loud-talking, wildly-gesticulating used car guy whose annoying TV ads are likely to have inspired the invention of Tivo. They’re annoying.  Worse, search engines are paying very close attention to links in content, and too many links can cause your press release to be flagged as spam – and buried in search results.  Don’t be greedy.  Embed one link – or two if you absolutely must – in each press release.  But that’s it.  No more.  Links in press releases should provide a service, not a distraction.

6. No visuals.  The importance of visuals in PR campaigns and press releases really can’t be overstated, but the majority of press releases issued over commercial newswires today are still plain-text, despite the fact that press releases with accompanying visuals generate better results.

Why it’s a problem:  Google and Facebook both give visual content more weight in their ranking algorithms, which is why pictures and video float to the top of search engine results and Facebook news feeds.  Additionally, wildly popular social networks like Pinterest and Instagram are based on visuals.  Without a visual, your content won’t be available to these massive and engaged audiences.

Whether you’re simply emailing your press release to a media list, posting it to your web site or are planning to distribute it broadly on a wire service, avoiding these mistakes will help you garner better visibility for your message – and results for your efforts.

Author Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

 

 

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