SEO PR TIPS

When we write for the web, the text needs to simple and straightforward and so on. It’s been said that puns are dead because of that.
But perhaps it isn’t wire dead yet.

The story below tells us that scientists have come up with a bot that can recognise simple puns. So maybe we can keep some fun in the writing with SEO in mind.

See the story in there: http://www.pr-consultant.co.uk/2007/…iting-pun.html

If you’re from a pure SEO background you might think this question rather redundant and the answer pretty obvious.  Do some Search Term Research (STR), look at your web analytics and see what are your best converting keywords.

That’s all correct, but there’s more to it when you’re choosing keywords from a PR perspective – and the best thing is, because you are getting your news published on external sites, you have more freedom than you have when choosing keywords for your own website.

SEO-PR is as much PR as SEO remember and your online PR campaigns are as much about online reputation management as about generating web rankings.

In practice, there is a heavy-emphasis on Brand keywords in the online PR campaigns we manage.

So the ideal keywords for PR campaigns would score highly for -

• High search volume + low competitiveness
• Good conversion level
• Central to key brand message

E-consultancy’s latest addition to its research, the Online Reputation and Buzz Monitoring Buyer’s Guide, reveals that this sector will grow by 30% in 2008, to an estimated value of £60 million.

The addition of this guide not only demonstrates the accelarated growth of this rapidly developing market, but also shows how the industry has moved on, from a rather fluffy approach to online PR, to quantitative measurement that incorporates analytics, monitoring tools and tangible metrics.

The E-consultancy Guide includes 16 detailed profiles of the leading players in this market: Asomo, Attentio, Brandwatch, CyberAlert, Cymfony, FindAgent, iCrossing, Market Sentinel, Nielsen Online, Onalytica, Radian6, RepuMetrix, Reputica, StrategyEye, Techrigy, Trackur.

Social media has clearly hit the mainstream, and as more companies look to invest in social media marketing, a prerequisite for any brand must be to initially monitor the space and manage their online reputation, before deciding whether to actively engage.

Read the full story on e-consultancy

The A0 poster of the 2008 Web Trend Map (841mm x 1189mm / 33.25in x 46.75in), is now up for grabs at http://informationarchitects.jp/web-trend-map-3-get-it/

For those who are not geeks and wonder what this web trend map is, it is all about representing in the shape of a tube map the main services and trends of the Web 2.0.

The Web Trend Map refers to more than 300 Web 2.0 services – using the world-famous Tokyo Tube map as its model.

Charles (chuck), well known under the name of SEO Rapper a.k.a Mo serious, from Pop lab. starts being more and more popular into the world of SEO and has spoken (or better says “rapped”) about SEO at a number of international search marketing conferences such like SES New York. Among his most popular records: Link Building 101 Rap, Social Media Addiction Rap, Paid Search 101 rap…but when can we expect an SEO PR Rap Chuky?? Please let us know…

The UK’s Community Secretary Hazel Blears has launched an attack on the “vicious nihilism” of the political blogosphere.

She partly blames the political apathy in the UK on the attitude of the bloggers (or at the very least makes the connection between the two).

This is very much in contrast to the huge impact blogging, social bookmarking, YouTube etc. have had on the American Election, with the re-energised electorate.

I think we can all agree that blogging is a hugely important part of any political campaign…

<p style=”text-align: center;”><a href=”http://twitter.com/therealbritney”><br><br><img style=”border: 0px;” title=”Britney Twitter” src=”http://www.webcertain.com/uptest/upload//Webcertain-PR/twitter-britmey.jpg” alt=”" width=”560″ height=”30″ /></a></p>

This may be not that exciting news but our dear singer friend Britney Spears seemed to have joined the world of Twitter.

Some argue that Britney’s presence on the network means the beginning of the popular miroblogging site going mainstream. However, there are no doubts that HER people have launched both a Twitter account and a bloggy sort of site with constant updates on her fascinating life to avidly promote the “noisy” singer.

The blog doesn’t appear to be “Britney” and Britney’s Twitter stream appears to be deeply monitored by her PR team, and so strongly appears less genuine.

Wouldn’t be fun if Britney were actually twittering? Oh yes I guess, exchanging advice on hairdressers, being “tired and emotional” on stage…but I won’t wait for that day to come.

Firstly, I am sure there are a lot of us who will agree that Twitter isn’t the easiest thing to understand entirely at first – follow me it is just cool! Secondly, celebrities are an easy target for malicious gossip online – so why put themselves in the firing line by being “online” in this way? Conclusion: celebrities should avoid being there really. And finally, let’s be fair, if the real Britney was twittering 100 times a day, she wouldn’t have time for singing or arguing with Kevin Federline!

