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| Lee Odden talks about SEO, PR and blogging | ||||
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In this issue: 1. Lee Odden talks about SEO, PR and blogging 2. The watercooler... what we've been reading recently 3. NEW: Segmentation & Targeting - Roundtable Briefing 4. JOBS: Need a new job in the internet industry? 5. Top forum post: Average CPM on email newsletter 6. Top forum post: Women in the internet industry |
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| 1. Lee Odden talks about SEO, PR and blogging | ||||||
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Lee Odden is President of TopRank Online Marketing, a search marketing agency specialising in search engine optimisation, online PR and blog marketing. A recognised industry expert, Lee publishes MarketingBlog.com and has been cited by major publications including U.S. News and The Economist and speaks at numerous industry conferences. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Marketers seem to finally be realising that online PR and SEO go hand in hand. Can you sum up the opportunities? Public relations and search engine optimisation are intertwined in many ways. A common crossover is with linking. The best links which are most often editorial in nature are often the most difficult. Coveted link sources include major online publications, educational or government web sites. The pitching of stories to journalists common to media relations is directly related to pitching for linking opportunities on some of the more difficult sites. Getting a contributed article into a prominent online publication can drive traffic, build credibility and associate link popularity. Another crossover point deals with press releases, their distribution and the syndication of content. A press release is a document like any other that can be indexed and algorithmically categorised and ranked. Optimising press releases for keywords as well as for the people that will read them allows the release additional exposure from search queries on news search engines. Press releases that are easier to find get picked up more often and when those releases contain links to the company web site, it can send traffic and link popularity. My SEO firm specialises in editorial visibility on the web and we find that kind of representation is increasingly influential for web site rankings. Social search, social bookmarks, tagging and possibly user data can all be influenced by online and offline marketing. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Having control over how a press release is written and where it is distributed is very powerful, from a search perspective… right? Yes, absolutely. Unless it's reporting financials, many press releases are written with clever, ironic or multiple meanings. This does not make it easy for the release to be categorised and ranked. Good writers can take into account keywords as well as creativity and write compelling, informative news releases that incorporate the art and science of press release optimisation. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. How important is well-written anchor text vs. ‘click here’? Clearly it helps to have descriptive link text, but just how much of a difference does it make to search rankings? A link from one page to another is a vote. It's also a bridge that can send traffic. Using anchor text links will send both a vote and infer meaning to the destination page. An example would be, "Click the following link for more information on CRM software", where "CRM software" is linked to a web page that is all about CRM software. That link sends a vote, traffic and the meaning "CRM software" to the destination web page. The aggregate of links to a page and the anchor text used will in part determine what that page ranks for. As far as anchor text links in press releases, I do not believe there is value from an optimisation perspective, at least not directly. The press release is just the means, not the end. It is a delivery mechanism. The value comes from the site or blog that decides to pick up the press release with anchor text links in tact. My opinion is that the value of using anchor text links within a press release is to increase clickthrough rates from the release to a web site, not directly for SEO. The SEO value comes from when the release is picked up as content by other web sites and they link to the company web site. My perspective on this is in part influenced by comments made by Matt Cutts from Google on his blog. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Are there any PR distribution sites that allow you to define anchor text in links? Yes, PRWeb is probably the most popular. Also PR.com and several others. There's a list of them at this article called, "Lowdown on Press Release Optimization". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. I guess every firm with a website should have an online press centre, where they can upload their own press releases? In SEO terms, and thinking about the ‘Google timestamp’, should you upload press releases to your site before distributing them elsewhere? Does it matter? This is an excellent question and it is one that came up at the WebmasterWorld Pubcon conference in Boston recently. There are two issues here. Date discovered and PageRank. Google will give credit to the version of the release that is associated with the site with the most PageRank as well as where it first discovered the release. I asked Matt Cutts about this and he expressed agreement that PageRank is a very important factor as to determining which copy of the press release Google will pick to display in the search results. The other thing to consider here is that you should have links in your press releases, so even if the version of the press release is not the one hosted on your company web site, it is capable of sending traffic there. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Does distributing press releases on multiple sites set off any duplicate content alarms in your head? It’s the same with forum posts… some people write an article and you see it on a bunch of different websites. It is a bit of a grey area… can you provide any clarification on duplicate content? I think if you sent the same release through 15 different wire services, then that could trigger things. We used to be a lot more liberal about this and in the end did not find that much advantage to sending out through more than two or three. Once in a great while we'll send out through four sites.
