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...What I love about today’s Content We Love example is twofold. The company issuing the survey results, Videology, is doing a great job of promoting a piece of their own content by surfacing the newsy elements, writing a really good press release, adding an infographic and distributing the whole package to the media.
(Link to the release: Heavy Video Viewers 57% More Likely to Spend on Holiday Gifts)
However, the way the PR team packaged the story will help direct resulting any news coverage advantageously for the brand....
Google’s latest Panda algorithm will not spell the death of press releases. Rather, it will ensure they contain higher-quality content that consumers and members of the media are looking for, say major wire services.
Google rolled out Panda 4.0, an algorithm designed to prevent sites with poor-quality content from ranking high in its search results. While the company has updated Panda several times throughout the years, a recent report by Search Engine Land claimed wire sites lost "significant rankings" on Google, between 60% and 85%, after the most recent update....
The immediacy and vast scope of the Internet and an updating of SEC regulations have diminished its importance, but it retains some value for key reasons. Read on…
Press Release Writing Tactics: 2014 Update
SEO Update: Google Says Press Releases Should Be No Follow - what is behind their decision?... There has always been some scepticism around the benefits of using press releases for SEO but those who have used them in the past could now be facing problems. Google have decided to go ahead and punish any sites using follow links in press releases, and the reason behind this- Google say that a press release is similar to an advertisement for your company and therefore should not be used for linking....
New webmaster rules from Google just killed PR agencies according to Tom Foremski's post "Did Google just kill PR agencies?" last month.He highlights a Google webmaster update warning about black hat, linkbait press releases and other similar improper SEO content practices trying to manipulate search engine results.Look out PR agencies Foremski warns....
I wince at 99.99% of the press releases I receive daily. That’s because 99.99% look like sloppy cut-and-paste jobs, ones that have nothing to do with the Daily Fix and its readers, and everything to do with the sender, the sender, and, oh, right, the sender. Reading a press release that doesn’t make me wince is rare—yet not impossible.Now and then, I receive press releases that are smart, audience-focused, brief, and interesting. So, for this week’s post, I thought I’d stay on the sunny side of the street and share seven traits about press releases that DO get read....
10 Yetis Vents - Google update has not killed press releases or PR Agencies its just killed crap content and spammy writing.
Right now the interwebs are full of "Google has killed PR Agencies/press releases" stories. These all relate to big G's latest update that talks about its crack down on keyword optimised press releases and the need to use no-follow links in stories that PRs push out.
Whether it is emails from nervous clients wanting clarification on the situation, or people on Twitter sending me DMs asking if I have seen various stories (because we set our stall out around being very SEO savvy), it is really up in my grill right now.
Not many public relations professionals have put their head above the parapet and come out with their take on this, so I thought I would give it the first shot....
Companies rely on PR firms for a variety of services and consulting ranging from strategy and message development to media relations and social media outreach to monitoring and reporting. Product launches, press conferences, event management and promotion, reputation and crisis management, media training, investor relations and of course content creation are all services provided by different PR agencies.
Press releases are most often at the top of the list of public relations content along with reports, white papers, newsletters, case studies, corporate website pages, newsrooms, blog posts, short form social media content and media from images to audio to video. To suggest that overly optimized press releases and other content will bring down the PR industry is simply a sensational headline.
It’s true, there are a lot of changes happening in the PR world right now and one area in particular that’s worth exploring risks and rewards involves the shift to native ads or as Google calls it, “commerce journalism”. I talked with Cara Posey about this recently and will likely post more about it here. But back to this business of optimized press releases killing PR agencies. Really?...
What's working for GE is a blend of curation, content marketing, reputation and journalism...
Tomas Kellner, a former journalist now employed as managing editor of GE’s blog GE Reports, talks to The Strategist about what its editorial strategy looks like and how the company envisions success...
OMG BuzzFeed has gone Fortune and its Original Trust Content one better. Instead of cranking out BuzzFeed-like content for corporate-owned media, the publication will teach you how to draft stories like the pros. That’s right. You too can write scintillating headlines like “15 Reasons Taylor Swift Might Be a Cat” or “27 Better Ways to Eat Ramen.” It’s another form of journalists reaching into corporate pockets with the value proposition, “We can help with that burdensome chore called content development.”
