The Web Uncovered

Nowadays, a press release is not only used to inform editors and reporters of corporate news. While they are still called press releases, the content is often used to inform the public via numerous resources, including the company’s web site, blog and social networks.

Press releases that utilize the following Search Engine Optimization (SEO) guidelines can also help occupy the leading search engine result positions for a wide variety of related topics.

1. Keywords: The most important part of any SEO campaign is keywords. When creating an SEO campaign, the first step is to identify at least 10-15 keywords that will be used on a consistent basis for any online-related activities. In order to indentify these keywords, find out how your target audience is trying to find you and your competitors via search engines. The SEO press release should incorporate the majority of the company’s keywords within the first 250 words, including the headline, sub-headline and lead sentence.
2. Headlines: Despite reasonable logic, headlines should actually begin with and focus on keywords and not the company’s name. Begin with keywords and remember that headlines should be written for web searching. Note that hyperlinks are not recommended in headlines.
3. Anchor Text & Hyperlinks: Keywords, company name’s and outside organizations should be hyperlinked in every press release to relevant and appropriate Web sites. Industry standards recommend including three to five hyperlinks as part of the press release body, as well as two fully written URLs – one in the body and one in the company boilerplate. Follow AP Stylebook guidelines when using fully written URLs (i.e. always use http:// portion of URL and place entire URL in parenthesis after the anchored link). To increase reach and relevance, be sure to link to at least one URL within the corporate Web site that is not the homepage and to at least one outside organization.
4. Documentation & Extras: From pullout quotes and side bars to images, videos and charts, adding additional documentation to your online press release will enhance web searching. Be sure to properly label and name each file with an appropriate caption.
5. Distribute: When preparing your SEO press release for distribution, consider using online distribution services. There are both paid online distribution services (i.e. Businesswire, PR Newswire, PRWeb) and free online distribution services (i.e. PR.com, PRLog.com, OnlinePRNews.com) available and each offer their own advantages and disadvantages. Paid distribution services   Some have additional costs but offer their own search engine optimization as well as share tools.
6. Share: Utilize social media tools to post your SEO press releases, release topics and links. Social networking sites (i.e. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) and social bookmarking tools (i.e. Digg, Del.icio.us, Stumbleupon, Reddit) facilitate sharing and can improve relevance and web searching. Each works differently and can potentially reach a different audience so determine which tools work best for your company. Be sure your corporate newsroom has share tools linked at the bottom to allow users an easy way to share your news with their own fans/followers.

Here are some helpful links to get you going:

• SEO Tools: http://www.seomoz.org/tools
• SEO Tools: http://tools.seobook.com
• Google Keywords: http://www.google.com/sktool
• Top Free Distribution Sites: http://www.bignews.biz/blog/?p=6

Written by Twitter Handle @jabraha7

If you are a technology nut like me, you are always interested in trying out the latest applications or tools available. Several months ago, I was lucky enough to get an early preview invite to join Google’s new communication and collaboration tool, Google Wave. The online tool is reinventing email one wave (conversation) and blip (message) at a time.

The platform combines email, instant messaging and online collaboration into a real-time system. It can be used by two people or a whole group of people. Instead of cc’ing a person on a message, you can add that person to the conversation. Users apart of a wave can follow messages in real-time, play back the entire conversation timeline and even add to or edit any part of the conversation.

While it seems confusing at first, these videos shine a light on Google Wave’s simplicity and functionality: http://simurl.com/simplewave

Although my time on Google Wave has been limited, I can already see the value in this new form of online collaboration. Instead of having an inbox full of emails back and forth between two people or a group of people, Google Wave provides a live timeline of events and updates with full editing functionality. You can even collaborate on documents in real-time as a group and embed photos, videos and maps in to the conversation.

More than one million users are actively using Google Wave in preview mode. New outlets and publications like RedEye Chicago are hosting daily waves to discuss timely and relevant topics with their readers.

There are still some kinks for Google to work out, but once Google Wave advances past preview mode and catches on with the masses, I can see this as a revolution in the business world. A

Blip me at www.googlewave.com/jabraha7

Written by Twitter Handle @jabraha7

Part of working on the world of online marketing is  that you are straddling two very different worlds.  One on hand you have the seasoned Chief Marketing Officers, whose education and understanding of marketing predates the internet.  They often are confused by the technologies, and attempt to apply their knowledge to the new media, not realizing that a new medium requires a new strategy.  On the other side you have tech-heads, who are absolutely necessary as they hold the key to using these technologies, but often have no basis of understanding marketing principles, or best practices.  Your basic need is to be their middle man, and your endgoal should be to understand both worlds well enough that you can take over both their jobs.

When it comes to online marketing, the most elemental part of traditional marketing that I believe is missed is marketing research.  Once you have your target segment, you MUST answer these questions:

1.  What websites is my target segment patronizing

2.  How are they using the website

3.  What is important to them, and how can I reveal our value added?

If you don’t have a marketing background, think of it like fishing.  If you grab random bait and go to a random body of water, if you catch fish, it was dumb luck.  Most fishermen find out what fish they are targeting, then put together a tackle box of what they need.  The most important part is your bait or lure; without the bite, there is no fish.  Your fishing pole, bait, etc is all dependent on marketing research.

Now let’s just avoid a fishing story.  :)

Web 2.o developments have significantly changed the way political campaigns are executed.  The Obama campaign championed some of these technologies with a team of over 90 people working on just their internet presence.  While virility is much easier to attain with a presidential candidate, it did plow a path for for more local political campaigns to follow in how social media can make a difference on election day.

First of all, not only did Obama have a Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, and every other social network page, he also created his whole own social network Mybarackobama.com, which had millions of registered users.  While this is a good start, it was only the beginning.  Obama kept a blog, a text message list, email list with 13 million names, and more.  What this signifies is not just a move of campaigning to the internet, but utilizing the less formal aspects of online marketing.  Getting a text message from Obama is much more humanizing than seeing him on CNN addressing a crowd.  

This feeds into consumer psychology.  If politics is a business, representation is the product.  People want to believe they have access to their politicians, and that their voice is truly heard.  Utilizing these technologies, Obama was able to address many more nuanced concerns of his constituacy.   Following in suite, many other politicians began using Twitter to Having new ways to both reach out to your audience and have them feel as if they are reaching you, this has greatly changed the way campaigns will be done.

Marshall Mccluhan maybe remember for his wonderful observations of how the media and society are inseparably intertwined.  However,  the vast changes in technology since his death in 1980 has astounding ramifications for those marketing in the digital age.

If the entity providing the message is the medium, they still may be tied to the message as long as the source is credible.   The appearance of credibility is so easy to create online that it becomes increasingly difficult for media consumers to differentiate between credible sources and well-performed shams.  However, if the medium is the internet, then the message is incoherent.  There is no message on the internet.

But this is not completely dreadful news.  In fact in means that the medium becomes so constant that the only thing left is the message, even if only in hot terms.  However, the issue is that many older marketing managers see the internet as the ready-made fix-all and fail to recognize that not only can content not be developed, but that it must be done in standard marketing terms; segmentation, value-added, and placement.

The Takeaway:

Large-scale web presence requires quality content.  The internet transcends McCluhan’s hot media/cold media labels, so pictures and videos can be followed with detailed descriptions of your product or services, in a multi-sensorial approach.  Technology is great, but the more technology-savvy your target audience is, the more clearly focused your message must be.  In short, online marketing is not a bandaid for a bad marketing plan.