We here at StratiMind would like to welcome you to this premiere issue of SEO Insights. Whether you are new to SEO or a seasoned expert, we hope that you find our newsletter useful in two ways: as a way to stay current with all that is happening in the fast-paced world of search engine optimization and as a tool to help improve the effectiveness of your own sales lead generation programs. We would love to
hear your feedback and ideas on how we can provide you even more value. And if you do find value here, then please link to us and tell a friend! - Jim Griffeth, Editor
In This Issue:
Best SEO Practices for Issuing Press Releases
How To Set Up Your Corporate Blog for Maximum SEO Impact
The SEO Executive Summary - Convincing the Boss To Invest
Google Algorithm Update: Paid Text Links
Best SEO Practices for Issuing Press Releases
If your company's marketing and promotion strategy includes the Internet (and whose doesn't these days!), your entire press release process should be optimized for SEO purposes and distributed via the Internet to the major news search engines. The reasons are simple:
- Get Read - If you do it right, your press release will get distributed to thousands of news sites and will get great exposure in the news feeds of Yahoo and Google. Each month, more than 27 million people in the U.S. use Google News and Yahoo News to find the latest information about a wide range of topics that interest them. According to Neilsen/NetRatings, the unique audiences of Yahoo News and Google News now rival the online audiences of other current events and global news destinations such as CNN and BBC News.
- Give Your Website a Boost - Your press release will get archived on the major newswire websites and so its links back to your web site will serve to provide you with important backlinks and the associated “link juice” will help to boost your site in the search engine rankings.
Issuing a press release that is optimized for search involves creating the press release content itself, distributing it on the web and posting it on your own website.
The Content of the Press Release
- Think about the keywords that you want to work into the press release before you write it. These may be specific phrases that pertain to the topic of the release or your more general keyword phrases that go into many of your releases.
- Use keywords in the headline/subhead and first sentence/paragraph of the release. This is where the search engines will look for relevancy of this release when deciding whether to show it in the search results for a particular search term.
- Place links to additional materials in the body of the release with link text (a.k.a. anchor text) that contains keywords.
- Build a boilerplate paragraph (i.e. “About Company XYZ) that is keyword-rich and which contains at least one link back to your website.
- Make sure you check your release for spelling and grammar before submitting it or publishing it.
- See the press release template section below for specific best practices in creating effective press releases.
Distributing the Press Release via the Internet
- Create an account at PRWeb.com. You may also wish to create accounts on PRNewswire.com, businesswire.com and any other internet press release distribution sites. However, you should keep in mind that each time you add another distribution service, it will cost money. PRWeb is the most important and the others will provide only minimal returns over and above PRWeb’s distribution.
- Within PRWeb, submit your press release through the online options and selecting the “SEO” level of distribution ($200). This will provide a vital boost in terms of visibility in the search engines when issuing your press release.
Publishing the Release on Your Website
- Create a unique page for your press release.
- The title tag of the page should be the title of the press release. Make sure that it is optimized with keywords!
- Name the file containing the press release using up to 4 of your release’s keywords separated by hyphens (dashes).
- Link to this new page (and all your most recent press releases from your “news” page using title text that is either the headline itself, or a shorter version thereof.
A Press Release Template (from PRWeb.com)
Headline Announces News in Title Case, Ideally Under 80 Characters
The summary paragraph is a little longer synopsis of the news, elaborating on the news in the headline in one to four sentences. The summary uses sentence case, with standard capitalization and punctuation.
City, State (PRWEB) Month 1, 2008 -- The lead sentence contains the most important information in 25 words or less. Grab your reader’s attention here by simply stating the news you have to announce. Do not assume that your reader has read your headline or summary paragraph; the lead should stand on its own. Be sure to include your important keywords in the headline, summary and lead paragraph. Add your Web address here for a quick link and to reinforce your site name and location.
A news release, like a news story, keeps sentences and paragraphs short, about three or four lines per paragraph. The first couple of paragraphs should answer the who, what, when, where, why and how questions. The news media may take information from a news release to craft a news or feature article or may use information in the release word-for-word.
