SEO and PR: using all possibilities

 

                     
Many companies spent a lot of time, effort and money on link building and getting more authority in SEO by writing their blogs and getting good links. But they forget to really look at what chances media offer. What I mean is synergizing your SEO with a good press and PR policy using all available media channels:  Do not stop at blogs and linkbuilding, also look at journalists, offline media and all other forms you find (video, podcasts). They are a great way to get a lot of exposure fast.

Optimize your press releases to support your link building process, take a good look at how and where you want your releases to go and adjust the format to the channel you’re using.  Make sure you participate in online discussions on online media, weblogs and blogs to show your companies authority and fields of knowledge. Place links to your articles, link to interesting articles of people and companies you work with, even if it’s not on your direct topics. Retweet and pay attention to important messages concerning articles or blogs. And even better seek journalists and media authorities to create strategic alliances.
                                                                      
                                                     

Studies show that the majority of journalist visits online newsrooms and corporate web sites at least several times a month.  If you can find a journalist or media site who is seen as an authority in his field, get him to read and if possible comment on your articles or blogs.  The best thing to do here is ensure that you have good relations with both on and offline media, local, national and international.

Let them know what you’re working on and how this could be of interest to them. Note that a lot of journalist are very active on Social Media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Look at what and how they write and try to get them interested.  Also pay attention to tweeting or writing on Facebook about what they are doing, try and create a mutually beneficial relationship. It works! Especially local journalist are always looking for relevant fresh stories.

If you are able to present what you are doing or what a client is doing in relation to local developments or stories this makes you an interesting party. Also aid them by retweeting their stories and articles, invite them over to write an article on your company’s services and product. Present yourself to the local businesses  for example.  Give a journalist you regard as important the exclusive story when launching a new campaign or when you’ve achieved something of interest you want to share.                          

                                     

Push and pull factors                                     

Understand that there are Push and Pull factors that are very important to consider when looking at your PR.  The Pull factors are those who are important and of direct influence to your SEO. These are for example Standard Search, News Search,  Blog  Search and Media Search. Your SEO needs to be optimized, updated and related to all your important key-words for all these factors at all times. The Push factors are the factors u use to make the Pull factors possible. The Push factors are the news items on your site, the RSS-feeds you send or promote, you relations with bloggers, journalist and experts, and most important: The way you use Social Media Channels to publish information, promote links and blogs etcetera.

A link from a well known media site or syndicate journalist is worth much more than thirty links to lesser known blogs, articles or companies. A syndicate journalist is one that is related to a lot of news sites or sites related to the topics they work on. If they pick up your story or link to it via Twitter or other social media this means your link will be seen as something of high value, if your lucky it will be placed on all these related sites and increases your exposure immensely.  Another good advice is to target the online news desks. A lot of times people contact the offline news desks first , many online news desks like it when they receive stories or information  before their offline counterparts do. Make use of this and chances are your story will be picked up.  Also use time to your advantage. Send stories to the media and online press on Sunday,  most news desks and media use Monday morning as the time to gather and go through all articles and decide what is interesting to use that week. Make sure your article is among them. Optimize all Press releases to the medium your are sending them to. Look at how these media communicate and change your text accordingly. There are differences in language used, in how articles are brought form site to site. The more you understand and use this, the more chance you have of getting your information published.

                                                    

                                                  

An important point many companies do not use often enough is take a base line reading of their online reputation. Look at how and where your company shows up in blogs, articles and more.  Many times companies have no idea where all information about them can be found. Analyze this and use it to your advantage. You can then effectively direct your online reputation. Also make sure your contact info and the categories you work in (Keywords!) is easy to find everywhere, on your own newsroom for example but also via all channels you use (listings in Google or via Local Search for example)

Make clear segmentations in the types of news and topics. Use all channels available. Put presentations online in text and if possible in video or just in sound, people love to watch video’s or listen to good presentations, this increases both authority and exposure when people start linking to it. Subscribe to the right RSS-feeds and put out your own. Look and analyze at social media sites, who are the most influential bloggers on specific topics, check out their reviews to gather information and possibly good links. Use measurement tools like radiant6or Collective Intellect.

 

To summarize:

 

• Be sure to use all available media channels at your disposal
• Optimize Press releases: Format, text and pictures differ from site to site
• Look beyond online media and do not underestimate the power off offline media
• Use all social media sites for your own publications and establish relationships with journalists, experts and all related bloggers, writers and news services.
• Be sure to have a good internal policy concerning your news articles, RSS-feeds, blogs, video presentations and so on. Keep refreshing, updating and using the key-words that need to be used.
• Optimize your companies PR Push and Pull factors.

http://econsultancy.com/blog/925-why-online-pr-and-seo-go-hand-in-hand
http://www.seomoz.org/
http://www.smartpagerank.com/tools.php
http://www.seo-pr-tips.com/

 

The author Gerben Kegge works as Account Manager for Yonego B.V. B.A. a large Benelux Internet Marketing Company.  www.yonego.nl Twitter: @GerbenKegge