Making sure your shiny new app gets the recognition it deserves is tough - but there's a lot you can do yourself, as the BBC's Fiona Graham finds out... The perfect pitch Your pitch should include: - The name of your app as it is spelt on the App Store - What it does, and why it is different - The price - One link to your product website - One link to the app store product page - One or two screenshots - A video - ideally no longer than 30 seconds - A description in a concise paragraph - who your audience is, what your app does - What sets it apart from the crowd. - If you include a press release it should be in the body of the email under the pitch - Promo code for the app Contact information - email and not a link to a contact form Skype IDs, - Twitter IDs
"You don't have to be an expert in human relations to do this," she says....
Source: Erica Sadun and App Design Vault
With the ability to instantly publish a press release online, the world of PR has changed. Press releases now have the power to both attract media attention and drive traffic. This change in accessibility has also changed how businesses write press releases. Here are a few tips to help you write effective online press releases.
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Hot on the heels of the World Cup games, this announcement by Dynamic Architecture titled “The Dynamic Football Experience: World’s First Football Entertainment Centre to be Rotating Building” became the most viewed multimedia news release on PRNewswire.com.
It’s no surprise that the news earned so much attention; a spinning, soccer-ball shaped building to be constructed in the middle of Rio de Janeiro sounds like a story beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. But this press release does a great job at anticipating the questions a journalist or potential visitor might ask and includes eye-catching visuals, an intriguing story angle, and fifteen translations of the text release to entice soccer enthusiasts around the globe....
...Sher has uncovered a paradox: Journalists, who are in the business of telling stories, have actually ruined age-old narrative traditions through their approaches.
For Sher, the inverted pyramid writing style is one of the worst offenders, because it often reveals the juiciest part of a story in the first paragraph. So, why read on? Sher’s revelation was unsettling for his audience, a room full of journalists at this year’s Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) conference in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Thankfully, Sher has a remedy. He offered some tips that he promised will help reporters tell a more engaging tale, whether they are shooting 60-minute TV documentaries or writing short Web hits. The following tips can also be used to tell your brand’s ongoing story in a press release. After all, your goal in PR is to appeal to the storyteller inside every journalist....
Pew’s State of the News Media report and an Inkhouse and GMI study each present a portrait of the media that’s increasingly becoming a digital world.
That may be the overarching theme of Pew’s latest State of the News Media report. It also revealed that most Americans now get their news through a digital platform, with 82 percent using their desktop or laptop and 54 percent saying they get news from their mobile device.
Daily newspapers shouldn’t be discounted quite yet. Subscriptions make up 70 percent of audience-driven revenue for media outlets, totaling $10.4 billion last year.
Inkhouse and GMI conducted a similar study recently, and found that 73 percent of news consumers turn to TV for their news, followed by news websites (52 percent), print sources (36 percent) and radio (25 percent), which barely beat out social media (23 percent).
Should you REALLY invest in a PR Section on your website? We think not-- and here's why.The time has finally come: You can go ahead and get rid of that “Company News” section.
Nobody’s reading it. In fact, a recent analytical report compiled by Chris Scott of Headscape suggests that the fewer than 1% of visitors who DO read your press releases tend to leave your site shortly after.
So there you have it: your company news page – with all its press releases, employee event descriptions, award notifications and job promotion updates – is actually driving your prospects away...
Learn why most PR stinks, and how to fix it.
Hired a new executive? Write a press release. Painted a wall in your office? Duh -- press release, everyone is going to want to hear about that. Shipped a teeny tiny feature? To the press release we go!
Here’s the problem -- we've already established that reporters aren’t over the moon about inboxes chock-full of press releases, and the act of writing them isn’t particularly thrilling for any marketer. And yet, I think the heart of the problem has less to do with the age-old argument of whether press releases work or not, and more to do with the need for a seismic shift in how we think about media relations....
Last night PR Newswire completed the updates to our content syndication network and on www.prnewswire.com to meet Google’s new guidelines regarding links in press releases. And we’re convinced that in this new environment, new opportunities for press release issuers abound. Here’s why.
Now that these changes have been made, we no longer have to caution you, as we had recently, to be careful to limit links to just one or two per press release,. You’re now able to link the interesting and useful content that best serves your readers, and your business. This means you’ll be able to add more richness and depth to press releases, using links to add new dimensions to the content you present...