The standard press release is 300 to 800 words and written in a word processing program that checks spelling and grammar before submission to PRWeb.
The ideal headline is 80 characters long. PRWeb will accept headlines with a maximum of 170 characters. PRWeb recommends writing your headline and summary last, to be sure you include the most important news elements in the body of the release. Use title case in the headline only, capitalizing every word except for prepositions and articles of three characters or less.
The rest of the news release expounds on the information provided in the lead paragraph. It includes quotes from key staff, customers or subject matter experts. It contains more details about the news you have to tell, which can be about something unique or controversial or about a prominent person, place or thing. It also includes links to your Web site in this form: www.stratimind.com/ .
Typical topics for a news release include announcements of new products or of a strategic partnership, the receipt of an award, the publishing of a book, the release of new software or the launch of a new Web site. The tone is neutral and objective, not full of hype or text that is typically found in an advertisement. Avoid directly addressing the consumer or your target audience. The use of “I,” “we” and “you” outside of a direct quotation is a flag that your copy is an advertisement rather than a news release.
Do not include an e-mail address in the body of the release. If you do, it will be protected from spam bots with a notice to that effect, which will overwrite your e-mail address.
“The final paragraph of a traditional news release contains the least newsworthy material,” said Mario Bonilla, member services director for PRWeb. “But for an online release, it’s typical to restate and summarize the key points with a paragraph like the next one.”
For additional information on the news that is the subject of this release (or for a sample, copy or demo), contact Mary Smith or visit www.stratimind.com/. You can also include details on product availability, trademark acknowledgment, etc. here.
About XYZ Company:
Include a short corporate backgrounder, or “boilerplate,” about the company or the person who is newsworthy before you list the contact person’s name and phone number.
Contact:
Mary Smith, director of public relations
XYZ Company
555-555-5555
http://www.stratimind.com
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How To Set Up Your Corporate Blog for Maximum SEO Impact
If done correctly, a corporate blog can create inbound links of high quality and in sufficient quantity that this alone can justify the (considerable) investment in time it takes to create the frequent posts and maintain the blog over time. Not all blogging services are beneficial for SEO link-building purposes. Typepad, for instance, by default uses the rel=”nofollow” attribute on its outbound links and thus does not pass PageRank. Wordpress is generally preferred by SEO experts.
Should You Host Your Own Corporate Blog? (or use a blog hosting service?)
The answer depends on how you intend to use your blog(s) and whether you are okay with the inherent bias that your blog will have on day one from its direct association with your corporate website. If your blog is meant to be a dialog with your customers, then this association is a natural and positive one. If on the other hand, you plan to address controversial topics, or topics where there are potential legal issues, then the association will be negative. For example, for an online gaming company in the U.S. (where online gambling is illegal) lobbying for legalized gambling with a corporate blog is clearly self-serving and therefore likely to backfire as the self-policing community of bloggers will go out of their way to discredit it. It may also be potentially tricky from a legal standpoint – are you promoting your online gambling services in the U.S. by lobbying for it?
For most of us, these inherent bias and legal issues are manageable, in which case I agree with Rand Fishkin at SEOMoz who recently posted this blog entry:
“Hosting your blog on a different domain from your primary site is one of the worst mistakes you can make. A blog on your domain can attract links, attention, publicity, trust and search rankings - by keeping the blog on a separate domain, you shoot yourself in the foot. From worst to best, your options are - Hosted (on a solution like Blogspot or Wordpress), on a unique domain (at least you can 301 it in the future), on a subdomain (these can be treated as unique from the primary domain by the engines) and as a sub-section of the primary domain (in a subfolder or page - this is the best solution).”
Furthermore, hosting you own blog means that you get all the link juice from inbound links, you don’t have to worry about the hosting site’s downtime or financial stability, and your own employees and users will attach more importance to the “official company blog” than they would if it were hosted offsite.
One Big Corporate Blog or Lots of Little Ones?
