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

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.

While Google has dominated the market for PPC as compared to MSN, there is still plenty of people who find it useful enough to keep using.  For those folks, there is a great tool that they put out, which makes the process much more doable once you get the hang out it.  

There is a blog post on Subliminal Pixels which gives a great explanation of the features on the Ad Intelligence PPC Tool, and how to use them.  If you fall into the camp of MSN Ad Intelligence users, be sure to check this out and implement into your strategy… As well as consider switching over to Google Adwords altogether.