Getting media coverage is just one reason for a press release.

It can serve a host of other purposes, including helping readers find you from behind a paywall and even increasing your site’s search ranking.

However, it isn’t always a straight line between dropping a press release and zooming up those search engine results pages.

According to Search Engine Journal, the links you place directly into a press release aren’t likely to help you in search rankings. Google knows you’re putting those there yourself and basically discounts them; newswire sites usually use no follow links, which don’t benefit your SEO overall.

But press releases can still benefit your overall rankings.

PR Daily’s recent SEO Certificate Course for Communicators covered the how-tos of this topic. Bonus materials for the course included Visably’s Ultimate Guide to Search Engine Strategy.

The entire guide is well worth your time, but let’s zoom in on just one section today. How can you optimize releases for search? We aren’t talking about distribution or backlinking tips and tricks here, but the simple way you put together the release itself.

All tips are based on Visably’s guide.

1. Tweak your keywords

The tiniest adjustments to the words you use to describe your product (or any other aspect of the release) can make a big impact. For instance, Visibly notes that “portable kayak” has one-third the search volume as “lightweight kayak.” Assuming your kayak is lightweight (because aren’t all kayaks portable?), simply making this small change could give you a big bump.

If you’re not sure how to measure search volume, start with a free, simple tool like Google Trends, which quickly and easily allows you to compare two or more terms. Find a more comprehensive guide to using Google Trends for content here.

2. Highlight recognizable quotes

Most press releases include quotes from someone. But if that person has search value in their name alone, you can make SEO gains. Depending on the nature of the release, you might be quoting your CEO, a celebrity spokesperson or an influencer. All of these can help you appear in searches that are tangentially related to your product — but could introduce you to new audiences.

3. Add images

Whether it’s an infographic, a graph, an illustration or original photography, the right pictures can  help  your press release  show up higher in search. Make sure you optimize each photo with alt text and a strong description and title. Not only will this boost your overall SEO, it’ll help you show up in image searches, too — another valuable source of traffic.

4. Don’t spam

Yes, we have to say this one. We know you’re under pressure to distribute your press release far and wide, but that behavior can actually hurt your overall ranking. Links from spammy sites can cause Google to give you the side eye based on the company you keep and hurt your overall score. So don’t scatter your release to the winds. Be thoughtful and judicious about online distribution, just as you are with media pitching.

This is  just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to SEO and press releases, but keep these simple tips in mind when writing and designing your next press release. Acting consistently over time can yield big results.

Check out more from the Visibly guide here.

Allison Carter is executive editor of PR Daily. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post 4 tips to increase your press release’s SEO appeared first on PR Daily.

The topic of misinformation hit an all-time global high in October this year.

Google is super aware of this and recently announced a $13.2 million grant to the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), Google’s single largest grant in fact-checking.

Misinformation is a big problem for Google.

If Google’s search results contain rubbish, then users stop coming back. This impacts advertising revenue.

Therefore, Google has been keen to push experience, expertise, authority and trust (EEAT) as important things to consider if you want your content to rank in its index.

(The first ‘E’ experience is a new one – Google updated its guidance on December 15^th – read more here – tl;dr does the author of the content you’re looking for demonstrate a suitable type/level of experience? Google uses a tax returns example, pointing out that’s a situation where you want to see content produced by an expert in the field of accounting if you’re looking for advice on completing them.)

One of the oldest EEAT signals are backlinks. Links from third party sites pointing back at the domain/page you want to rank.

Using PR to generate these signals birthed a new generation of digital PR agencies adept at using publicly available data sources to generate stories and online coverage.

However, Google has been making lots of noises in recent years about links and the number of them that you’ve got mattering a lot less than ever before. This culminated in Google’s John Mueller saying on stage at BrightonSEO in September 2022: “…over time, [LINKS] won’t be such a big factor as sometimes it is today. I think already, that’s something that’s been changing quite a bit.”

So, if links are less important, but EEAT signals are more important, then what should we be focusing on as PR pros in 2023?

Well, the good news is, Google’s dropped quite a few clues as to how EEAT can be built.

User trust and authorship

In 2019 Mueller said: “With regards to author pages and expertise, authority and trustworthiness, that’s something where I’d recommend checking that out with your users and doing maybe a short user study…trying to figure out how you can best show that the people who are creating content for your website, they’re really great people, they’re people who know what they’re talking about, they have credentials or whatever is relevant within your field.”

Takeaway: poll your client’s target audience/prospects on what they would expect to see regarding  your client’s employee expertise. For example, if my client is a commercial battery manufacturer and I find out their customers expect to see chemical engineers authoring the content published on the site, then I need to make sure my client’s author profiles make it super clear who’s who, how many relevant PhDs the team has as well as how many awards it’s won.

And regarding the author profiles in particular, in a Google SEO office-hours from April 2021 Mueller advised to: “Link to a common or central place – could be a social network profile page.”

Takeaway: make a decision with your client on what central profile you’re going to consolidate author expertise signals to (e.g. LinkedIn, Twitter or profile pages on a website), and then audit and optimise that place.

Google is always trying to establish who is behind something (this is a much bigger problem if you have a common name!). =It’s called “reconciliation,” recognising which entities belong together. This is why it wants an expert to pick a single social profile and direct all EEAT signals to that.

