On their own, SEO and social media channels offer attractive opportunities for reaching industry influentials as well as end-consumers through push and pull public relations. Together, SEO and social media combine to create a competitive edge that can boost online public relations results.

Why is this so? Changes in the way the media and end-consumers discover, consume and share content illustrate the intersection of opportunity for both the search and social Web. Today’s increasingly social media savvy content consumer not only expects to find what they’re looking for on search engines, but to interact with the results. Those interactions take many forms including: commenting, voting and sharing. As a result, social media can affect search engine visibility in numerous ways, creating new promotion opportunities for public and media relations efforts.

Of course, throwing keywords at social media tactics isn’t quite the same thing as developing and implementing a plan to reach specific goals. Dropping links to news being promoted on social networks can have impact but is difficult to sustain. For long term value from effort with SEO and social media, public relations professionals should follow best practices as well as the fundamentals:

1. Identify the specific audience to reach. What are their behaviors and preferences for content, sharing, media types, etc? What keywords are used in a social AND search context? Empathize with their content preferences and the context in which they consume and share. A blogger often has very different preferences than a TV reporter or a newspaper journalist.
2. Set specific goals and objectives that can be measured. Mentions, comments, links, rankings, traffic, media coverage or other “engagement” metrics. Leverage tools from search engine optimization and social media marketing to track Web-based metrics.
3. Develop a strategy for reaching those goals with the intended audience. Content creation and promotion is essential for an SEO and Social media public relations effort. Today is not just the age of “Brand as Publisher” but “PR Practitioner as Publisher”. One effective strategy for gaining unsolicited media coverage is to become the media. Or at least perceived as such through attracting a significant audience to a brand news portal or blog.
4. Figure out which mix of tactics (blog, social networks, media sharing, microblogging, etc.) will support and execute the strategy. Original content is ideal but often not practical or sustainable. Content curation mixed with original content can scale. Develop social networks and build channels of distribution for promotion of news.
5. Identify which specific social tools to use. If social networks are the right channel, which social network? Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace or niche networks? If video is in the mix, does distribution need to be limited to YouTube or does it make sense to syndicate to Vimeo, Metacafe and others.
6. Put proper measurement tools in place and identify what events and outcomes to analyze. Web analytics and social media monitoring services are essential for collecting useful and reportable outcomes from news SEO and social promotion.
7. Identify individuals and resources necessary to implement. Forecast time, internal reporting, and feedback mechanisms for participants. The most effective social media SEO efforts for public relations involve the agency or public relations practitioner working together with content creators, SEOs, marketers and others in a position to publish and promote content online.
8. Plan for success and what it will take to scale when you succeed. Be ready to address issues or failure as well. Test, test, test! Social media SEO can amplify reach but it takes work and resources. Find out what has to be displaced or subordinated in order to incorporate social media and SEO into the online public relations mix.

This post originally appeared in the PRSA TechConnect Newsletter Jan 2011.

SEO helps a search engine to do its job more effectively.

Search engines aren’t perfect – that’s why people in SEO are flourishing. People who write web copy often only consider one audience: customers, or analysts; maybe journalists. You should consider the extra audience of search engines.

SEO boils down to three elements: keyword research, site interactivity, and links.

1) Keyword research reveals the permutations and variations of the terms people are searching for. Start with the notion of what’s important and pop that into a keyword research tool. It comes back with multiple versions, ordered by popularity, so you can make smart choices about the words you use in your titles and press releases and articles.

2) The technical aspect of how a search engine interacts with your site is, in most cases, a job for your IT department.

3) With linking, go after quantity and quality of links, every day, for ever. You might be publishing good content, but no one will know unless you tell somebody. If you have an unpopular site – maybe because it’s new – use PRWeb online news releases and amplify them through social media channels.

Don’t be scared of getting it wrong – but don’t spam.

The dangers of getting SEO wrong are no worse than the dangers of, for example, using PR software without segmenting your list and blasting people with pitches. The thing to avoid is being overly aggressive and using what might be perceived as spamming tactics. Keyword stuffing, or engaging in linking tactics that Google considers unsavory, such as buying links from a publication – that’s a big no-no for Google. Earn your links: they’re forever, there’s no risk, and they’re more valuable.

SEO will not dominate PR, but it will improve it.

Search engines will never be perfect, and social media will never be perfect. Algorithms aren’t any smarter than human beings. There will always be a combination of technology and human intuition. I’m predisposed to looking for the middle ground. When you have these emerging technologies and industries, it’s usually the middle ground that becomes practical over time.

