Has PR become an essential SEO tool?

As search engine algorithms are increasingly refined to weed out devious SEO tricks and focus on web site quality and relevance, so content becomes really important and this widens the scope and role of PR.

When we set up Virtual News Office over ten years ago we soon noticed that Google indexed our clients' stories and these showed up in searches in several ways. Although this wasn't an intended feature of the VNO, searches turned up not just for the client's name or brand, but the customer's name, the location and of course the generic product type. The VNO service was devised to allow marketing to regularly update news on their web site, rapidly - something their IT or web agency often struggled to achieve, or was expensive to do. The VNO service Technical Marketing Ltd offers is not just a means of publishing news online, but a searchable archive, a high resolution image resource for the press, an RSS news feed generator and a tool for delivering press releases.  Although CMS is now common on company web sites, actually updating a news module requires the discipline and time for someone in the marketing team to actually go and do. Because the news from the VNO is fed to an iFrame on the client's site there are relevant inbound links, something Google rates highly. But this system also allows us to feed news to other industry sites, news tickers or banner ads. We have found that our news server consistently ranks in the top 10 referring sites to client web sites.

An onsite news module merely supplies  page content, it neither generates in-bound links or provides editorial resource and may not be making best use of the content anyway. We reasoned way back during the development of the VNO that the news was what changed most often and required regular updates that most other pages didn't and was most effectively and efficiently managed by the PR agency. The only counter argument being that the company web site did not have the benefit of this content.  But this is easily overcome by examining news subjects and publication channels and re-purposing content that has a longer term value on the web site for search engine indexing. Important news should still go to the media and this requires to be written in a media friendly style and delivered typically by email. For customers and prospects the style can be different and the delivery channels include newsletters and social media.

Some news will be short term - an exhibition or event, financial results, staff changes etc. Other news may have longer term value such as new products, interesting customer applications or installations and these can be re-purposed as product support and testimonials to create quality, relevant web site content. News delivery can be used as appropriate such as Twitter or RSS for headline news and links to more extensive content on the web site, less formal communication on a blog and groups on LinkedIn.

The scope of this work seems to most naturally be within the remit of the PR agency, a role now expanded beyond the traditional press release, to include alternative publication and delivery platforms and now playing an important part in good search engine positioning.

The value of customer testimonials

Third party endorsements of your products published as testimonials can positively influence prospective customers and become another useful marketing tool.

Endorsements can be requested or unsolicited - such as someone spontaneously contacting the company to praise the product, or in response to examples of good service they have received. Alternatively it could be a product review on an industry (or your own company) web site, but reviews can also focus on negative experience.

Requested testimonials should be organised where users of your products can be invited to provide a statement that can be quoted in publicity material, or go further than that and invite them to agree to a full interview. Interviewing the person giving the testimonial can be made on video and at the location where your products are used. The video technique is very useful. The interviewees can introduce themselves and talk about their company to establish their authority and credentials and then be guided through response to a series of questions. The products can be shown in situ and demonstrated in use. How and why your products were chosen can be elicited and the user experience explored.

Usually the video will need editing so that it flows well and establishing footage of the venue or location added to help tell the story.  But posting the interview to the company YouTube archive is just the beginning. The interview can easily be re-purposed as an article for the company newsletter, as a press release and selecting a still and quote used for display advertising with a QR link back to the video.

The value of advocates

Within the market you address there will be an important and exclusive group whose advocacy of your products is disproportionate to the numbers of people.

They can be grouped as your “VIP List”–these are the people that you need to have on message and feeling positive and warm about your products. The first task is to identify who qualifies for your VIP list. They may not all be on your database, although they should be. Examples of people qualifying for VIP membership may include your most important customers, editors of the most influential publications in your market, consultants and advisors, academics and  the recognised industry guru – if there is one.

These people need to be kept not only informed of what your company is doing, but taken into your confidence where appropriate. The VIP group can be a good sounding board for new products in development for example. Communications should be personalised both in terms of providing the most relevant content to each person and in a form that they prefer. It may be information mailed with a personal covering letter if that is their preference, or a personal email or even a telephone call.

The VIP group can be invited to special events –not a hospitality package at a sporting event –but a new product launch or site visit to a prestige project. At one company we hosted a monthly lunch for groups of VIPs at a London restaurant and because they had the same industry interests in common discussions could be lively and informative.

By cultivating your VIPs they will become valuable advocates for your brand and products.

Are printed magazines on the way out?

When The Engineer announced it was to cease publication of its respected fortnightly magazine and go online only, was this the end of an era, or the dawn of a new age?

Editor John Excell explained the economics and dynamics of print v online that was behind publisher Centaur Media's decision to cease print and move the title to an online magazine only. Clearly the cost savings could be significant. In general we see less printed material in the b-2-b world anyway because most customers are satisfied with information on company web sites or willing to print off PDFs if they want a hard copy record. And of course an online magazine has the capability to do much more - links, video, interactive tools for example. But this is much more of a landmark decision than simply offering product information online rather than in print. The Engineer is a well established title that has been in print for nearly 150 years, it has valuable content of well written and researched articles at the cutting edge of engineering. It is not a publication full of manufacturers' press releases. It is a publication of note that engineers read. And this is really one of the key issues - what platform do the readers prefer to read content?

Other publishers must be watching with great interest to see what happens next. Other titles in the industrial, engineering, technology sectors have over the years, been slow to publish on the Internet at all, but most now have online versions using Yudu page turning versions of the printed magazine, email newsletters, news archives etc but still retain the printed version. Interestingly the first digital publication of The Engineer retains the magazine style but online, with tools to view full screen, print, share, download etc. It still looks as though it is designed for print rather than optimised for online viewing. I suspect few readers will print off 42 pages to read away from a computer or mobile device. Not surprisingly online comments divide into two camps - those who view the decision to cease print as the death of the title and those that herald a bold environmentally wise move. But being engineers someone soon got to calculating the energy used by the devices that carry the digital copy. Whether people prefer to read articles, stories and generally longer pieces in printed format or on say an iPad is a matter of wider debate and for now there seems to be a market for both.

The advertising manager of a technology publication that offers both print and online options of their magazine told me there was very little cross over between readers registered for the print and online versions and accordingly the advertising packages were sold separately. This is of course another important test - how will advertisers respond? On the face of it placing the advertisement online should enable the opportunity for tracking response that print advertising has not offered since the demise of response cards. The design and format of advertisements could use new techniques, although the first digital issue appears to use the advertising designed for print plus a link. In theory advertisers could have the advertising copy on their own server in future and offer far greater reader interactivity. But much depends on the readers transferring actual reading habits, not just skimming headlines, from the printed page to the online page and that is what advertisers and other publishers will be watching with interest.