Anyway it looks like Britney is not the only celebrity to play with social networks. Here is a list of the many others joining the social media trend. http://www.celebritiesusingtwitter.com/

You can read also more about this in http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/19/omg-britney/ and http://www.blackweb20.com/2008/10/23/celebrities-using-twitter-revisited/

Also we may not be celebrities, but you can still follow us on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/newscertain

A post on one of The Guardian’s blog is a textbook example of boosting visitors via controversial blog posting – link baiting.

The Guardian’s Lost in Showbiz (LiS) blog recently featured an article by Marina Hyde putting the boot into Lily Allen’s PR team for comparing her lyrical strengths to the great Romantic poets – calling Lily Allen the Wordsworth of the MySpace generation no less.

In the article the PR who had written the hyperbolic statement was called up and challenged on his knowledge of Wordsworth’s poem (limited). One of Allen’s more base couplets about lying in the wet patch in bed was featured to highlight the contrast between her and the daffodil enthusiast’s romantic views of their surroundings.

So far so good, a dent was made in the music industry’s hype machine – walk on, nothing to see here?

Except, Lily Allen is most definitely of the MySpace generation. She made her name with her very personal blog which is frequently updated. She is also clearly of the Google Alerts generation and before too long the singer (and it was her, not one of her press representatives) turned up on the comments section to defend her corner and to criticise the Lost in Showbiz team for being unable to grasp the humour of her PR’s overblown statement. Allen also slammed them for the perceived harassment of the hapless PR in question.

It’s not that often that an actual celebrity posts a comment on an article about themselves, so this became a story in itself. The Guardian stuck it on their front page, boasting of Allen’s response and influential websites (such as Popbitch) picked it up, sending large numbers of visitors to Lost in Showbiz. This is the classic example of “buzz”.

Soon there were 8 pages of comments (363 the final total) – a huge number for a pretty ordinary story about a British celebrity. NB – by far the easiest way to generate huge numbers of new visitors is to say something slightly insulting about American foreign policy or evangelical groups – just sit back and watch them swarm in foaming at the mouth. Also, consider that it was dwarfed by the showbiz story of the week (the Russell Brand – Jonathan Ross farrago) – a big enough story for the PM to take a break from the economic summit to comment on it.

In pure search terms, this is a big result for LiS (and the Guardian generally) and it is a textbook example of how to generate links and visitors through News – which makes me suspect it was deliberate link baiting.
1) Write something controversial
2) Pick a subject that has a huge ONLINE profile
3) Invite commentary and let that commentary become a follow-up story

The story is currently 15th of 5,350,000 total results in a search for Lily Allen in Google (behind the ubiquitous MySpace page and a number of strong news results) and it’s all good publicity for the singer’s new album.

So, we should congratulate The Guardian and be satisfied that it’s a good result for everyone concerned? I’m not so sure.

The Guardian is already one of the most powerful and effective online News outlets in the UK – they got online very early and have pursued a clear online strategy that works very well alongside their print arm. LiS may not be as high-profile as other sections of the paper / website (such as the excellent Sports section), but it sits securely in the Guardian’s blog network. If I were to criticise it, I would just say that it’s sometimes difficult to find the right blogs of interest on the Guardian site (it gets particularly confusing if there’s a TV / Media / Showbiz crossover with there being a number of blogs covering these subjects). On a personal level, I’m not a particular fan of the content in LiS which is often a bit lazy (and I say that as someone with about a dozen entertainment / gossip sites on my favourites, so I’m not exactly picky when it comes to reading this sort of stuff).

Was there any need in this case to use such tactics to boost visitors / rankings? Could it potentially backfire and lead to a reputation problem for possible new readers?

Looking through the comments (which takes some time), the readers’ view were somewhat mixed. The Guardian’s largely metropolitan and very media-savvy readership were not overly surprised that Allen’s record company would come out with such hyperbolic statements and many people were discomfited by what they saw as the rather personal tone taken against Allen (in both the original article and subsequent comment replies by Hyde and other commenters). This also sat rather uncomfortably against the default “Latest stories” links under the comment box, one of which was “Allen loses baby”.

There were, however, a lot of fans of the column writing in to support the original article and from the tone of them; many of these appeared to be by the loyal, regular readership – the lifeblood of any publication.

But the new readers attracted by the comments and postings on external sites may well have been put off from visiting again, by both the critical comments and by the way they were introduced to the story. It’s dangerous playing with sites like Popbitch where the regulars are not inhibited from posting the sort of gossip that wouldn’t be allowed on a broadsheet and where details of Ms Hyde’s personal life were mocked…

It would be interesting to see the visitor stats for LiS over the next few weeks and see if any of these new visitors continue to return. It will also be interesting to see if there are similar stories with high volume generation posted on LiS in the future.