Search Marketing

SEO for PR Pros

Yesterday I participated, along with Tom Lynch of interactive web marketing firm Astek Consulting, in a PR News webinar on SEO best practices. I'm not an SEO expert, but have developed a strong interest in search over the past several years. To me, it goes hand in hand with PR.

We all know that PR is about telling great stories. But to tell those stories, communicators have to create more content, and content of different types, than we did even a few years ago. At Schwartz MSL, our target audiences are generally online, so it makes sense to optimize that content for search to increase the likelihood that people who are looking for information on problems that our clients can solve find them online. I can't imagine running communications programs that don't take SEO into account.

If you're looking ahead to 2012 and planning your content and PR strategies, will you factor in SEO? Or do you feel that great content will be found and shared independent of optimization efforts?

Posted by Laura Kempke on September 28, 2011 at 11:36 AM
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Google+ for Brands: Waiting, but Not Wondering

Mitt Romney, presidential candidate and former governor of my home state of Massachusetts, was mocked a few weeks ago when he said that "corporations are people." It doesn't matter that it's not literally true, of course. It was his way of expressing the thought that every business, no matter how large, is comprised of individuals.

That's precisely the reason that B2B marketers struggle with use of social platforms such as Facebook. It's not devoted to supporting people's business personas, as LinkedIn is, and there's scant indication that anyone goes onto Facebook looking for information on B2B products. However, it's impossible to set aside the knowledge that Facebook is more frequently visited in the U.S. than Google and all those B2B buyers with their complex decision-making processes are, after all, individuals who more likely than not use it. Fortunately for those companies looking to interact with customers and potential customers on this platform, there are Facebook Pages.

Other B2B marketers are on the fence about use of Facebook. Conveniently, they haven't yet had to worry about another major social platform, Google+. Google made the decision about participation for them--it deletes profiles set up by brands--and today's announcement of nine new Google+ features doesn't include support for business profiles.

Such support is expected to be added, though, and I'd argue that business marketers shouldn't delay getting to know Google+'s features. Why? Three main reasons come to mind:

1. Most B2Bs care about search and Google+ profiles seem to top search results. My profile does, at any rate, and so do those of all of my colleagues. Check out the following chart from a 2011 Optify report (The Changing Face of SERPs: Organic Click-Through Rate). It shows how many more clicks the top search result receives than even positions two and three.

I don't think the need to understand Google+ and to potentially benefit from its favorable placement in search results can get much clearer, unless Google will force companies' Google+ profiles down in search results in a way that it's not currently doing with those of individuals. (For more on how Google+ is bringing search and social media together, check out this Brafton post.)

2. Google+ seems to be pushing other social platforms to adjust their own feature sets. I'd suggest that knowing what's up with Google+ may help marketers better understand how they can use Facebook, for example. Or, more importantly, understand how their "fans" may expect them to use Facebook.

3. Google+ circles, which allow users to present content to friends that's different from what they share with relatives, for instance, may eventually be of use to B2B marketers looking to create a different experience for customers using different product mixes, or individuals at different stages of the buying process.

Do you think Google+ is worth keeping an eye on? Or is it not worth the time if marketers are already reaching people on other social platforms?

Posted by Laura Kempke on September 20, 2011 at 2:43 PM
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Social Media and B2B Buying Behavior

A new survey from Base One, Report 2011: The annual survey of changing B2B buyer behaviour, takes a look at "the extent to which B2B decision-makers are using social media tools and channels to help them in the process of refining their needs and identifying suitable suppliers for major business purchases."

Base One surveyed more than 1,000 people in the UK, Germany, France, Belgium and Italy in spring 2011. If your assignment includes European communications, the report is worth a look. It examines buyers' sources of information and, importantly, which of these have the most influence.

Here's a look at information sources used by UK decision-makers and changes between 2010 and 2011. In each year, the most relied upon sources are corporate websites, searches and industry media.

The report goes on to tease out opinions on social media and whether it's trustworthy or worth the time. It doesn't end with recommendations, but leaves it to the reader to determine what to take and apply to their own marketing strategy.

I read the report because a post on Forbes.com caught my eye, "Social is Intriguing, but Search is Proven." It displays a similar bar chart to the one above and concludes, "Don't let social media detract from the focus of optimizing your corporate website and search, both organic (SEO) and paid (PPC). Social media might pay off in the future, but search is a sure bet today."

Here's what I wish the report or the Forbes.com write-up had done: point out that if search matters to your business, so does social media. The number and quality of links to a website seem to be of great importance to search engines, as do pages on a site devoted to topics that people are searching on (as opposed to just promoting a brand). Blogs are a terrific way to add those pages and keep the content fresh over time and when it comes to links, about nine months ago, Google and Bing both said that they now look at links from social sites and consider the social authority of people who do the linking.

