SEO PR TIPS

Some basic SEO tips for PR’s who are venturing into the online world:
Search engine rankings are an important factor to consider when building or developing a website, as well as the use of links, keywords and content. The need to use such information is to ensure the site achieves high rankings, for example, a good selection of links and the more links you have related to your site equals more traffic, plus, search engines are more likely to like the site.

Many larger corporations and anyone who can afford to use SEO companies and/or multilingual SEO organistions, are there to improve or enhance your site in order to gain better search rankings, however there is no guarantee that an SEO company will improve your site rankings. Search engines tend to keep you in the best position for your site, and unless you suddenly produce the best possible site there is a limited possibility that you will drop your position.

Consider the following factors to enhance your search results:
• Content – ensure the quality is good and contains plenty of keywords to maintain visitor numbers, to further your content make the use of niche words. Also bullet points in content will always be picked upon, try to add them in your content.
• Design of the site and software used to build it can also make a difference as to where you rank. Text is important in helping the visitor get to the information they have searched for, whether the content is written on your page or there is a link to whatever the visitor is looking for. If you have any images on the pages, ensure they have alt tags and title tags. Important Note: alt and title tags should always differ.
• Title of your site should contain no more than 12-14 words (include keywords in the website title). The header of the post must contain keywords also in order to attain higher page rank.
• Navigations should always be created using text, the use of images will deplete any page rankings you have. The keywords used in the navigation menu should always be the same as they are general web standards.
• Any links which are on your pages should relate to your site, to increase the chance of high search engine rankings, any external links should relate to your sites niche.
• An up-to-date site and an eye on your competitors will ensure you stay ahead, keep an eye on current SEO news and use the techniques to your advantage.

Oscar Carreras, Sales Strategist at WebCertain kept us up-to-date throughout the Search Engine Strategies Conference in London via Twitter and has now most helpfully provided us with a round-up of the key messages.  Interestingly, all of his points relate to SEO-PR…

•    Video is the future

Not only there were several sessions about video but it was mentioned in at least 3 non related sessions. YouTube is already the second biggest search engine in the world and internet users across the world spend 30 min at least by average watching videos, not to mention the rising appearance of videos in blended or Universal search.

•    Online PR = Strategic Link Building Strategy

Online PR seems to be utilized by most of agencies as their main tool for strategic link building. In addition, blogging, social media, etc are all supported by online PR teams. Content creation should be a must.

(Jenny – my italics.  As I mentioned in my post yesterday about the boom in social media, the role for PRs to play is to create original content to support these activities)

•   The challenges and opportunities of Social Media

Social media pervaded all the sesssions at SES London, but it seems to be difficult to build a business model around it.

The way most of the agencies are approaching it is by leading by example and make it an integral part of their marketing toolset for lead generation and then show off that knowledge and results to provide with consultancy to clients or support in the way of apps generation, widgets, video creation, etc.

They don’t seem to offer to create profiles and handle them on behalf of their clients since it is not cost effective and not very useful since clients know more about their products that an agency will never do. Conclusion: walk the walk and don’t talk the talk.

(Jenny – yes, this is the major issue with these types of campaigns – who does what?  It’s all about user-generated content, but it needs a push – and imagination combined with technical / web know-how)
•   Reporting and analytics

Automation, analytics driven processes, etc seem to be the ways for agencies to scale services. The most important skill for both SEO and PPC, and maybe Social Media too, should be analytics expertise to reach conclusion out of empiric data.

(Jenny – and analytics is the main focus for the technology team at WebCertain)

Any more thoughts on SES London?

What is the ideal length of a headline when writing for online impact?

Last year I made a new friend who is a chief-sub on the Daily Record, one of Scotland’s biggest selling newspapers (maybe the biggest selling – sorry Katie). We have very different experiences of writing, especially headlines. Katie is working to a restricted space on the printed page, whereas I have no restrictions – which sounds great until you consider the different criteria you are trying to fit into.

It’s the limited space that has created “tabloidese” that peculiar language of abbreviations, wit and hyperbole. The nature of the beast means that these headlines are pretty devoid of keywords, so a high impact newspaper headline (such as the Sun’s infamous “Gotcha!” front page during the Falklands War) would have little value in SEO terms.

How does your headline affect Google News placement?
Google, of course, won’t reveal their algorithm for the News channel and it is still something of an enigma for search experts.

I looked for an example to try and understand more. Last night’s big entertainment story here was the Brit Awards. Why does Hello get the top link with their slang heavy headline?

Well, obviously, the headline is only a small part of the algorithm!

Having read around, there is conflicting advice. Here are some of the basics.

• Get your most important keyword / message near the start, so if your headline is cut off it still appears
• Shorter is better, even if it means sacrificing some keywords – your introductory paragraph is just as important
• Think about people (not robots) reading your story – will your headline be of interest to them?
• If you aren’t using a re-direct / url shortening system, your headline will probably dictate the url of your story (as works with this blog). If you then want to “tweet” your story on Twitter, you need to consider how the link eats into your 140 character limit

Have you got any advice to share?

Here’s a recent quote from Daryl Willcox, chairman of DWPub: “There are tons of people out there blogging about how important online PR is, but there is very little in terms of actual guidance – especially for those who have limited online PR experience.   (Source)

Mr Willcox is promoting a white paper he has written about online PR – and this campaign is pretty successful.  I’ve come across references to it several times accidentally – and the quote above annoyed me enough to repeat it!  Great campaign management…

SEO-PR-Tips Absence of advice about online PR?