Learn SEO from TopRank Online Marketing:

Lee Odden will be giving a pre-conference 1/2 day SEO Bootcamp for Communicators at the PRSA International Conference Oct 17th, 2010 in Washington D.C..

The SEO Bootcamp offers a deep dive into the essentials of search engine optimization and social media, real-time search, content marketing, universal search and digital asset optimization.  The workshop offers strategies, tactics, exercises and case studies that will equip you with knowledge that will bring you to the front of the pack when it comes to SEO, online reputation management and search engine dominance.

Endorsed by the President of of the PRSA, Odden has over 12 years of Search Engine Optimization experience and has provided strategic guidance and training for companies ranging from HP to McKesson to PRWeb.

“The SEO team at TopRank has been a tremendous partner for improving the search engine visibility of the PRSA Jobcenter. I recommend TopRank’s SEO consulting services without reservation.”
William Murray, President and COO, Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)

All attendees will receive a copy of Optimize! Public Relations, documenting the top ten tactics for optimizing content to increase news traffic and online media coverage. Seating is limited for this high impact workshop so be sure to get registered today.

You can register for the SEO Bootcamp here.

Lee Odden is a man with a message: write to your audience. Of course, PR pros knew that already. If we’re pitching to a tech publication, we talk tech; if we’re pitching to a newspaper, we’re topical. However, we’re still ignoring the audience of the search engine – and it’s one of the most influential publics we have. Search engines don’t buy our products and they don’t write the news – but they influence everyone who does. No one knows this better than Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing. His business is built on optimizing brands’ online performance, and he believes that ‘Optimized PR’ – the practice of integrating the opportunities offered by search engine optimization and social media into your PR – is the future.

“Optimized PR reacts to opportunities.’ says Odden. ‘The opportunities are in the way that journalists, analysts and bloggers are doing their jobs now. An astronomical number of journalists have lost their jobs in the last five or ten years. Those that remain in the newsroom are expected to do more with less. They’re using search and social media to do their research and to identify themes, trends and emerging stories. Our own surveys show that between 90 and 100 percent of them have used Google as a part of their job. Optimized PR helps them find your company.”

“TopRank gets anywhere from ten to thirty unsolicited media pick-ups every month from industry publications that cover search and Internet marketing,” says Odden. “There’s no PR firm; no outbound pitching. It’s Optimized PR, and there are two elements to it. The first is creating keyword-optimized content so that journalists and bloggers find your company where they’re searching. The second element is pushing that content out through self-grown social media networks and channels of distribution.”

Although the language might sound intimidating, the activity itself isn’t. Broken down into its parts, much of Optimized PR will come naturally to PR professionals skilled in building networks and creating topical content; while other elements can be accomplished with inexpensive online tools. So where do we, as relative novices, start?

“Start with optimizing a press release,” says Odden. “This involves keyword research. Start with the notion of what’s important and pop that into a keyword research tool. It comes back with multiple variations, ordered by popularity, so you can make smart choices about the words you use in your titles and press releases and articles. Just by doing that, you’re giving yourself an advantage, because your press release is now more likely to be discovered through Google search.

“Now, you could take your optimized press release and also create a blog post of that same news. Maybe you’ve got a video embedded in the press release. What if you transcribe that video as part of your blog post? Or take some screenshots of important parts of the video, and add those to the blog post. You’ve now got new, original content by repurposing what you already had.”

“Then,” he continues, “you push that social-friendly version of the press release out through social media channels. This assumes you’ve made the effort to grow a Twitter network, a Facebook network, a LinkedIn network. Your blog might have a large number of subscribers, and an email newsletter. Other readers might find your post through blog search, or image search. If they can find it, they can link to it – and those links move you up the search engine rankings and make it easier for journalists to find you. Now, your social media channels are working together with your press release. You’ve got something optimized for search, and optimized for social: you’ve got Optimized PR, and its reach is… there’s just no comparison.”

“Compare that to pitch – the idea of just pushing a press release,” says Odden, “Compare interrupting a journalist’s day and asking them to write about your company with the idea of a journalist on a deadline, who goes to Google and finds you because you’ve written an optimized piece of content, prompting them to connect with you via Facebook to set up the call that will enable them to get their story finished.

“Of course, the two techniques work together. Often, as a journalist, you get your pitch, you read it for 10 or 15 seconds and you go straight to Google and search for the company who’s sent it. If that company has optimized their content and they show up, that connection is priceless. It’s almost like third-party validation.

