Online Marketing Blog

[Editor note: Please welcome TopRankMarketing.com Senior Account Manager Jolina Pettice with this guest post that addresses a common issue with Search Engine Optimization engagements: Getting SEO recommendations implemented!]

Optimizing press releases can be an important part of any Search Engine Optimization (SEO) program. It’s usually pretty easy to convince clients of the need to optimize news content since these kinds of releases can reach journalists and bloggers as well as consumers. One common question I often hear involves getting optimized press releases approved by the Public Relations department. PR approved news messaging and SEO keywords are often not in alignment.

An additional consideration is that optimizing press releases often crosses over into different departments, creating an additional group of people who need to be convinced of the benefits of SEO.

We’ve made the case for integrating media relations, SEO and social media into a digital PR program as well as covering some of the basics. Now we can drill a bit deeper into blogger relations and social media monitoring.

Practical Examples of Involving SEO Expertise with Media & Blogger Relations, Social Media Monitoring

The advent of digital PR and the technology tools that serve as compliments means changes in the way agencies provide client consulting and practice management. In the case of TopRank, we’re running both a internet marketing agency and a public relations practice, so we’ve always counseled our clients on the use of targeted keywords during interviews and in communications with the media as well as with content published to the web. In a push and pull PR strategy, keywords are used to optimize content and digital assets to enable the media to pull themselves to a client’s news.

What exactly, does Web 2.0, social media and even SEO have to do with public relations? Everything!

You’d be hard pressed to find any modern public relations agency practice that isn’t researching or already implementing a digital PR strategy including search engine optimization, blogging/blogger relations and social media. The winds of change are here and many Public Relations practitioners are scrambling to adjust to the opportunities presented by shifts in both consumer and journalist behavior online.

Look no further than popular Public and Media Relations conferences like PRSA International or some of the Bulldog Reporter events to see exactly how the PR industry is making a concerted effort to educate itself on how to adjust to new opportunities with Web 2.0., SEO and social media.

My co-worker and public relations goddess Karen Sams has posted a nice list of press release optimization tactics over at Media Relations Blog. She covers:

• Keywords
• Headlines
• Text links
• Landing pages
• RSS feeds

A question that often comes up when I talk to public and media relations professionals about optimizing press releases, is whether or not an “optimized” release can actually perform double duty as an effective communicication tool with journalists as well as search engines.

My response is that a really good writer can optimize a press release that does TRIPLE duty. What I mean by that is, a release can use keywords in the right places and frequency and form on a press release in a way that is engaging and effective for the journalists and bloggers that will receive them in their inbox or find them as they search for story ideas.