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How to position your Web site for a Media Blitz -  Part 1

by
John Alexander

 
One of the biggest challenges for search engine marketers, after they have built their SEO skills up and can achieve optimal rankings for competitive keyword phrases, is simply this. So often, we seem to have a limited approach to SEO and SEM. Possessing a good SEO skill set is the beginning of changing your online business, but where some students tend to labor is exactly what to do with their newfound knowledge. 

This is the first in a new series of articles I am writing about how you can do things differently and use your search engine marketing skills for a variety of useful purposes to make an impact on your online business or your client's business. There is no need to "think outside of the box" once you realize that your SEO skills have just eliminated the box.

A few Tips to Get Started Positioning Your Web Site for a Media Blitz in Real World News.

Before we get started with some tips, we need to make sure we understand the essence of what news is and how SEO applies to working with news. In Part 2 of this article, we will be sharing some tips for creating a media blitz and brainstorm for your own fresh angles to expand the impact of your stories.

One of the things to remember when you are working with news is that search engine robots love fresh content and by the very nature of news, it is constantly changing or being updated. Search engines already understand that news is meant to be syndicated across many different Web sites. 

For example, if you look at www.Google.com and click on the news link. 

Screen capture of Google News

We can see that Google gets it's news stories from over 4,500 different news sources. Also notice that they have recently added a search feature to look up historical news. Notice that this information pertaining to news is updated often.

Tips for publishing your news:

1. Have you thought about working with www.PRweb.com to create a series of press releases?

 Why a series of stories as opposed to just one press release? It's simple. With enough thought about your news, you could easily create a series of stories over some big event that is happening in your business. This is where some students forget, that for their press releases to really do well, you must have some genuine news to tell. Try to train yourself to think "news" not about increasing "sales" or "traffic." If you learn how to publish legitimate news then the result will usually always be more traffic and more sales.

2. Are you having trouble getting started thinking about a news story? Here are a few ideas just to get you started.

  • Is there somebody in your industry that you conduct an interview with? Ideally some authoritative voice.
    Interviews are easy to conduct, even by e-mail. How about a series of interviews?
  • Is your company changing directions in the new year? Are there stories the public need to know about concerning future directions?
  • Is there anything new happening in your specific industry that is already in the real world news that you could make use of or reflect on.
  • How about publishing a story around the results of a survey you conduct or have conducted with your customers.
  • Has your company held any kind of support events that you could fashion a news story around.
  • What if you were to conduct a contest and create some news around the results of the contest winners.
  • Do you have any interesting statistical or historical information that you could write stories around?

Once you are on a roll and have the "newsworthy" mindset, there is no end to the type of press releases that you could write and have your news showing up across the search engines on a consistent basis.

3. Learn how to appeal to the publishers and editors eye.

 One thing that new students often struggle with is learning how grab the attention of publishers and editors. This is usually overcome with practice and more practice.

Here are just a few tips.

  • Publishers are usually looking for legitimate news stories not sales related content
  • Some publishers are looking for news on the lighter side that may include some humor.
  • Publishers want statistical data and the facts
  • Publishers often watch for a story that has a "human interest" angle that is appealing.
  • Publishers want either newsworthy content or "hard news." 
  • Review your news story and see if there is any way you can make it bigger or make it last longer.

If you need help in putting more pizzazz into your press releases, we do go into much more detail at our workshops.
Remember that press releases have many other benefits if you have studied and built up solid SEO skills.

  • Press releases can be optimized for excellent visibility if you apply your workshop skills. 
  • Use a service such as Wordtracker to watch for high volume keywords that relate to your topic.
  • Remember that using www.PRweb.com is a free service but making a little donation delivers some extra and measurable benefits based on level of your donation.
  • PRweb also offers your press releases out in PDF format.
  • With a donation, PRweb has some simple tracking in place to show you statistics on how many times your press release was viewed, how many times it was picked up by other media outlets etc.
  • Publishing news on your own site on a regular consistent basis will definitely increase robot visits to your site.
  • Legitimate news is considered 100% white hat so there is no possibility of being penalized for duplicate content.
Watch for the next article: Creating a Media Blitz - Brainstorming for your own fresh angles
How up to date are you on all of the SEO influences that are currently "working in the now?"

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About John Alexander
John Alexander is Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with partner Robin Nobles as well as online search engine marketing courses through Online Web Training. John is author of an e-book called Wordtracker Magic and has taught SEO skills to people from 87 different countries. John's articles can be read in publications like REALTOR Magazine, Search Engine Guide,WEBpro News, SitePro News and many others.


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