It’s a convincing sell, but you might remain unconvinced of your ability to put the technical aspects of SEO and social media channeling into practice. Odden, however, has encouragement for you.

“Experiment and participate,” he advises. There are companies who acknowledge that they may not have the resources to do it, so they hire people like us. Others might do some self-education by going to conferences and training sessions; there’s online education and lots of resources. But none of that means anything unless you experiment yourself. Start a blog, do some of the social things to grow a network, then pick content optimization opportunities and try your hand. And SEO is easy to try. Even if you just Google, ‘Learn SEO’, you’ll find a resource that gives you advice.”

Article originally published by Vocus

Photo Credit: Andy Beal

On Thursday, January 28th 1PM EST TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden and Bulldog Reporter will be offering a high impact webinar for Public Relations and Communications professionals on using search engine optimization to increase online visibility and placements. Details are below, but you can register here:

Optimized Public Relations: 10 Easy SEO Tactics PR Can Use to Increase Digital and Traditional Media Pickup in 2010 Bulldog Reporter’s PR University Presents a New Webcast Tutorial Thursday, January 28, 2010

PR pros looking for the latest SEO tools and know-how to build brand and buzz should attend this new webcast tutorial from Bulldog Reporter’s PR University titled: “Optimized Public Relations: 10 SEO Tactics PR Can Use to Increase Digital and Traditional Media Pickup in 2010.” :

This PR University webcast takes place on Thursday, January 28, at 1PM EST (noon CST, 11AM MST, 10AM PST).

In just 90 minutes, this PR University webcast tutorial will give PR professionals the tools and step-by-step instruction they need to positively impact their company or brand’s perception, positioning and coverage. They will learn how to find their keyword sweet spot, how to use those words and phrases to boost the number of people who visit their site and how to write optimized copy to drive greater results and return on investment.

Key takeaways from this webinar:

• The opportunity Google’s Universal Search offers PR for news and other digital assets
• SEO Primer: Common myths, essential concepts and key definitions PR must understand how search engines work
• How to conduct keyword research-plus online tools and new techniques for finding their company or brand’s keyword sweet spot
• Word counts, hyperlinks, headline writing rules and other SEO guidelines
• How to use keywords to optimize your online newsroom, website, press releases — and virtually any PR communiqué
• SEO Distribution: Smart press releases, social media releases and other emerging distribution tools that leverage optimized PR copy for wider reach online
• Actionable tips for incorporating SEO and Social Media into an optimized PR program
• How to optimize press releases, websites and PR communiqués by integrating keywords and phrases

Register for the Optimized Public Relations webinar here.

Attendance at Bulldog Reporter’s PR University : audio conference costs $299 per dial-in site. Participants in the 90-minute conference will be able to pose specific questions for the presenter at several junctures during the discussion. Attendees of PR University conferences receive one credit toward PRSA accreditation maintenance.
Registration also includes an up-to-the-minute conference manual and a full transcript. For more information on taking part in the event, go here : or for personalized service and special offers please contact our client satisfaction representatives toll free at: 1-800-959-1059.

About Lee Odden:

Lee Odden is CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, a Minnesota based digital marketing agency with experience providing Search Engine Optimization and Social Media PR consulting services to organizations including PRSA, PRWeb, McKesson and Marketo. Odden’s SEO advice is featured in a chapter of “Online Marketing Heroes”, published by Wiley,  he contributes to Mashable, iMediaConnection and the Microsoft Advertising Blog and is executive editor of Online Marketing Blog, ranked by Advertising Age and Technorati as a top Business & Marketing blog.

As a 12 year internet marketing veteran, he’s been cited by The Economist, DM News and Target Marketing Magazine for SEO, Social and PR expertise and is a sought after speaker for conferences including Search Engine Strategies, Pubcon and PRSA International. Odden serves as on the DMA Search Marketing Council, is on the advisory board for Search Engine Strategies, Marketing Profs Conference Programming advisor and a past MIMA board member.

Connect with TopRank on the Social Web:
Twitter: @toprank
Blog: Online Marketing Blog
Facebook: Online Marketing Blog Fan Page

On their own, SEO and social media channels offer attractive opportunities for reaching industry influentials as well as end consumers through push and pull PR. Together, SEO and social media combine to create a competitive edge that can boost online PR results.

