Boosting PR results with SEO and RSS

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Boosting PR results with SEO and RSS

• Greg Jarboe
• President of SEO-PR
• March 16, 2007

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PR people seem to have this funny feeling that
theyre being Googled

• Problem
• Old model
• Solution
• New model
• Benefits
• Case study
• Action
• Next steps

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Classic model of communications created by Harold
Lasswell in 1939
Who says what in which channel to whom with what
effect?
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Will we recall this as the year when journalism
in print began to die?

• In some cities, the numbers alone tell the
  story. There are roughly half as many reporters
  covering metropolitan Philadelphia, for instance,
  as in 1980. The number of newspaper reporters
  there has fallen from 500 to 220.

Sources The Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 3, 2007,
and Journalism.org, May 8, 2006
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CEOs and CMOs want to measure business outcomes,
not PR outputs
Outputs
You can hand your CEO a pile of clippings and
estimated reach counts, but at the end of the
day, proven sales are what matters.
Outcomes
Source MarketingSherpa
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When you conduct a news search, youll often find
releases in results
Source Google News, September 14, 2005
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Journalism has become far more difficult and
demands new vision

• The press is no longer gatekeeper over what the
  public knows. Journalists have reacted
  relatively slowly. They are only now beginning
  to re-imagine their role. Their companies failed
  to see search as a kind of journalism.

Source Journalism.org, March 12, 2007
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Revised model of communications proposed by Greg
Jarboe in 1998
Who seeks what in which channel from whom with
what effect?
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Who Journalists and knowledge workers use news
search engines

• Online research is the number one source for
  journalists to obtain additional story
  information, with 75 indicating they search the
  Internet for previous stories on their subject
• When looking for additional information,
  contacting a PR professional is choice of 57 of
  media polled

Sources InformationWeek, June 6, 2006, and
Bennett Company, Aug. 5, 2005
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What Variety of tools can tell you which news
search terms are used
Source Google Trends, March 11, 2007
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Channel News search engines are among top
sources of online news
Source comScore Media Metrix, Dec. 2006
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Whom Even The New York Times staff has undergone
SEO training

• Algorithms scan the headline and at least the
  first hundred words or so of news articles
• So, do keyword research to determine the two or
  three most-searched words that relate to (your)
  subject and then include them in the first few
  sentences

Source The New York Times, April 9, 2006
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Effect Measures of success from PR outputs to
business outcomes
Source MarketingSherpa, Search Marketing
Benchmark Survey, August 2006
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SEO-PR asked to provide SEO guidance on Monday,
August 7

• With a compelling story and a broadcast deal with
  ABC News, the editors at The Christian Science
  Monitor knew their online multimedia package,
  Hostage The Jill Carroll Story, would generate
  a lot of visitor traffic
• But, even they were surprised by exactly how much
  and from whom

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Google Trends Jill Carroll wasnt search term on
Tuesday, August 8
Source Google Trends, Mar. 12, 2007
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Optimizing press release required adding Jill
and Christian Science
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We posted video to YouTube and added multimedia
to news release
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We pitched The Huffington Post, Boing Boing and
other bloggers
Sources The Huffington Post and Boing Boing,
Aug. 13, 2006
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The release and series generated 1,813 news
stories and blog posts
Sources CyberAlert, Sept. 7, 2006
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We helped generate record visitor traffic levels
to CSMonitor.com

• More than 450,000 unique visitors flooded the
  site on Monday, Aug. 14
• Page views broke through the 1 million mark on
  Monday and soared to more than 1.5 million page
  views on Tuesday
• This represented a massive increase from the
  sites July average of 121,000 page views per day
• Jill Carroll series was effective at exposing new
  readers to The Christian Science Monitor brand
• During the first 2 days of the series, the number
  of new visitors to the site rose to more than 7
  times its daily average in July
• The series, which featured online videos, image
  galleries, RSS feeds and podcasts, also proved
  extremely sticky
• Percentage of visitors viewing 2 or more pages
  rose from an average of 22 in July to more than
  63 during first two days

Source http//blogs.websidestory.com/uk/2006/08/h
ostage_the_jill_carroll_story.php
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The Huffington Post generated 3.4 times more
traffic than ABC News
Sources The Huffington Post, Aug. 15, 2006, and
ABC News, Aug. 14, 2006
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Three tips you can use on Monday to optimize your
first press release

• Use Google Trends to find two or three terms that
  relate to your subject
• Include these terms in your headline and first
  two paragraphs
• Add hyperlinks to help people find interesting,
  related content