The power of the press release

Lawrence Jones, March 6th 2008, 9:19AM

I’ve been collecting information for quite some time now regarding what you think is the most important thing for your website.

Currently the trend shows:
• SEO at 46%
• Link building at 26%
• PPC at 20%
• PR at 9%

However, if this was reversed would it really be so bad?

The highest ranking is currently SEO – if there is such a thing. This made me contemplate things. What exactly is SEO and how do we use it?

Search engine optimisation has evolved with the internet and it relies on a series of complex rules to place businesses in order of relevance to your search.

However, what’s the point in attempting to optimise your site if content isn’t regularly changed?

If your content isn’t changed, Google probably won’t recognise it anyway.
Plus, if content is substandard, no matter how high you get in the search engines, you continue to find that leads don’t convert into sales. People won’t stay on the site long enough to buy from you if the pages aren’t interesting.

At 26% and 20%, link building and PPC came in second and third which I find strange. Pay per click can be the most costly solution and therefore you’d think it would rank more highly in public opinion.

Coming in last place with a vote of just 9% is PR. In my opinion this has many more online uses than a lot of people realise.

Online PR has even more benefits in addition to the traditional function of building your brand and getting your business in the press.

With online PR you can distribute your release across the web in various different portals.

There are a plethora of online publications just waiting for your release. Not only are these sites trawled by local, national and international media relations professionals, each one can be linked back to your site.

As you know, links to your site increase your Google page rank and your position in the search engines, as well as serving to build your company reputation and get some press. So that’s dealing with link building, SEO and PR in one fell swoop.

And sending a press release is free.

By writing press releases you are essentially killing an entire flock of birds with one stone and yet figures show so many businesses don’t hold the idea in high regard.

In my opinion, the sooner you embrace the press release the better for your business.

Tags: keyword, poll results, ppc, pr, seo, seo campaign
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Keyword shortcuts can backfire

Lawrence Jones, December 13th 2007, 11:29AM

I was asked in a focus group recently, whether Google allowed a company to put multiple ads under the same keywords.

I have always been led to believe that Google does not agree with this, on the basis that it is unfair competition. It merely drives up the cost per click for other advertisers and allows them to monopolise the Google results.

I know that from time to time UKFast advertises under the same keyword. However, we do so only when promoting completely different brands. Each brand has a different marketing strategy so it is very unlikely that two UKFast ads are ever seen next to each other.

Whilst doing some research, I chose keywords that related to our industry. The two words being ‘dedicated servers’.

Immediately, I was confronted with a marvellous example of how you can take advantage of the system. The UK arm of a well established hosting company Rackspace, and indeed a competitor of ours, was ranked in spots one, two and three.

I spoke to Google this morning and they confirmed that at first look this is the case. They assured me they are already aware of the situation and it is with their policy team at the moment awaiting a decision.

I was pleasantly surprised that this organisation, who have grown so quickly, remain consumer focused and totally on the ball.

However, in spite of Google frowning on this type of monopolisation or abuse of the system, I imagine it is a very successful method of marketing.

Effective keywords are few and far between so it is easy to envisage the fun you could have if you literally own the keywords. Possessing the top three spots means tripling the volume of leads coming in.

But then on the other hand, I was brought back to Earth when I remembered a conversation I’d had recently. We’d won a piece of business from a company and our contact stated that he felt this cumulative marketing strategy was wholly unnecessary.

He’d needed quotes from three different companies and had to make many extra phone calls to really get a good overview of the industry. This monopolisation of Google top spots had really all been a waste of his time. Because of this, the way he now looked on our competitor was unfavourable.

So personally, my advice to companies wishing to use adwords to the absolute maximum is; ‘work within the rules’. There is no point cheating the system. Eventually you will be found out and it may reflect badly on the way you are perceived both by competitors and potential clients.

Examples of the domain names and their registrant details can be found below.

Domain name:
summit-hosting-guide.co.uk

Registrant:
Rackspace Managed Hosting

Trading as:
Rackspace Managed Hosting

Relevant dates:
Registered on: 28-Mar-2007
Renewal date: 28-Mar-2009
Last updated: 17-Jul-2007

Name servers:
ns.rackspace.com
ns2.rackspace.com

Domain name:
serverandservice.co.uk

Registrant:
Rackspace Managed Hosting

Trading as:
Rackspace Managed Hosting

Relevant dates:
Registered on: 15-Apr-2007
Renewal date: 15-Apr-2009
Last updated: 17-Jul-2007

Name servers:
ns.rackspace.com
ns2.rackspace.com

Tags: google, keyword, marketing, pay per click, ppc
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Caching in on Anita Roddick’s good name

Lawrence Jones, September 12th 2007, 3:26PM

Online marketing, where will it stop?

