by Greg Jarboe, President of SEO-PR
Can a public relations veteran be a search engine optimization expert?
* I’ve been called “a pioneer in the field of using search engine optimization in combination with press releases” by Lee Odden’s Online Marketing Blog
* My “search engine optimization wizardry” has been praised by KDPaine’s One-Minute Benchmarking Bulletin
In 2002, Google News blended press releases into search results
According to one blogger, universal search plays to our strengths in PR
* “One can’t help but notice that if Greg Jarboe had gone to Google and designed universal search himself he likely couldn’t have designed it (better) to play into his strength areas in news and PR related issues.”
But optimized press releases don’t appear in universal search results
* But the headlines of news articles can appear in universal search results
* And journalists who use Google News can find press releases in results
* So, optimizing press releases for news search engines as important as e-mailing press releases directly to journalists
I’ll share at least six of the secrets of news search engine optimization
* “I keep six honest serving-men
* (They taught me all I knew);
* Their names are What and Why and When
* And How and Where and Who.”
Optimizing press releases for news search engines tackles 6 questions
* Who uses Yahoo! News, AOL News and Google News?
* What search terms are people likely to use?
* Where do you incorporate these terms in your press releases?
* When do you add links?
* Why must you use press release distribution services?
* How do you measure the results of your campaign?
Millions of Americans use Yahoo! News, AOL News or Google News
We tracked over $1 million in sales to this optimized press release
More knowledge workers read press releases than trade journals
We tracked 34 times more referrers to articles and posts than releases
* PR generated total of 166,984 referrers in September 2007
* 139,768 from news articles (83.7%)
* 22,502 from blog posts (13.5%)
* 4,714 from press releases (2.8%)
Conduct keyword research to find the terms people are likely to use
* Think about the words users would type to find your pages
* Brainstorm keyword categories that address your customer’s wants
* Compile the brainstormed keywords for further review of traffic potential, competition, and other factors
Use one or more of these tools to conduct your keyword research
* Google AdWords keyword tool
o https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
* Google Trends
o http://www.google.com/trends
* Microsoft’s adCenter Labs keyword forecast
o http://adlab.msn.com/Keyword-Forecast/KeywordTrendsWeb.aspx
* Trellian’s free search term suggestion tool
o http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html
* Wordtracker’s free keyword suggestion tool
o http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
Popularity: 21% [?]
Tags: Google, Search Engine Optimization, Web search engine, Wordtracker