For more info on how social media may be increasing in importance to companies that care about search results, take a look at the SEOmoz report on Search Engine Ranking Factors. SEO experts polled by SEOmoz view "social signals at page level" and "social signals at domain level" as likely growing in importance.

If social media is becoming more important to search engines and search engines and corporate websites matter more to European B2B buyers, then I'd suggest that the role of social media may be obscured or underappreciated to some degree by the report on buyer behavior. B2B decision-makers may not be turning to Facebook and blogs for information as frequently as they do webinars, for example, but all those fresh blog posts and links from social sites and consequent improvements in search rankings may be an important reason that buyers are finding companies' sites in the first place.

Posted by Laura Kempke on September 12, 2011 at 4:49 PM
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PR Pros: Get Into the SEO Mindset

A couple of days ago, I spent some time with colleagues learning about a tool to help identify online "influencers" -- the people many of our clients would like to reach, naturally. Those influencers are mostly not reporters, although it's interesting to see as we start using the tool that reporters are at the top of many of the search results.

It used to be that PR was largely about media relations, but now we of course know we need to look far beyond reporters. Journalists matter, but so do people who blog or tweet or otherwise share info about the topics they're passionate and knowledgeable about.

Anyway, so there we sit, talking about the new tool, which seems mercifully easy to use. Everything is rolling along until the person conducting the training comes to keywords -- you need to lose the SEO mindset, she says. To find the conversations you care about, don't use your SEO keywords.

Sacrilege! How about if you tell me next that down is up and the world is flat. I had to think it through for more than a couple of seconds (which I probably shouldn't admit) and now that I've started using the software, I'm still not sure that "leave SEO aside" is the most accurate description of what's required. I'm now thinking of it as keep what you know about SEO, but add phrases that people use when writing. For example, "buy for your SMB" might accompany "database security software."

I'm glad I worked through that potentially emotional issue. I really didn't want to think that the terms people use to find information that they care about should ever be anywhere other than the very front of my brain when I'm creating any sort of content.

By now you've probably seen The Content Grid v2 from Eloqua and JESS3. If you have not, it's lovely, so cast your gaze upon it:

It seems to me that to get to the content in the middle of that grid -- white papers, demos, case studies, press releases, analyst reports -- you'll often use a search engine. If the content lives on your website, on Twitter, on YouTube, it should be optimized, right? But, you say, that will naturally happen if you're creating content that speaks to problems and interests that people really have. Are fancy techniques necessary when you have fabulous content that speaks to your audience's issues?

Personally, I agree that some marketers are so in touch with their target audiences and so able to deal with both volume and quality that they can't help but create content that appeals to search engines. That's a fantastic thing. I'm guessing that many marketers, however, could use a few pointers. The ebooks, customer profiles, demos and graphics aren't flowing so freely that all the search stuff is going to work itself out.

In a month, I'll participate in a PR News discussion of "day-to-day SEO tactics" that should give people who don't have technical backgrounds some guidelines on creating content that can readily be found online. I'm looking forward to it because I know it'll make me even more focused on the subject. I don't want to "lose the SEO mindset."

How do you work info about search into your day? If the answer is "I don't," here are a few things you might check. They'll inform you without overwhelming you:

• Google Webmaster Central Blog
• B2Bbloggers
• TopRank Online Marketing
• SEOmoz -- some of the software requires a subscription, but there's a lot of free info, too. 

Posted by Laura Kempke on August 25, 2011 at 7:37 PM
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Can you feel the excitement?

Good writing should convey excitement, without the help of punctuation. A number of editors with whom we have spoken have a simple rule: you are allowed to use no more than three exclamation points in your writing your entire adult life.

While the Schwartz Research Group brief released this week looked at serious issues such as:

• Are release headlines too long?
• PR pros in which cities write the best headlines?
• What are the most overused words in release headlines?

We also examined a few lighter issues. For example. The Schwartz Research Group analyzed the more than 16,000 releases issued over Business Wire in a 30 day period, and the good news is, only 0.5% of all releases contain “!”s in the headline. (Note, Schwartz excluded Yahoo! from the analysis, for that would skew the data).

Only 10 release headlines contained multiple exclamation points. For those who are curious, the Schwartz Research Group also found that only 0.4% of releases contained a question mark.

If you would like the full whitepaper, you can request it here.

Posted by Mark McClennan on October 14, 2010 at 10:32 AM
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Only 18% of News Release Headlines are Optimized for SEO

The two most important elements for optimizing a news release headline are keyword inclusion and brevity. A company’s top keywords should be included in the headline when possible and should be placed early in the headline. In terms of brevity, a full release headline must be 65 characters or fewer to be fully displayed in Google.