Why is this so? Changes in the way the media and end consumers discover, consume and share content illustrate the intersection of opportunity for search and the social web. Today’s increasingly social savvy content consumer not only expects to find what they’re looking for on search engines, but to interact with the results. Those interactions take many forms including: commenting, voting and sharing. As a result, social media can affect search engine visibility in numerous ways, creating new promotion opportunities for public and media relations efforts.

Of course, throwing keywords at social media tactics isn’t quite the same thing as developing and implementing a plan to reach specific goals. Dropping links to news being promoted on social networks can have impact but is difficult to sustain. For long term value from effort with SEO and social media, PR professionals should follow best practices as well as the fundamentals:

1. Implement a listening program using social media monitoring, search engine ranking and keyword research tools.
2. Identify the specific audience to reach. What are their behaviors and preferences for content, sharing, media types, etc? What keywords are used in a social AND search context?
3. Set specific goals and objectives that can be measured. Mentions, comments, links, rankings, traffic, media coverage or other “engagement” metrics.
4. Develop a strategy for reaching those goals with the intended audience. Content creation and promotion is essential for a SEO and Social Media PR effort.
5. Figure out which mix of tactics (blog, social networks, media sharing, microblogging, etc) will support and execute the strategy.
6. Identify which specific social tools use. If social networks are the right channel, which social network? Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace or niche networks?
7. Put proper measurement tools in place and identify what events and outcomes to analyze.
8. Identify individuals and resources necessary to implement. Forecast time, internal reporting, and feedback mechanisms for participants.
9. Plan for success and what it will take to scale when you succeed. Be ready to address issues or failure as well.

A set of guidelines and a focus on strategy is always important, but don’t let that get in the way of experimentation. There is no substitute for learning about effective SEO and social media as communication channels than through participation. Social media optimization is the convergence of SEO and social media that allows media relations and PR professionals to optimize news content and leverage social media channels to promote it.

Many public relations practitioners have warmed in recent years to the power of search engine optimization for growing the impact of pull based PR efforts.

Journalists, bloggers and industry influentials use search engines to find subject matter experts, research companies, locate past media coverage and track topical trends. In fact, a recent survey on journalists’ use of search by TopRank reports that 91% of those journalists, reporters and editors surveyed use search engines to do their jobs.

Traditionally, search engine optimization efforts have been managed by corporate marketing departments – either in-house or through an outside agency. However, will all the opportunities to create value in the form of increased online brand visibility, reputation management and internet based media coverage, public relations deserves a seat at the corporate SEO table.

To achieve that, it’s important that PR professionals understand the foundation of SEO tactics as well as the business benefits for PR efforts as well as to the larger organization.  The upcoming series of posts will outline SEO and PR tactics with the most impact, how to choose the best keywords, on page SEO and link building best practices as well as measuring the value of SEO to public relations efforts. It will also cover when PPC is a better fit than SEO, how to combine SEO and social media promotions and the finer points of selling the benefits of SEO to decision makers.

Corporate web site optimization projects require an equal measure of search engine knowledge, understanding of corporate messaging and ability to appreciate and acquire links from credible sources. By learning the fundamentals of SEO and the possible impact on public relations effectiveness, PR departments can demonstrate their competitive advantage.

To that end, here is a series of ten blog posts that present specific tactics that will help PR practitioners implement content optimization tactics and improve online PR performance through search:

Keep in mind that while these explanations and examples will be centered around PR and news content, many of the SEO  and social media marketing tactics can be applied to any kind of content whether it be job listings, FAQ/Knowledge Base info or products/services.

As both a SEO and a PR practitioner for the past 8+ years, I get to educate clients and audiences at both PR & Search Marketing conferences. At public relations conferences, I’m the SEO guy talking about optimized PR. At search marketing conferences, I’m the PR guy talking about using PR for SEO.

The continuing convergence of both PR and SEO is inevitable. Neither is based on pay to play, although there are advertorial and paid editorial placement offerings. Editorial visibility in offline and online publications is for the most part “earned” as are the top rankings of web pages on search engines like Google and Yahoo.

Public relations practitioners have significantly warmed up to well documented possibilities and opportunities to extend their effectiveness for clients through implementing search engine optimization into their programs. The reality is that PR doesn’t have control over all of a companies digital assets.

While corporate public relations may not be able to influence their newfound SEO knowledge and enthusiasm across a company’s web content, there are several areas readily available in most cases.

The most common web site content areas under the influence of PR, at least from a content management perspective, include: press releases, online newsrooms, re-published media coverage, videos, podcasts, images, webinars, white papers, newsletters, in some cases a blog and routine announcements and media communications.

