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

Many small business owners that come to us already understand the importance of social media. They get that there are hundreds of thousands of potential customers on Twitter, Facebook and other online communities, but they aren’t quite sure how to get started.

Instead of just jumping in and creating accounts on a number of social networking sites, we recommend to our clients to take a step back and create a plan, just like you would for any other part of the business.

Here are some basic steps to build out a social media plan:

1. Define your purpose/goals – What do you want to get out of the time and energy put into social media? Do you want to build brand awareness? Generate new leads? Become a leading source of news and information regarding a specific topic?  By defining your purpose and goals, you create a overarching guideline for every tweet, post or message you deliver via social networking sites. If a particular message does help reach those goals, you are wasting your time sending it.
2. Determine your target audience – There are millions of users are social networking sites and you certainly can’t reach them all. So define your primary, secondary and tertiary target audiences based on your main purposes and goals. Be specific. Beyond your basic customer, what other audiences are important to your business? Think about related associations, societies and organizations. Don’t forget about editors and reports from target publications that can potentially help spread your message.
3. Understand the social media environment – There is much more to the social media environment than just Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. Hundreds of niche social networking sites exist, each with specific target markets. Take the time to research these networks to determine the most relevant online communities and outlets for your target audience. Where are you more likely to be able to engage in conversations most effectively? Be sure to track your clients, competition and industry leaders to find which platforms they use most.
4. Develop valuable content you expect to deliver – Now it’s time to develop a list of key messages and topics relevant to both your purpose and target audiences defined in first two steps. As mentioned in our previous blog post, “Connecting the Dots Between Traditional and Digital Marketing,” be sure that your online and offline messaging is consistent. Also, keep in mind that social networking sites provide opportunities for two way conversations so the content you develop should attempt to engage conversation with your audiences.
5. Identify a spokesperson – A business/brand needs one, single voice. Whether the spokesperson is the small business owner, a marketing person or even an intern, be sure the messaging and voice is professional, well-crafted and consistent.
6. Develop specific strategies and tactics for each social network – In order to reach as many of the ‘right’ customers as possible, you are more than likely going to need to use multiple social media outlets. Web sites, blogs, share tools, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other online communities each has its own benefits, and each requires its own strategy and set of specific tactics to maximize those benefits. Research best practices for each social media outlet and use the tools offered to your advantage. Also, be sure to use the “Multi-Touch” approach by cross-referencing your social media efforts. If you post pictures on Flickr or a video on YouTube, be sure to tweet a link to your Twitter followers. Blog posts on your corporate web site should be shared across all your other networks.
7. Measure your results – Finally, be sure to measure your results. Has your online traffic increased? Were you successful in creating customer interactions and conversations? Did you generate new sales leads? Did your brand awareness increase? Using online tracking tools, you can quantify your impact and answer all of these questions and more.

Written by Twitter Handle @jabraha7

The evolution of digital marketing has forever changed the way marketers have to think about how to build and manage a brand. No longer a “behind the scenes” function, marketers are now one of the most critical and visible functions of a successful organization. With responsibility for both traditional and digital marketing channels, an effective marketer must be a strategist, writer, online guru, relationship builder, executer and more.

But many communicators are struggling to find the most efficient and effective way to connect traditional marketing tactics and digital marketing tactics.

When connected effectively, traditional and digital marketing tactics offer immense opportunities to build market recognition, increase brand awareness and provide the foundation for strong and sustainable growth. To do so, successful marketers must turn to the “Multi-Touch” approach.

The “Multi-Touch” approach combines traditional marketing (advertising, public relations, events, etc.), which offers opportunities to reach the masses, with digital marketing (social networking, SEO, etc), which offers a more personalized, one-on-one communication opportunity. This integration allows marketers to offer consistent messaging that resonates to as many of the ‘right’ customers as possible, through all the proper channels.

The integrated marketing campaign that is created through the “Multi-Touch” approach provides marketers to use existing assets from traditional marketing for search and social media marketing efforts, and vice versa. Utilized by smart marketers, the “Multi-Touch” approach and integrated marketing campaigns can generate the measurable results needed to build your business quickly and effectively.

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

Four months ago Mashable asked it’s readers to vote in for their preferred social network between the two current giants: Twitter versus Facebook. The results were pretty close, although Facebook edged out Twitter in a 48% to 40% victory. Now, there’s a whole new game in town (google buzz).

Google Buzz is now the new shiny, and represents Google’s big push into social networking meets mobile social meets location services. We know it’s still the early days for Buzz, but it seems like a good time to gauge the opinion of our readers thus far.

Have you had a chance to spend some quality time with Buzz? Do you like the service? Are there parts about it you don’t like? Does it draw you away from other social networks or complement them? Let us know your vote for best social service in the poll below, and be sure to let us know why you picked your favored winner.

If you look to the right of this post you may notice a little box standing out.  This is the Google Friend Connect Social Bar.  While Google Connect thus far hasn’t proven to be much a useful tool, the Social Bar is an interesting concept.  Essentially this box allows you to see which of your contacts are visiting the same sites as you.  Also, it can reveal people who visit the same sites as you.  Essentially it can help you build a social network around the websites you use, which has a definite value added that other social networks have yet to address.  

Want to add the Social Bar to your website?  Google makes it rediculously easy.  You simply go to their Friend Connect page and edit the look of your Social Bar.  When you are done they give you custom javascript code, which you simply input in your website code, according to where you want it placed.  It doesn’t get much easier than that!  This is a great tool for those also working to build community around their website.  While it may not be the most useful tool at this point, the underlying technology is definitely something we will be seeing more of.