Sending out through more than one service can increase reach for a release, but sending out through too many doesn't do anyone any good except the wire services. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. Blogging is great for SEO – I’ve got right to the top on predefined key phrases, purely through blogging (and without relying heavily on links). So why aren’t more companies using blogs? That is a question I ask myself often. More companies aren't using blogs because they don't understand them. In fact, there was a study released recently documenting the fact that most Fortune 1000 executives are clueless (my words) about blogs. While others are still figuring out what a blog is, some companies are discovering amazing value from using a blog as part of their SEO and/or public relations strategy. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. Unique content can do wonders for SEO. What are the basics of writing search engine friendly content? I think it's important to pick keyword themes or concepts relevant to your target audience and map that out to subcategories whether you're writing for a website or a blog. Monitor search phrase trends via your web logs, blog conversation tracking services and keyword research tools and you can find many things to write about. It's important to focus on providing value to the reader though. Don't write for search engines, write for users. Search engines invest significantly in being able to identify the sites that will offer the best user experience. If you focus on content for users in combination with search engines then everyone wins. Make a point to add well structured, meaningful content on an ongoing basis. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. Given that an SEO strategy might now involve blogging, online PR and also content creation, who do you think is best placed to manage it all? The SEO agency? The copywriting team? The in-house marketing executive? This really depends on the situation. The in-house marketing executive and management must support whatever search strategy has been put in place. Otherwise, it will die on the vine. Blogging, PR and content development is a team effort and what pulls it all together is clear direction, process and metrics. A feedback loop is critical for bringing a disparate team together. In most cases, either the agency or the in-house marketing executive would manage a combined blogging, online PR and content development initiative. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10. Bloggers are thought to be ultra-ethical and resistant to any kind of PR. With that in mind, should you approach bloggers in a different way to your average journalist? How can you persuade bloggers to link? The problem with many bloggers is that they are self-proclaimed experts and not subject matter experts in the real world. I've been blogging since mid 2003 so I've seen a good number of bloggers with no day job who spend an amazing amount of time pontificating and not providing much in terms of practical value. Even so, they can develop a center of influence that is worth tapping into. You would certainly approach that type of blogger differently than say, a journalist. For example, journalists expect to be pitched, as it's how many of them get story ideas. Many of them count on it. Bloggers on the other hand are often not accustomed to being pitched. It is especially annoying when the PR firm has clearly not read any of the previous blog posts and pitches something in a sloppy way or that is entirely irrelevant. It's a lot easier to get bloggers to link if you have a blog yourself. It's also important to providing relevant, useful information in a "heads up" sort of way. Just sending a press release to a blogger rarely gets you any traction. Bloggers also thrive on exclusives and are really not big fans of press release embargoes. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11. Internet marketing blogs such as Online Marketing Blog produce great content, which then attract links on other internet marketing blogs, providing Link Love and exposure. Other less tech/blog-savvy, B2C sectors may find it tougher though. Can blog marketing work for everybody? No, I don't think blogging for SEO can work for everybody. But the great thing about blogs is that they can serve many purposes, some of which have nothing to do with blogging per se. Examples include using blog software as a simple content management system for archiving newsletters, press releases and product announcements in a search engine friendly way. With the tremendous popularity of services like MySpace, B2C sectors actually have an even bigger opportunity for blog marketing than the tech savvy, early adopters. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12. Where do you stand on RSS: full stories in feeds or just the extract? I publish the full RSS feed but am thinking of experimenting with extracts to draw more visitors to the blog. Basically, the pro of a full feed is that the readers get to read the full content of the post without having to click/open a web browser. The con is that they are less likely to visit your blog. Reverse that for using the extract. Services like FeedBurner allow you to easily track item clickthroughs and other basic feed metrics so you can test what your audience will best respond to. As with any kind of marketing, testing, monitoring and adjusting are critical for a successful program. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lee was interviewed by Chris Lake (chris@e-consultancy.com). To discuss SEO, PR and blogging head over to the forum. Registered users can post comments (you don't need to subscribe to use the forum). To create a free registered user account visit: www.e-consultancy.com/account/register.asp. |
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| 2. The watercooler... what we've been reading recently | ||||||
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O'Reilly 'owns' Web 2.0, instructs lawyers, gets it horribly wrong... (O'Reilly Radar) ...and here's that scary lawyers letter. Cease! Desist! Dammit! (Tom Raftery) Check out 'Google Checkout' (ZDNet) Apple to launch gaming strategy? (Gamesindustry.biz) Accessibility colour wheel, highly revealing (Giacomo Mazzocato) eBay and Yahoo get into bed together (The Register) UK domains top 5m (The Register) Is Amazon moving into grocery? (IGD) |
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| 3. NEW: Segmentation & Targeting - Roundtable Briefing | ||||||
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A free (for registered users) mini-report that looks at the issues and trends in Segmentation & Targeting, based on a recent roundtable discussion. Attendees included: Argos, Box UK, Coremetrics, Cscape, GfK Financial, National Express, Sainsbury’s Bank, Third Aspect and Touch Clarity.
View White Paper / Report » |
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| 5. Top forum post: Average CPM on email newsletter | ||||||
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This is going to vary by sector, but what is the average CPM for a banner ad in a newsletter that reaches a direct niche audience of around 16K? Thoughts?
View Forum Message » |
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| 6. Top forum post: Women in the internet industry | ||||||
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Pascal Fintoni wants to find out which women have been key contributors to the whole internet and search industry. Who gets your nomination?
View Forum Message » |
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