Armed with relevant keyword glossaries PR and communications professionals will be able to leverage the Pull in Push/Pull PR by optimizing the various types of content they publish with keywords that both journalists and consumers are looking for.

In a 2007 study by Bulldog Reporter and TEKgroup International with over 2000 respondents, 64% of journalists research stories online through Google News and Yahoo News. 70% read at least one blog regularly and 44% visit a social media site at least monthly. Optimizing content for visibility in these channels increases the opportunity for the media to pull themselves to your news content.

Pull PR in conjunction with media outreach and wire service distribution of press releases (the Push) can be particularly effective. To determine exactly how effective means employing tracking and analytics specific to the channels being optimized for. Analytics tools include web site analytics for the company web site, press release metrics and reporting from the wire services, social media monitoring services, online clipping services and SEO specific reporting such as rankings and conversions.

Taking advantage of the powerful opportunities that exist when combining natural search optimization with news content provides PR practitioners with another competitive advantage that is consistent with changes in the way the media is sourcing story content. PR agencies that do not bring a digital PR and SEO offering to their clients will find those clients looking for an agency that will.

By Lee Odden

In the world of using search engine optimization tactics for extending the reach of media relations, optimizing press releases alone leaves a tremendous opportunity untouched.

Increasing numbers of companies have realized this and are adopting more formal holistic news content optimization strategies. Digital Asset Optimization is a SEO Point of View that our search marketing agency, TopRank started developing in early 2007.

Limiting news content optimization to press releases with a web site rich with news, media coverage and digital assets leaves a lot of the “good stuff” out of the scope of SEO attention. There’s a tremendous opportunity for a competitive advantage in search engine PR when all of the news content digital assets involved with the SEO effort.

The first step to managing a news digital asset optimization program is to take inventory of the media assets and content types that are currently being created. It is important not to discount content because it is not published online. Many types of press clippings, news coverage, digital communications, video and image assets can be repurposed for news content optimization and promotion.

It’s important for a successful news DAO program to create a matrix of inventoried digital assets and the corresponding promotional channels. This is helpful when a strategic online PR promotion plan is put in place because it’s easier to see what individual parts of a program can be promoted on their own.

Next, the media and content types being promoted are keyword optimized. Ideally, a process and training is put in place with the various news content creation sources including press releases, media coverage, white papers, archived webinars, newsletters or other PR and news communications content in order to enable news content to be optimized and promoted on an ongoing basis.

Digital news assets and media like video can be extended and optimized for promotion on multiple channels. For example, a video might normally be submitted to YouTube or a few other video sharing web sites. The video optimization and marketing opportunity can be extended by:

• Publishing the video with embed code into a blog post. Optimize the blog post with keywords in the title and references to the video from other relevant pages using anchor text.

• Transcribe part or all of the video and post the text along with show notes into another blog post entry or in the original post under the video.

• Take screen captures of important parts of the video and submit them to image sharing web sites. Include portions of the show notes in the image description. Link back to the blog post hosting the video.

Another step in the digital asset optimization process for news content is to create a digital content promotion and outreach plan. Consider both the strategic DAO promotion opportunities as well as the promotion of individual media whether they are text, image, video or audio.

For example, an entire viral campaign can be deployed leveraging not only the buzz building and word of mouth benefits, but also the ability for individual components of the program to drive news related search traffic on their own.

Like all online public relations and marketing efforts, campaign activity and content interactions should be tracked with web analytics software. Each overall campaign as well as individual promotional efforts should be monitored to see what’s working and what’s not.

Our SEO firm’s blog, Online Marketing Blog was included in each permutation of the list using a wide variety of criteria. I have yet to see so many different criteria used in any other ranking of marketing or PR blogs. That includes the AdAge Power 150 and Onalytica’s ranking of the most influential blogs, both of which include TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog.

Such lists always attract a bit of scrutiny and criticism, as they should. It keeps them honest or outs them as otherwise.

For example. as long as an organization wants coverage in their industry’s media, they need an advocate (agency or in-house) reminding journalists of company news and story ideas or the publication will end up writing about someone else.

For link building, a company needs to allocate ongoing resources to the pitching and acquisition of links because they are a critical component to how search engines rank web pages. Without ongoing link building, the search engines will rank pages with more and better quality inbound links.

In both cases there is a steady stream of competition and to persist (with the exception of Fortune 50 brands) in top visibility within standard search engines, it will require persistence in promotion. Of course there are other variables in both cases, but it’s a good illustration for ongoing attention.