Vocus Online Conference "Retweet - Engagment Means Business" Summary P

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Public Relations Management software providers Vocus held a fantastic webinar on Wednesday 28th July 2010, including talks from five influential speakers from the PR, marketing and social media world: Deidre Breakenridge, David Meerman Scott, Beth Harte, Lee Oddin and Brian Solis.
We thoroughly enjoyed the whole day of marketing and 2.0 insights and we thought for those of you who didn't get a chance to watch the speakers and get involved in the live chat, we'd summarise each speaker's presentation (and their scheduled chat afterwards) and try to answer any unanswered questions from the chatrooms. Every weekday this week, we will post a summary, following up next week with the chat questions. Enjoy!
Lee Odden - TopRankMarketing.com
Lee Odden's presentation, "Top 10 SEO Tips for PR" explained the basics of integrating search engine optimisation into the public relations and marketing side of business to maximise the potential of your SEO.
Overview:
The purpose of SEO is to make the content on your site easily found by search engines, and in turn, raising your ranking in their result pages. With PR, SEO can do the same optimisation to make your news content easily found by journalists and the media. As David Meerman Scott puts it:
I have received over 25,000 email story pitches over the last two years. Products. Solutions. Tech innovations, etc. How many resulted in stories? None. I go to the web and search for information on the topic I want to do a story on.
Pitches do not result in massive media exposure. Researchers find their own stories, depending on what is trending, what is new, what is engaging. A journalist or researcher's path to finding a fresh story firstly takes them to a search engine. Next they explore the results, find out facts, information and ideas to expand on. They will choose their content based on their trust of those sources, whether they have a good SEO ranking, if they are an authority on what they are talking about. This leads to a media relationship between the researcher and the source, with journalists using their favourite, trusted sites for information again and again. Obviously, you want your site to be in that position - giving you instant media coverage without having to pitch, cajole or fight for it.
Balancing the Push and Pull
Odden used a Push/Pull explanation to show the difference between traditional PR and SEO-enhanced marketing.
The PUSH covers PR and its outreach approach, for example using wire services, networking,Armani sunglasses, pitching etc, effectively pushing for sales.
In contrast, the PULL is what your content does when it is optimised with SEO, for example distributing press releases, a newsroom or section on your website, social media networking and media coverage.
Implementing SEO into your PR content will both help your site rank higher, and enable your important information and news to be found, shared and distributed.
The Basics
The basics of search engine optimisation are easy to take on board and put into place, making your PR and SEO mutually beneficial. For example you can:
Reach journalists and researchers with the content they are looking for.
Extend the reach of your PR and communications.
Increase unsolicited media placements.
Bypass media channels and deliver the information directly to consumers.
Protect your brand and online reputation.
Why SEO is Important
By optimising the content on your website or blog, you will assist your existing SEO,cheap jeans, adding extra channels in which your content can be shared, linked to and distributed. A higher ranking on SERPs (search engine result pages) lends credibility and trust to your brand and site - essentially showing that you are the Number 1 expert in your field.
Having a beautiful and informative site is not enough - if it isn't optimised, Google (or other search engines) aren't going to find it and you won't be listed for the relevant search terms that relate to your products or services.
Odden gave the example of an Adidas site - full of strong impacting images of men's sportsware and training shoes... but no actual text on the page - meaning that the site didn't make it into the top 10 ranking pages for "men's running shoes". In contrast, he showed a Patagonia site, similarly image heavy, but also containing navigation content - providing search engine crawlers with plenty of informative text to help them rank the site appropriately. Therefore Patagonia's site came up as the number one result for "outdoor clothing".
Top 10 Tips:
#1 -Make your site searchable! Search engines need to crawl your site to gather the information they require to rank you accordingly. Certain files can block the bots used to do this which results in your pages being missed. Remove any barriers and make sure your site is easy to navigate. Things to check are privacy settings in place to keep bots away while a site is under construction or ensuring that you don't just duplicate text such as title tags, and be sure to register and validate your site with Webmaster Central so they know your site exists! Search engines thrive on unique, fresh content, and need to know what your page is about so make it easy for them and optimise.