In a desperate race to out do their competing news rivals, the Telegraph and Business Guardian both have added Anita Roddick’s name to their pay per click advertising.

Traffic to the newspaper’s sites is so important; the media giants, who once ignored the Internet and search engines, now pay Google to forward them traffic. With businesses paying a premium to advertise on their sites it is imperative the newspapers grow their online presence. Any type of customer is a potential good customer and so we see topical stories driving the pay per click campaigns.

Personally I don’t view it as a bad thing as I am great believer in freedom of speech and with that surely comes the freedom to publish and freedom to promote. I just find it fascinating that when Googling such an amazing business woman I find newspapers using Google to promote their brand.

Are these the same newspapers who claimed “the Internet is just a flash in the pan and will never affect good old fashioned print?”

You have to hand it to the 2 papers mentioned though as they are the only ones utilising this technique.

On the other hand, if you have stumbled upon this site whilst looking to find out more about the great entrepreneur Dame Anita Roddick, the site you will find the most helpful in my opinion is Wikipedia.org.

Tags: google, keyword, marketing, pay per click, pay per clicks, search engine
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Can enthusiasm dampen results?

Lawrence Jones, July 20th 2007, 3:11PM

How often do you type in your keywords on Google to see where your advert appears? If you are like the rest of us, probably quite often.

Firstly it’s important to weigh up where your advert appears in the rankings. Are you going up are you going down? It is imperative that you measure your results.

However, are you aware that Google calculates the number of times you view the adverts? If you do not click on them, after a relatively short time (undisclosed by Google) your advert disappears!

Don’t worry it is still there for the rest of the world to see, however the search engine recognises that you keep ignoring it, so it serves you something else instead.

Very clever, but how do you check your adverts with out affecting the potency of the campaign?

Simple, go to:
https://adwords.google.co.uk/select/AdTargetingPreviewTool

This allows you to see all the adverts without any interference. This way you get to see everyone, including competitors etc. At the same time, by not clicking on competitors adverts, they are removed from the list as well, so it is easy to get a false sense of who really is competing in your market place.

You might be asking why does it matter to use the tool, and so what if you can’t see them, as long as your customers do?

Rest assured, Google is calculating the potency of your click-throughs and the volume of adverts that are being shown. Literally every view counts and therefore to guarantee best results, use the tool. In my opinion you should use this for natural SEO too, not just "pay per click".

Please note you can’t click through to the various sites from this page it is merely a read only application.

Tags: adwords, google, keyword, marketing, pay per click, pay per clicks, ppc, search engine, seo
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Attracting the right visitors (Step 1)

Lawrence Jones, June 21st 2006, 5:55PM

How to attract more visitors to your site is relatively easy. Attracting the right visitors who have a higher potential of converting to customers is an art. I start with a simple question.

What are my clients looking for?

It sounds simple enough, however the majority of websites assume you know all about the product and miss out on the essentials. This is often because the person doing the promoting often is too close to the product.

I then have to second guess what search terms clients are most likely to use when searching for my product. If I am selling accountancy recruitment I would focus on 2 elements, attracting clients and candidates alike. A client search term may be “need accountant FCA Manchester.” A candidate’s search term might be “need job in credit control.”

Once you have found your keyword this is your starting point. You can use tools such as Overture’s Keyword selector tool. This is a fancy description for something that tells you how many people are searching on the specific words and their variations worldwide.

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

This is a great tool because you want to avoid wasting time. If you find that the search terms you are using only have 10 visitors per month and your product is £12.50, you know that you are going to need to find some more effective phrases.

Once you have your keyword, you need a landing page. This needs to written with the keywords in mind. Focus on one service per page. Devote the entire page or as much as you can to giving your visitors very targeted information.

Why?

Put simply, visitors don’t like surprises. Make your content relevant. If you give your visitors exactly what they are looking for they will thank you for it. They will probably use you there and then.

There is a slight problem with this. You have just entered into a race that never ends. Once you start competing on the internet for customers you will have fierce competition. If you make a change and directly affect someone elses leads, they will react and counter with a more effective response.

The overall affect is very addictive. Why, because we all like winning business. It is exciting and it drives us forward. Once you start winning leads through this simple process, it stands to reason that you will want to amplify your success and do it more.

Tags: keyword, ukfast
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