Google now calls links in press releases "unnatural" and is mandating nofollowing them. Even though Google took away the anchor text links in press releases (and guest posts and articles), there are still press release optimization opportunities.
Google's most recent update to their defintions of link schemes sent shockwaves through the SEO and online PR world; a real downer to link building strategists.
It's true: the world's largest search engine called links in press releases "unnatural" and is mandating nofollowing them. What does this mean to organizations using press releases to gain digital visibility in search and social?For brands publishing a press release or an article on your site and distributing it through a paid wire service, such as PR Newswire, Business Wire, Marketwire or through an article site, you must first make sure to nofollow the links if those links are "optimized anchor text."
Is This a Big SEO Deal? Yes. No. Maybe.
Google has been slowly squeezing the SEO life out of press releases for a while now.
"In 2006 online press releases were amazing for SEO. In 2013? Not so much," said Joe Laratro, SEO expert and PubCon lead moderator. "Online press releases have had very little value in terms of links and content over the past few years – I would say it had been steadily declining. However, I still thought it was a good part of a large organic link building strategy until the new guideline changes."...
There are few companies or organisations that can come close to rivalling the power that Google wields over the internet and search in particular....
So when the search engine updated its rules on unnatural link schemes recently, making specific reference to press releases, it triggered a rather alarmist article from ZDNet asking whether Google had killed PR agencies.
The convergence of PR and SEO is something we’ve covered previously on the blog, with articles focusing on the importance of search optimised PR and suggesting seven SEO tools to improve online PR efficiency.
However the article on ZDNet understandably (and probably intentionally) ruffled a few feathers within the PR industry as it painted them as black hat SEOs, out to flood the internet with dull, keyword loaded press releases just so they could help their clients climb a few places in search rankings....
...Do those search engine optimized press releases you're sending actually boost your search rankings? What about those guest blog posts you're writing? While the question of whether anchor text links in press releases ever actually pass search value has always been debatable, a recent update from Google seems to shed some more light on these issues.
On Friday, Search Engine Land reported that Google had sneakily updated its Webmaster Guidelines' Link Schemes document. If you're not hip to the SEO lingo, link schemes are "any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site's ranking in Google search results ... [including] any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site." This, according to Google, includes what are called unnatural links -- "links that weren’t editorially placed or vouched for by the site’s owner on a page." And this, my friends, is where press releases factor in....
...This is the first of a three-part series we’ll be running this week. Check back tomorrow and Thursday for discussions about what you can do to improve press release visibility, and how distribution of press releases factors into the visibility equation.
SEO vs press release SEO When it comes to press releases and SEO, there are two sides of the coin to consider: web site SEO, which is concerned with building visibility for a website for specific keywords used by Internet searchers, and press release visibility, which focuses on optimizing the visibility of the specific message. That said, the two are not mutually exclusive. Good PR messaging can definitely be incorporated into the successful SEO strategy. The credibility of earned media is beneficial to not just a brand’s reputation, but for the brand website as well. And, as you’ll see below, the two work hand-in-glove to display online content to its best advantage....
A few months back, the popular rock band Stone Temple Pilots made a major splash in the news when it announced it was firing lead singer Scott Weiland. The group announced the shocking news in a one-sentence press release that read: “Stone Temple Pilots have announced they have officially terminated Scott Weiland.” Now, we’ve debated the topic of press release length on my blog, and though I’ve always believed that short and sweet press releases work best, I’ve never tried to argue that press releases should be just one sentence long. But the truth is that this single-sentence press release was incredibly powerful, and there are a few valuable lessons we all can learn from it....
In an era when media and content strategies demand deep and broad storytelling methods over a variety of digital and print platforms, the press release still has a role to play – but that role is more limited than it once was. A concise, jargon-free press release can help you communicate real news directly to your target audiences: customers, prospects, investors or partners. When you embed relevant hyperlinks in such an announcement, it can educate influencers in your market by leading them to resources beyond the release, such as videos, presentations, white papers, spec sheets and other pieces of content. And with keywords in your headline and copy, your press release can help your company get found online. All of those results are valuable, but if you’re counting on a press release to accomplish the following, you’re in for disappointment....
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Here's an excellent example of a news release that provides valuable information and does a great job at selling without "marketing." Thanks to Sarah Skerik at PRNewswire for this example