Do you intend to have lots of bloggers using the new corporate blog? If so, then you’ll need to decide whether to create multiple blog sub-directories or simply have multiple authors in a single blog. While the categories feature of most blog software makes it easy to search for and follow topics, finding all posts by a particular author is often not so easy. My view is that one big corporate blog is fine unless you have a very big blogging community in your company. The ability to follow a particular author is a non-issue if you can encourage your bloggers to stick mainly to their own topical areas – the CEO blogs about the industry and the business while the CTO blogs about the technology and new developments. With this policy, you can find the CEO’s posts easily by topics.
Set Up Your Blog as a Subdirectory or a Sub-domain?
The question is whether to go with a blog set up as a sub-domain, (“blog.company.com/blog1/”) or as a sub-directory (“www.company.com/blog”). This is as much a question of website/blog maintainability as it is an SEO issue. I recommend the sub-directory approach for the following reasons:
- Link popularity is more easily spread to the rest of the website with the subdirectory structure, especially if there is only one level of directory (i.e. “www.company.com/blog/” and not “www.company.com/news/social-media/blogs/blog1/”).
- If you must create multiple blogs, you will be faced with the issue of how to organize them within the chosen structure, and I find it cleanest to just create a subdirectory for all blogs and then a subdirectory for each blog: www.company.com/blogs/ericsblog/, jimsblog/, etc.
Resources
In researching this topic, I found the following excellent resources:
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The SEO Executive Summary - Convincing the Boss To Invest
We've all been there - developed a great SEO program with a compelling ROI, presented it to the boss and they just don't seem to understand. Sometimes a little executive (re-)education is in order. This article is intended to serve as a brief review of the case for search engine optimization programs.
If you are a senior executive, then you should know that there is no better way to increase the quantity and quality of your website traffic than with an investment in search engine optimization (SEO). This is a brief introduction to the complex art and science of SEO intended to give the senior executive enough information to understand the why's, how's, risks and ROI of an SEO marketing program.
The Purchase Process Now Begins With Search Engines
A recent Eloqua survey of 1,500 business professionals in B2B companies found that a staggering 93% start their purchase process with online research, and 64% go first to search engines. The entire selling process has changed as a result of the fundamental shift to online research and buying. No matter what business you are in, the fact of the matter is that your buyers will most certainly be using the search engines to learn everything from what solutions are available to how happy your current customers are. Conclusion: good visibility of your website in search engines is now paramount. Do you know how you rank today for your top keywords?
Search Engines Provide Highly Targeted Traffic
As frightening as the new sales paradigm is, there is also an upside - the clicks that come from search engines to your website are as well qualified as any sales leads you will ever get. They are actively seeking information about a problem they face and have self-selected your website as a possible source of information and/or a solution. Conclusion: Getting that search engine traffic to come to your website is the vital first step to success.
Google Rules the Search Engine Market
Hitwise released their Feb 2008 search engine market share numbers and, to noone's surprise, Google is still way out in front with 66.4% to Yahoo’s 20.6%, and MSN’s 7.0%. Even more impressive still, Google enjoys over 85% of all B2B queries. Conclusion: SEO initiatives focus first on optimizing for top rankings in Google.
What to Expect From Top Rankings
The difference in traffic generated by a first place ranking vs. a 10th place ranking is a factor of 10! Google shows 10 "organic" search results per page, and usually the top 5 results are visible without scrolling down the page. Don't confuse paid search listings with organic ones either because users know the difference and they click on organic listings 5 times as often as paid search ads. Conclusion: Getting onto the first page of organic listings is good, but ranking in the top 5 is much better, and achieving that coveted first place position in the organic results is the real SEO goal for your optimized web pages.
How Google Ranks Webpages
There are 2 factors that Google uses to rank web pages: Relevancy and Importance. Relevancy is Google's measure of how closely the content of each of your pages matches the intent of the user's search query. Google determines the Importance of your web pages based on the quality and quantity of so-called inbound links (links to your web pages from other websites). The algorithms that Google uses to determine Relevancy and Importance are closely guarded trade secrets, but Google is clear that it will reward good content with good listings. Conclusion: Good content is King with search engines and to try and get to the top of the search results without it is folly.
