SEO PR TIPS

Or, “how I ditched the robot and became a real person on Twitter…”

Is a picture worth a thousand tweets? Quite possibly

I loathe seeing pictures of myself appearing in the public domain. Vain enough to do vanity searches, realistic enough to recognise that I’m not particularly photogenic, I’ve chosen in the past to use meaningless alias pictures wherever possible.

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When writing an article for the web whether press release, blog or article, it is important to remember to do some keyword research beforehand, as well as gathering as much information as possible to help you write your piece.

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Being algorithmically determined, Google News sometimes spews up some strange results.

Most of these strange results are quite amusing, or just gently misleading. Such as the main headline referring to one football team proclaiming “We wuz robbed” next to a picture of a player from the opposition.

A bit more disturbing is the tendency for stories to end up in the wrong news category, most often with a Weird World / Quirky story appearing in Entertainment.

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Just look at that tag cloud…

When my then-colleague, Mademoiselle Mondon and I started this blog last year, Twitter was just one of the crowd of social networking sites that we paid cursory attention to.

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The opportunities and threats of marketing through Twitter

At the Social Media International Search Summit hosted by WebCertain in London on Thursday 14 May, I gave a presentation on the use of Twitter as a marketing tool.  Twitter is definitely a “marmite” concept – it divides people.  There are some who have embraced it with almost religious zeal and it provokes red-faced rage in others.

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The fourth International Search Summit hosted by WebCertain is taking place at the moment.  This conference is focussed on Social Media.  Whether you weren’t able to attend, or just want a reminder of what was said – here’s an overview…

Also follow #isslon on Twitter for live updates.

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Although this blog is dedicated to sharing positive, cheery advice on how to get on in the online PR field, the first thing that anyone in communications needs to learn is think about what you’ve written before you press ’send’!

One hapless PR (not that she deserves any sympathy) has discovered  the troubles that can be caused by a thoughtless pun – especially when bloggers and tweeters can make a mistake big news in minutes.

The excellent Lost in Showbiz blog (not connected to the Guardian blog as far as I know) keeps us all our toes, correctly highlighting the pretentiousness, deceit and general, unconvincing uselessness of many press releases.

They’ve got a humdinger today.  Once of the most thoughtless headlines imaginable has destroyed a harmless release about a supposed poll on the best war films of all time.

Here’s the intro, can you spot the obvious error?

From: libby@swns.com [mailto:libby@swns.com]
Sent: 21 April 2009 10:51
To: NationalNews
Subject: SCHINDLER’S LIST IS GREATEST WAR MOVIE

WOULD JEW BELIEVE IT

NEWS COPY

Schindler’s List was yesterday (Tue) named the greatest war movie of all time.

Read more at Lost in Showbiz

Thanks to Twitter and other social networking sites, this story is flying around quicker than you can say “viral marketing”.

Do share more howlers here, or at our Global Social forums - and chat about it on Twitter…

Internet PR and Marketing investment continually rises, while offline spend is in decline, marketers are continually looking for new methods and approaches to suit business needs. The current climate of the economy has forced many companies to re-strategise in many areas, where spend is minimalistic and productivity potentially maximised.

With virtual social networking taking the world by storm it’s no wonder marketers have already jumped on the band wagon promoting their businesses and colleagues, for example, the use of Twitter has totally entranced our colleagues here @ WebCertain, follow: @globalppc @starbuck8 @jennysimpson @davidsegal @davidecorradi @ballueder @WebCertain @J__9 @YorkSEO @globalseo @andyatkinskruge @seoprtips @newscertain @WebCertain_DE @AnaVLeckenby @oscarcarreras, for updated information on specialised areas of multilingual search!

Promoting the latest international search summit, general information about PR, SEO, link building, PPC etc… has developed a wider knowledge on each subject, by sharing and re-tweeting relevant data to enhance the specialised knowledge arena WebCertain hold.

Many businesses and organisations are using online facilities and companies such as WebCertain not only for English articles, as we are multilingual; multiple languages from across the globe play a large part in how they operate, especially for clients. Online PR is a great way of getting your company, news / press releases / data, relayed around the world, especially using press release sites with an overseas domain, rather than the traditional offline methods. This however, does vary upon client needs; everyone wants something different and to be unique, so be adaptable and knowledgeable on your subject arena to create the best possible service for your company and your clients!

Social media is a concept 2 years ago I wasn’t really interested in, I knew it existed, yet I didn’t really know anything about it and I didn’t really want to. I reluctantly joined Facebook to view my friends photo’s from her travels around the globe, and then got hooked! Over those 2 years in which I have been interested in social media, I think it has been catapulted into the limelight (from my perspective anyway, you may disagree), and now there is no escaping it!

The development of design, content, links, networking and media coverage of social media has improved enormously, it’s well documented and new innovations are continually being introduced. Social networking is a phenomenon I never thought I would get into, never mind checking my profile and searching for friends regularly, this was more so when I first signed up.

Online profiling on such networking sites as, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter or any type of blogging sites will enhance and develop your profile across the web, depending of course on your privacy settings. Content quality and use of keywords all effects how you rank in search engines, such as Google.

The following selection of tips may enhance your visibility and optimization…
1. Include good quality content
2. Utilise any links to other sites you blog on etc
3. Update your blog / social networking site regularly
4. Use keywords to enhance ranking capabilities.

Over the past few months my colleagues have been talking about Twitter, I didn’t really want to join another social network, (having one I thought was enough work for me), and a couple of months ago I decided I had had enough and finally gave in.

I cannot begin to tell you how much I have benefited from joining Twitter – from a work/industry perspective anyway. As I mentioned in an earlier entry I am fairly new to the world of PR and SEO, following people on Twitter who have much experience and sharing links / articles on related topics has helped me immensely.

I often find with social networking some can people become obsessed over it, depending on whether it’s used for social or business purposes…. Is it ok to be obsessed with it? What do you think? Am I alone with this perspective? And have you tried typing your name in Google to see where / if you rank?

What are the “Golden Rules of Social Media and Internet Marketing”

1) Listen: listen and observe, see what’s being said online and how you can participate

2) Participate: join in, share stuff, be helpful

3) Give first, ask later. The best rule of thumb is to give more than you take.

4) Dialog: communicate, remember the cocktail party example

5) Don’t try and do everything: it’s not always a great idea to have 35 social networking sites. Get only as many as you can manage

6) Leave your wallet at the door: don’t show up online wanting to make money. Show up ready to share and enlighten. This will take you much further.

7) Don’t be afraid to share your opinion.

Be honest: it’s tempting for some to embellish or lie. Who’s gonna find out about it, right? Wrong. The Internet has a way of sifting out the fake stuff and embracing the real messages.

All credit to http://amarketingexpert.com for the article – great summary