Many search engine optimization (SEO) experts, including our experts here at Schwartz, advise that companies try to keep the characters in the headline under 70 characters. Anything beyond that will be less effective in supporting a company’s SEO.

The Schwartz Communications Research Group, with invaluable help from Business Wire, analyzed the headlines of more than 16,000 news releases issued over Business Wire in a 31 day period (July 26, 2010 to August 25, 2010). Since Schwartz cannot know the keywords that thousands of companies are hoping to use to optimize their content and releases, the Schwartz Research Group focused on headline length as a success factor
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The findings of this analysis were that the vast majority of PR practitioners are still not fully optimizing their headlines. (I am sure Schwartz is guilty of that as well from time to time.) Our analysis showed that only 18.4% of all releases have headlines with 65 characters or fewer.

While the majority of releases are under 150 characters, we did see some examples that were much longer than the recommended length. The most egregious cases were the 2% of releases with headlines in excess of 300 characters, with one headline that was over 1,000 characters. The shortest headline we found was 18 characters, which is also probably not ideal for SEO as it’s unlikely that enough of the company’s keywords were included. Overall, the analysis found the average headline length to be 123 characters.

This shows that many companies still have room to improve their press releases (even the social media releases).

The Schwartz Communications Research Group has written a Research Brief that takes a more in-depth look at this topic. If you would like additional analysis, including buzzword usage, a geographic analysis of effective headline writing and other headline analysis, you can download it here

Posted by Mark McClennan on October 12, 2010 at 8:27 AM
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When Story Met Sales

The classic 80s movie “When Harry Met Sally” follows two people through the years, originally stuck together for a Chicago-to-New York drive, then by chance bumping into each other and finally into love and a long relationship.

This is not unlike what we've seen happen with marketing and sales. Anyone with tenure in the business world knows that these two organizations need to be brilliantly in love and joined at the hip, moving together or else stumbling separately.

There was a time where a great “story” got ink and everyone was happy. Pump up the volume. But now, every good business is looking to connect the sales impact of initiatives, in marketing, public relations, everywhere. Many chief marketing officers are now experts in inbound lead generation, in addition to the traditional staple of brand, awareness and visibility. And the real magic is where they intersect, with one driving the other.

Today’s announcement of Schwartz's partnership with HubSpot is another great example of the transformational work we’ve been doing for years: tying storytelling to sales at all turns, and even rejecting stories that may seem to have cool headlines, but don’t move a needle on any measurable front.

Some of the most interesting work Schwartz is doing for its clients today is what we’ve dubbed “closed loop communications” --- being able to execute a strategy that loops directly into inbound marketing efforts. We’re creating content of interest, optimizing and pushing it out with professional and social media relations, search marketing and other services. That in turn is driving awareness, measured in web traffic and leads. Then we're reporting back on exactly what’s working, who’s looking and what’s prompting action in a client’s communities.

At Schwartz, we’ve nailed an outstanding strategy and process for doing this through many different types of approaches, tactics and tools, including inbound web marketing (leveraging HubSpot), digital video content (including some brilliant video marketing solutions from Visible Gains) and other strands. Whether you're in healthcare, technology, cleantech or consumer, we understand your business and the right mix of levers to pull, buttons to push, and people to influence to deliver tremendous impact.

The best meal on the menu is closed loop public relations. Order it.

Posted by Bryan Scanlon on May 19, 2010 at 9:04 AM
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Should the Company Blog Be Part of the Company Website?

Technology companies that don't blog but know they should often ask where, exactly, they should blog. Should it be a part of the corporate website or kept separate on a platform like TypePad or Blogger? 

Here are the basic factors that I take into account when I get this query:

- Most blogs, and hopefully all of those run by companies, have clear themes. If the general topics that the blog explores are in line with the messages that the business is trying to disseminate, it makes a lot of sense to have the blog on the company website and not hosted somewhere else. Readers will be able to easily jump from your blog to other resources that live on your website and vice versa.

- Plus, if you know you've got great stuff to say and think others might even want to link to your blog, having those inbound links pointing to your website and not to a site like TypePad should, over time, help elevate your site in the eyes of search engines. That's not likely to be the case immediately, but if you go with a blogging platform now--maybe you think it'll be more convenient--and figure you'll move your posts over to your company's website later, don't expect hard-earned links to follow you.

On the other hand, there are perfectly good reasons for separating the company website and blog:

- If your blog will focus on a brand that you're marketing to a different audience than the group of people who typically visit your website, you may do well to have the blog separate from the website and just link to one from the other. In this case, you may benefit (from branding and SEO standpoints) from being able to choose a different domain name and from being able to promote two distinct information resources. This arrangement makes sense if a company is trying to raise awareness of a medical condition, for example, but not promote its own products. It may also be the best course if an open source project has a large and active community apart from the project's corporate sponsor.