We are trying to offer practical advice, along with adding our own personal spin on what’s happening right now. 

I’m sure the DWPub is full of great advice (they are a good company and we use their press wires), but you will get widely differing views on this subject from people, depending on their background.

Daryl Willcox is from a PR background and understands the value of targeted campaign management, use of key contacts, the human reaction to content.

I’m constantly dealing with people who view our work from an SEO perspective only – they see the “link farm potential” in our international news network, or they are only interested in reports that can prove direct referrals.

The boom in social media (and it seems to be all that clients and the search industry alike are talking about at the moment!) is actually proving to be a good thing for the way PR is perceived.  Creating a buzz, trying to build up word-of-mouth interest, devising events / issues that will make people care – suddenly these are becoming important again – almost as important as keyword density…

I’m watching this space with interest…please share your thoughts on the latest online PR developments

EDIT – Please note the clarification in the comments.  Thanks for the feedback Andrew.

The use of social networks and micro-blogging is growing faster than ever, with many business joining in to enhance their services, improve internet rankings, reputations, any campaigns and much much more.

Recently the first official “Twisitor Centre” was launched in the US by Travel Portland, where travellers can connect to the Twisitor Centre to find out holiday / travel information, just like a walk in visitor centre, which relies on Twitter technology, so travellers can plan holidays to the city etc etc.

The use of codes to transfer the “tweets” to the Twisitor Centre is essential to get the correct feedback, visit Travel Mole who reported on the tweeting city.

Twitter and other micro blogging / social networking sites are great to find out local information, like places you are visiting on holiday etc, keeping your Twitter, Facebook, Myspace etc profile public may be risky if you declare too much information, however if you are following people from all over the world, information will be far more accessible, just remember to be careful!!

Social Media as many people are aware plays such a huge part in PR, especially for online content and sites. Travel sites are’nt necessarliy updated as frequently as they should:

“On travel companies not reviewing Web 2.0/Social Media as part of a comprehensive Internet marketing and distribution strategy, together with website re-designs and optimisations, search marketing, email marketing, strategic linking, online sponsorships and display advertising: Many travel companies don’t have the resources or confidence to think holistically.” said Scott McNeely, Director of Consumer & Affiliate Web, Viator Inc. also recommends that travel suppliers should constantly update content.

take a look..

The need to keep up-to-date with social media and business is imperative to promote the brand as much as possible…SEO, SEM, link building, web design etc

The WebCertain International Search Summit event about Social Media and International opportunities will be held in London @ the British Library on 14th May 2009… Find out more

Techradar thinks that “Facebook has jumped the shark”

The Telegraph seems to publish about 5 Twitter stories a minute, which proves it is hot stuff (they have an editorial policy of making sure they are writing stories on the top Google searches, something they have been mocked for.

But, hey wait a minute – this providing what the reader wants rather than forcing upon us the biased views of the owner – right kids? And it was what we were doing years ago at www.ananova.com – before I’d heard of SEO)

However, at the moment at least the Telegraph list of the top 30 Twitter users is blank…tut tut.

Tech Digest doesn’t think Facebook will be around in five years

I don’t know, but I do know that Friends Reunited is but a distant memory…

Shameless plug…

WebCertain hosted two very successful International Search Summits in London last year and March will see the first event being held in Norway.

More details of the event can be found on our international news site NewsCertain, or go directly to http://www.internationalsearchsummit.no/ (site is in English).

It should be a really good conference, especially with the presence of one of the most entertaining speakers on the circuit; Kristjan Mar Hauksson of Nordic eMarketing.

The SEO-PR-Tips team regret that they won’t be attending this one (although we will have our spies there) – we’re saving ourselves for the next London International Search Summt in May – that event will focus on Social Media.

The final line-ups are yet to be announced, but (strictly on the hush hush you understand) we have heard some interesting names.  One thing that is very likely to be discussed is a follow up on the international Facebook research that WebCertain has been carrying out with Ann Kennedy.  We’ll let you know more when we know more…

Oh no!

Picture the scene – you are going to visit one of your company’s major clients (worldwide household name FedEx) and it’s a pretty unattractive place where they’ve decided to stick their HQ. It’s not long before your meeting, you’re bored (maybe a little nervous), so you mess around with your Blackberry and decide to make a Twitter post.

“True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, ‘I would die if I had to live here.’”

Unfortunately, you are such a successful “Key Online Influencer” that you have too many followers to really be checking on who they are and someone from FedEx sees your Tweet, knows only too well which s***hole you’re complaining about and…well, you can guess the rest…FedEx are not happy and they don’t care how many people know that they think you’re an idiot.  Full story here – definition of a PR booboo.

It’s going to happen more and more as social networking sites blur the personal and the professional and we’ve been discussing it a lot at work.

The consensus is that Facebook is (largely) for fun and Twitter more for business, but that doesn’t mean that Twitter is confined to business-speak.  I use it to have “jokes” with colleagues and even the major big shots post stuff that is a world away from corporate-speak.

Come across any other social networking mess ups?

Story brought to us via @jamie247

Just a quick post on this…

From Cision blog
Media relations professionals and journalists can enjoy an authentic and mutually beneficial interaction on Twitter – but will they?

The media relations industry is (pardon the pun, but I need to get it out of my system) all atwitter (*collective groan* See? I warned you!) about the micro-blogging site that has attracted hundreds of media and PR industry professionals. Link