Getting To The Top of Google - How We Optimize a Website
SEO specialists have been able to gain enough insight through carefully studying Google's methods that we are able to achieve a great deal of success in propelling websites with relevant content to the top of Google's search engine results pages (a.k.a. SERPS). We follow a well-defined and proven 8-step SEO process which focusses first on modifying specific parts of your web pages to improve their relevancy for your selected search phrases. Then we turn to analyzing and building the quality and quantity of inbound links - an ongoing process that is similar to the outreach programs for public relations, industry analysts and investors. This latter part of the process can involve online community-building through new "social media" marketing techniques including blogs, tagging and social networks. Conclusion: This SEO stuff is a lot more involved that you might think and it takes a special combination of business and technical skills to do it well.
The Risks of SEO - What to Avoid
With all there is to be gained by optimizing a website, there are also significant risks if it is done incorrectly. Google has an army of PhD's who are dedicated to figuring out how to identify websites that are attempting to "cheat" their way to the top of the SERPS. This collection of practices is referred to as "black hat" SEO (or unethical SEO) and is expressly forbidden by Google. To ensure the continuing value of its search results to its users, Google will and does impose severe penalties on those that get caught using these deceptive practices. Conclusion: If you have any doubts at all, make sure that you hire a proven SEO expert to supplement your own team's expertise, and that this expert is very knowledgable about what constitutes unethical SEO.
The Rest of the SEO Success Pyramid™
Of course, getting that highly-qualified traffic to click through from search engines is only the beginning. Now you have to convert those visitors into prospects. This doesn't happen all at once, nor is there any easy formula for maximizing your conversion rate. Instead you need to be smart about how you woo your customers. This takes lots of effort and lots of experimentation and is enabled by a good foundation in the form of a well-designed website and an effective web analytics system. This latter system, like Google Analaytics (free) allows detailed measurement of visitor traffic sources and behaviors once they arrive at your website. Conclusion: Once the website has been optimized for search, shift the focus of the web development team to optimize visitor conversions to truly maximize the ROI on your investment in SEO. If this is a new process for them, make sure that you hire a seasoned web analytics expert to help ensure that they are successful.
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Google Algorithm Update: Paid Text Links
Google has been on record for a couple years now that paid text links are considered a questionable practice and has vowed to update their algorithms to better deal with the widespread use of this link-building method. Here is a bit of the background on this controversy.
The Paid Text Links Controversy
As early as 2005, Matt Cutts, Google's blogger to the SEO community, did a post to his blog stating clearly that Google has the capability of identifying paid text links within a web page. Then, in April of 2007, Matt again posted an article about "How to report paid links", which not only explains the negative impact that selling text links will have on the selling website And that it will be discounted in terms of passing pagerank., but goes further to enlist the user community to help Google identify spammy paid text links. In repsonse, Danny Sullivan of SES fame posted on his searchenginewatch.com blog: "Google Goes To War on Paid Text Links" in which Danny criticizes Matt's definition of spammy paid text links as being too broad and Google's attempt to recruit the user community as flawed. Throughout this period, the prudent use of paid text links was still a very effective means of gaining inbound links that pass PageRank.
In October 2007, we began to see the impact of Google's algorithm development efforts as Google's algorithm update seemed to many to penalize sites that were heavy users of paid text links. There has been much discussion on the efficacy of paid text links in the bloggosphere since, but no clear information from Google themselves on whether this is true or not. One point of view holds that the drop in PageRank observed by many webmasters was Google's across-the-board devaluation of PageRank in response to the explosion of new content on the web (due in large part to the growth of blogging and other social media site content). The opposing camp points out that certain prominent news sites and blogs where interlinking among the pages of the blog is heavy (e.g. Wordpress) were penalized to a greater extent than those where there is less interlinking.
What To Do
At this point, it is clear that Google intends to adjust downward the PageRank coming from paid text links. So whether the October 2007 updates include this or not isn't as important as the realization that paid text links that pass PageRank are, or will soon, be discounted by Google. Accordingly, we are recommending to client and friends who have previously utilized paid text links to back off on further investments and focus instead on the many other methods of building quality inbound links.
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