#2 - Optimise all content. Make the most of all and any content you publish by inserting keywords and links, including: blog posts, press releases, news, PDFs, white papers, link and anchor text, interviews, newsletters, even comments. And don't forget about "digital assets" such as images, video, podcasts and social media interactions. If it's published, it must be optimised and promoted. Content distribution encourages linking, which also boosts SEO.
#3 - Know when PPC is a better choice than SEO. SEO is a long term process, ingrained in the content and makeup of your website, building presence and links over time. PPC campaigns run on demand as a more instant alternative to natural listings. There are times when PPC is a better marketing route, such as promoting a business change or new product, or to combat negativity with a realtime reaction in a way that SEO could not do so quickly.
#4 - Research your keywords. SEO generally starts with researching which keywords you want to optimise to best promote your products, services or website. Which words and phrases do people actually search for when they are looking for your specific goods? You can't just rely on what keywords you already tend to use, or the ones you decide are most important - you MUST do your research in this area, and glean information from your competitors, search engines and keyword tools. Brainstorm, import your keywords into a research tool, check variations, permutations, popularity, relevance, competitors and trends. Do a search and see what types of media come up on the first page - if there are a lot of videos that match your main keywords, it could mean your customers are looking for video answers to their queries, and that's where you should be adding your content. If a targeted keyword is highly competitive, consider long tail search terms instead.
#5 - Maximise your on-page SEO. Use keywords in title tags, page titles, navigation links, body copy, keyword links,cheap shoes, image alt text, URLs, meta tags and so on. Organise your pages logically so bots can easily find the content. Add content regularly and sort into categories or themes according to subject. Monitor your page metrics and adjust if you're not getting the results you're after.
#6 - Optimise press releases. Add your researched keywords into press releases and optimise your content, add a call to action, link to relevant landing pages, add media, post to your newsroom, pitch to the media and distribute via social media to get the most out of a single press release. Press releases can be used as a powerful SEO tool to gain links and increase rankings.
#7 -Optimised your newsroom. Using software like WordPress makes it easy to implement SEO into your newsroom or blog by adding tags, organising posts into categories, inserting keywords and links, enabling RSS or email subscription and site search, linking with your social media networks and posting a variety of fresh, unique content including multimedia.
#8 - Build links and "electrify" content in search. Inbound links boost your search credibility and will help you rank higher. Earn links with great content, promote your site and content socially, trade links with partners, link internally to other posts or landing pages, embed links in press releases, use keywords in link text rather than "click here". Bear in mind that natural links are much more powerful than a bought link. Grow your brand's network through gaining email subscribers and followers and fans on social networks.
#9 - Use social media. Optimise your social media content for search - three of the top ten search engines are searching socially already and it is an area which is likely to become an integral part of natural search. Social media can influence SEO and vice versa: by optimising you are link building,cheap clothing, networking and boosting traffic, including the expansion of your social media presence. In turn, social media increases exposure, the amount of places your content is shared and builds natural links, assisting with SEO.
#10 - Measure PR SEO. There are various ways to monitor your analytics, such as individual wire service metrics, analytics for landing pages, site traffic, Google alerts, monitoring RSS subscriptions, conversion tracking, social media monitoring, amount of inbound links, pick ups on blogs/sites/publications and search rankings. Compare yourself with the competition and see where you can improve.
Tips and Hints (from the live chat):
Beginners looking into some DIY SEO shouldn't worry about the differences in optimising for separate search engines (eg Google or Bing). Analytics can give you clues and hints, but unless you are an SEO professional, you should mainly concentrate on keywords, writing engaging content, link building and increasing visibility.
Even text within Flash can be seen by Googlebots in many cases. The best way to optimise this kind of text is to add it to the page where the Flash loads,gucci shoes, eg: embed the Flash within the HTML of the page where the text is published.
Great resources for learning search engine optimisation are abundant online, though nothing compares to first hand knowledge and experience. Get involved, go to conferences, network and research. See the resources below for invaluable sources online.
Well, that's all from us today - thanks again to Vocus and Lee Odden for a great presentation. Come back every weekday this week for the rest of the webinar summaries, and check the blog next week for our Q&A session comprised of all the questions that couldn't get answered on the day.