SEO: A PR Change Agent

CMA's PR manager, Kaitlin Friedmann, recently became a guest blogger on e-Xplorations.com, a marketing blog designed to help business owners become more savvy to new trends. The excerpt below was posted this week...

You’ve seen the reports—2010 is shaping up to potentially be the year where all marketing and public relations departments truly step up their Web 2.0 budgets. This means increased time and energy devoted to blog development, social media marketing and other user-generated content overall, and all together, a new way of thinking about integrated marketing.

With all of these exciting interactive communication developments happening at once, perhaps the topic on most business owners’ and executives’ minds is search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is valuable to any promotional campaign because the very aim of this practice is to create awareness, raise interest and desire, and move a consumer to take action all in one place—the search engine.
In the public relations profession, SEO has been a major change agent. Gone are the PR strategies that ignore the power of online media and rely only on traditional print and broadcast outlets.

Most SEO seekers’ main objective is to drive traffic to a specific website—now also a common goal for the PR professional, whose usual directive “get ink,” has been fully transitioned to an equal or greater desire for website hits. While Business Wire, Marketwire, PrimeNewswire, PR Newswire and PRWeb have been valuable tools for press release distribution for decades, (to both media and directly to the consumer) PR professionals need to utilize these services to their fullest extent by providing more optimized and tailored content to make their announcement stand out.

To increase the chances of an announcement reaching the individual it was intended for, a few simple practices can be integrated during the writing of the press release:

1) Make headlines – Your headline is still your first opportunity to make a good impression on your target audience. Craft a headline chock full of keywords that speak to your audience’s main concerns and greatly increase your chances of them moving on to learn more.

2) Drop your anchor – Using targeted words for anchor text that links back to specific pages of the company’s website, or to other useful pages such as a company blog, can determine the ranking that the page will receive by search engines. Make sure your linked text is relevant to the landing page and include your actual URL in as many appropriate areas as possible—not just the boilerplate.

3) Use words from your customers’ mouths – In order to increase word of mouth among your target customers, wouldn’t it make sense to ask them what their needs are first? Compile a list of top search terms and key issues by putting in some extra time to survey your market or compile market research ahead of time. This will ensure you aren’t using misunderstood jargon or buzzwords they consider overused.

4) Do it yourself – Many online news outlets have areas where you can post press releases yourself. These areas offer an opportunity for you increase your SEO ranking by having your company or client’s name mentioned on websites other than your own.

A lot has changed about PR in the last five years, but one thing that will remain timeless is the value of good copywriting. A press release that is vague, too opinionated or just poorly written will get you nowhere—with or without SEO. By relying on your instincts and approaching SEO in an organized way, you can upgrade your PR approach and adapt appropriately without seeming like you’re rushing to jump on an SEO band wagon.

Kaitlin Friedmann
PR Manager
kfriedmann@cmasolutions.com

Designing a Website Built to Last

If a website refresh is what your company needs to start anew in 2010, it’s imperative that you work with your designer to create something that is built to last. Using outdated techniques can force a prospective customer to click the “x” in the corner and cross you off the list of potential business partners as quick as the click of a mouse.

We’ve seen so many website trends come and go. Consider these points while you’re in the planning stage.

Put yourself in the website visitors’ shoes. Your website is now almost the equivalent of the first greeting, handshake and business card exchange in the early stages of a real, live meeting. Within the first few seconds, the visitor needs to feel engaged but also in control. While the organization of your website is important to share information, the design elements must make them feel comfortable enough to want to stay.

A website should accurately represent your brand. Since your website might be the first place a customer is introduced to your brand, make sure visitors are able to immediately understand who the business is and what you do. A cluttered homepage with disorganized photos and clickables can be confusing, so keep it simple.

Utilize white space for a more professional feel. Dated websites are easy to spot—they have bright colors, perhaps a patterned background and lots of text to scroll through. According to Business Week, 62% of those online are researching products and services. Maintaining a good ratio of white space to images and text allows the visitor to concentrate better on the information they are seeking.

Websites are an essential piece of a company’s full brand. Before you decide to launch a website project, spend some time shopping around to other websites to browse for ideas and accurately gauge the trends in your own industry. Let CMA apply our expertise to deliver a website that truly represents you.

Diane Webster,
Associate Creative Director
Dwebster@cmasolutions.com

A Web Presence is a Terrible Thing to Waste

It’s important for a company not to lose sight of how important their website is, especially since these days, it can serve as the main introduction to their brand presence and value proposition.

A company’s website should evolve and be refreshed as a business grows, refines or alters strategic direction, branding and positioning, makes an acquisition, enters a new market or introduces new products and services.

A website that is little more than a digital version of the company brochure just doesn’t cut it anymore. A makeover or even an entirely new site may be advisable, if not essential. If you decide on a website refresh or a bulldoze to rebuild from the ground up, do your site visitors a favor and bring in a web designer to do it right―particularly if your current site was built by a friend or someone who’s simply “interested in computers.”

These lamentable scenarios often result in some of the most arcanely programmed, navigationally convoluted, frustratingly slow and ineffective websites out there. I know, because our company has had to modify and improve some of them over the years.

To help you on your journey, I recommend a few do’s and don’ts for keeping your website current:

Tone down “bells and whistles.” Animation and Flash are like seasoning—used with relevance and purpose, they enhance the user experience, but when applied excessively for their own sake, they frustrate a user trying to gather information.

Rethink “Skip Intro.” They may set off a “Skip Website” alarm in the visitors’ minds.

Use colors intelligently. Bright colors used to prevail. Now white space, brevity and readability are paramount.

Break up the copy for greater readability. Dynamic headlines and sub-heads should be developed around key messages to communicate them prominently and pique click-throughs.

These are just some elements to consider. Is a website refresh what your company needs to start anew in 2010? We’ll be exploring website trends all month, so check back for more tips and trend insights.

Erin Higgins
Manager, Client Services
ehiggins@cmasolutions.com