All posts in Online PR

Journalists have been frantically learning SEO and social media techniques over recent years, so they can stay ahead online. But now some of them are so skilled that SEO teams could learn a few things from them too. From writing clickable headlines, to using Twitter to network, here are all the journo skills that I’ve learnt by following (no, not stalking!) some of the best in the business…

Monitoring and Targeting

Like most blogs, news sites tend to cover a number of different subjects. For the main newspapers, these tend to be major topics such as politics, finance, property, jobs and so on. However, within those ‘channels’, similar stories often come up again and again – interest rates, house prices, unemployment figures, that kind of thing.

Journalists and editors use analytics programs to check how many readers are visiting each section and which stories are grabbing their interest. That means that they can give more coverage to the stories that really interest their readers, and move other stories further down the hierarchy. This also allows them to maximise click-throughs from their front pages because they know what stories get readers excited.

Many speculated for weeks over the launch of Google’s next algorithm update targeting websites that Matt Cutts described as “over optimised”. The new algorithm update is meant to launch in the next few days and according to the Official Google Search Blog, this particular update will affect sites that employ the following “black-hat” tactics:

  • Keyword stuffing
  • Link schemes (paid links, excessive reciprocal linking, links from (and to) spammy or unrelated sites etc.)
  • Article spinning

According to Matt Cutts, the change will go live for all languages at the same time. The update is meant to affect 3.1% of queries in English where “regular users” will notice. This number is relatively small when compared to the effect the original Panda update had on search queries (12% of search queries for regular users).

St. Valentine’s Day has become one of the biggest events in the retail calendar. Second only to Christmas, it is a huge money maker for brands, with 32% of gifts being bought online. In America, it is expected that a whopping $3.5billion will be spent on jewellery alone. Men are the biggest spenders, buying all sorts of gifts for their loved ones, from flowers, to chocolates, to dinners out and weekends away – and they are more likely than women to buy elaborate gifts. With such huge revenue opportunities, ask yourself… how well did your brand perform and what can be done to improve performance for next year?

1.       Planning

People start searching for Valentine’s Day gifts around mid-January, with momentum picking up pace at the beginning of February. The biggest sales days are the 5th and 6th of February, with the week running up to the 14th February characterised by frenzied and frantic last-minute gift buying. This means brands have to get their thinking cap on and start planning well in advance. Think about what worked well the previous year and act on it. The earlier you start, the wider the audience you will reach.

February calendar with 14th highlighted with heart

Those of you who follow my tweets will probably know that I’ve recently launched a book called Get Noticed, which is a guide that explores the processes and techniques that successful networkers use to get noticed.

In the course of writing the book I carried out a lot of research around how people meet and what it takes to develop a strong relationship, which has had a tremendous impact on my understanding of successful blogger outreach. On Wednesday morning I sent out 100 e-mails to YouTube video bloggers and so far I’ve received 77 replies (not bad when most sources suggest anywhere from 3% to 25% is a good response rate for an outreach campaign).

In this post I want to share a few tips and tricks I’ve learnt about outreach from researching, writing and marketing Get Noticed to help you improve the success of your outreach campaigns.

Image Credit: ekai

I’m going to assume that you’ve already done some blogger outreach and know the basics like finding the right bloggers to target, personalising your e-mails, sending them at the right time and including obvious call-to-actions. This one’s for the pros

…There can be no further doubt that it’s mainstream. Yes, a discussion around search engine optimisation has featured on never-ending Radio 4 farming-community soap opera The Archers.

You’re probably wondering why I would know this. The answer is that, being prematurely middle aged enough to refer to the radio as “the wireless”, I am also middle aged (and countrified) enough to tune into The Archers from time to time (I don’t follow it religiously or anything, honest!).

For anyone who isn’t a regular listener, let me update you. Bridge Farm has been responsible for an outbreak of e-coli, spread through its ice cream. It effectively poisoned some kids at a gymkhana and landed two customers in hospital. Naturally, the national and local press has gone to town on the story and the Bridge Farm dairy has lost all of its customers.