- Perhaps people from outside of your company regularly contribute to your blog and need to make clear that they're not too closely affiliated with the business. A situation such as this, where the blog may be viewed as a community resource--albeit one funded and largely driven by one vendor--may also be a good candidate for being hosted separately from the corporate site.

- If the blog isn't a company resource per se, but is really the CEO's or CTO's latest thoughts on a range of topics, it's likely best to host the blog elsewhere and just link to it from the company website.

In sum, I think the blog is best housed in the corporate website for the convenience of readers and to support SEO and branding unless the company intends the blog for a slice of its normal audience, has a specific need to separate brands or wants to underscore that an exec's musings are purely his or her own.

For some detailed discussions on how to run an effective corporate blog, check out the Online Marketing Blog. For example, see the "Impact of Blogging on Search Engine Optimization."

And just because I think it's got some great recommendations on finding new topics to blog about, "100+ SMB Blogging Ideas to Kick Start 2010" from Small Business Trends.

Posted by Laura Kempke on February 9, 2010 at 3:15 PM
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Press Release Titles Matter for SEO

We've all heard that Google likes short press release titles. Write short, we're commanded--I'd heard that we should use a maximum of seven words. So I'd try to restrain my verbose self and write short. I got more detail on this subject from Malcolm Atherton of BusinessWire's Phoenix bureau and thought it was useful, so wanted to share it.

Here's the deal: Google will truncate press release titles--it will stop reading them--after 61 to 64 characters. Depends on the day and how Google is feeling--some days you get 61 and others you get lucky and get 62. So the "seven words or fewer" rule doesn't really hold--what matters is characters.

This matters because the two biggest factors, by far, that Google takes into account when looking at your press release are the title and the optimized presentation in the body of the release of key words or phrases. When considering the body, the first 200 characters matter more than those that follow, but the body of the release taken in its entirety and the title are The Big Things to Pay Attention To.

So if the title matters, you want to write them so that key words or phrases that your company really wants to optimize on appear in the first 61 characters.

This means that you may, if you can't keep your title to 61 characters, have to put those words first and your company's name later in the title. This is the reverse of how many of our clients want releases written--they like to see their name first. But if they're into SEO, we want them to understand that if the title can't be short, it at least needs to be worded in a way to get that key word or phrase into the first 60 or so characters.

Posted by Laura Kempke on June 23, 2009 at 11:18 AM
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The Debate Over Social Media Press Releases

Not sure if I am supposed to give props to a competing agency on this space, but the Social Media Press Release (SMPR) invented by Shift Communications a few years back was a novel idea.

Today, the SMPR means different things to different people:

-- Originally, an SMPR meant content organized online so that it is easily digested by the media. Features are presented in bullets; it's easy to click from content to supporting quotes; and graphics and other content are easy to find to support a story.

-- Some services today describe an SMPR as a press release that is formatted and presented so it is easy to share. A newer example is Pitch Engine, where one finds readily available tools for sharing a release on Facebook, posting a release on Twitter, or using other social media platforms.

-- Certain news distribution services, such as PR Newswire or Business Wire, describe a SMPR as a release that is augmented by multimedia content, including videos or pictures, and a release that includes hyperlinks within the body of the release.

-- Some describe an SMPR as any combination of the above.

The reality is that press releases serve a far greater audience than just the press. Anyone who visits the web can end up reading a press release. Furthermore, since press releases are syndicated by distribution services and are often modified slightly and presented on news web sites, they can have significant SEO value.

The topic of the SMPR was front and center this week, mainly because of a webcast produced by Hubspot that noted how old fashioned press releases, without fancy graphics and presented as just plain text-- are more likely to be syndicated than any form of a SMPR. In addition, Hubspot postulated that the old fashioned releases were better for SEO, since links were more likely carried in the syndicated releases.

The report prompted some debate since Hubspot tried to find away to measure an instrument used in PR-- a marketing function that itself is very hard to measure.

Internally here at Schwartz, we have been debating SMPRs, press release distribution services and the role of a press release for some time. Here are a few points related to the conventional wisdom internally and the discussions this week:

-- Adding visuals or videos to a press release makes the press release more attractive to media and any other audience that views it,

-- For companies especially interested in SEO or web traffic, it's a better course to host visuals, video, graphics, etc. on the company's website, and then link back to the website from the press release,

-- Making the release easier to share is important, and the best press rooms today are those that incorporate tools for sharing content right in the press room,

There is no clear-cut guidance on this issue, and we're experimenting with a number of press release distribution options and press release formats here at Schwartz. If you are interested, keep reading this blog or drop me a line (rossl@schwartz-pr.com).

Posted by Ross Levanto on May 22, 2009 at 3:02 PM
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