I think LinkedIn is perfect for author reconciliation. It’s crawlable and there are loads of different ways to indicate EEAT – recommendations, qualifications, linked contacts, posts, the list goes on. And with the introduction of “experience” to the EEAT conversation, you can make a good argument that an author’s employment history could also be instrumental to assessing their EEAT credentials.

So charge your client to audit and optimise all their experts’ LinkedIn profiles and make sure the content they author on the client’s website includes links to said profiles, with structured data making it super clear which social profiles Google should associate with the author (using the sameAs Schema.org property).

Better brand search

When was the last time you did a search for your client’s brand name (using search operators to filter the results) and considered what was returned?

This is what Google wants you to do.

Check out its quality rater guidelines (in particular section 3.3.3 ‘How to Search for Reputation Information about a Website’ – I did a three-part Tiktok review on that section).

@b2bcommsman A quick refresher on Google Quality Rater Guidelines – part one #digitalPR #reputationmanagement #businessreputation #B2B ♬ original sound – b2bcommsman

It advises its Quality Raters to: “Look for reviews, references, recommendations by experts, news articles, and other credible information created/written by individuals about the website.”

This is classic PR bread and butter!

Takeaway: do a site search review of your client’s brand name. Setting aside the owned results, what’s left? Is it “very high-quality news content” that meets “professional journalistic standards”? If not, then it needs to be. Now you know what you need to do in 2023. Tip: think about paywalls – Google’s algorithms need to be able to find the brand mentions, so make sure they’re not stuck behind paywalls. Also consider the authority of the publication – at a basic level it’s much more likely a national newspaper website will appear when you search for a brand name, but it’s also important that coverage is sustained and from publications that adhere to professional journalistic standards.

All full up?

Late 2019 Google’s official search liaison Danny Sullivan said: “We do use a variety of signals as a proxy to tell if content seems to match E-A-T as humans would assess it.”

Is E-A-T a ranking factor? Not if you mean there’s some technical thing like with speed that we can measure directly.

We do use a variety of signals as a proxy to tell if content seems to match E-A-T as humans would assess it.

In that regard, yeah, it’s a ranking factor.

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) October 11, 2019

Basically, remember to think and react to your client’s online profile as a human being. Put yourself in their customers’ shoes. As Google becomes more advanced and its machine learning algorithms consume larger data sets, it becomes more important to build classic EEAT signals and much less important to chase classic ranking signals.

In 2023, read up on the quality rater guidelines cover to cover and then offer EEAT authorship reviews, EEAT search audits and owned and earned content audits. Spend time determining all of the different ways Google might try and associate my client with what is they want to sell.

Reposition your classic PR services, get your clients EEATing, use PR to boost their organic search performance, and link it to their inbound lead generation to make sure you’re as sticky as you can be in the year ahead and the importance of the reputation management work you do, is properly recognised and rewarded.

Luke Budka is director of PR and SEO at Definition.

The post How PR professionals can help with Google’s EEAT appeared first on PR Daily.

When it comes to keyword research, we almost always rely on tools that show us the habits of our potential audience. By using the Site Search feature in Google Analytics, we can find keyword data about our actual visitors.

Delving into what people are searching for once they’ve already landed on your site can help you make improvements to the content and structure of your site.

What is the Site Search feature in Google Analytics and how can I use it?

Amongst the vast amount of data available in Google Analytics are the terms that people enter into your site’s search bar, and this is stored within the “Site Search” section, under “Behaviour” in the left hand menu.

Click on “Search Terms” and set your dates to look at your preferred time period. Depending on the level of traffic your site experiences, it’s a good idea to select a fairly large timeframe, to give you enough data to make your findings meaningful.

If you’ve not got any data, you might not have Site Search set up. This only takes a few moments to enable, and Google has a short guide on how to do that here.

What can GA Site Search be used for?

The search terms you’ll find here not only help you learn more about your site’s visitors, but can assist with fine tuning your site structure, as well as provide content inspiration.

Changes to your navigation

If some of your top searches are for pages that already exist, this could be a sign that your visitors are struggling to find them. It may be worth considering your navigation, adding these pages into your main menus if they aren’t already there, or signposting them more clearly on other relevant pages.

The caveat to this is that even if your pages are easy to find, people will sometimes search for what is right in front of them anyway, so take the results with a pinch of salt.

New potential pages

The flip side to this is that if there isn’t an obvious section of your site that caters to these popular search terms, this is a good opportunity to consider creating either a new page or subheadings within an existing relevant page.

Even if elsewhere you touch upon the topics these keywords focus on, sometimes making it crystal clear and impossible to miss, with its own page ensures you won’t miss visitors who may not immediately realise you’re relevant to what they’re looking for.

New content ideas

The most commonly searched phrases in your Search Term data may well warrant their own pages, but as you look further down the list at some of the more niche phrases, you might also find some topics that make interesting blog topics instead, or which you could factor into other marketing channels or PR campaigns.

Understanding your customers’ language

As with any keyword research tool, Site Search data confronts you with the actual language your customers are using — not just what you think they are.

Whatever sector you work in, industry and internal terminology has a tendency to creep in and it’s easy to forget that customers are often unfamiliar with this, which can be alienating. Therefore, reminding yourself what your customers are looking for and crucially, how they label this, helps you make sure your copy reflects this.

You’ve worked hard to drive traffic to your site, and by reviewing your Site Search data you can ensure that you’re retaining these visitors and delivering the content they’re expecting to find.

Kerry Sheahan is senior account manager at Browser Media, a PR-driven SEO and digital marketing agency.

The post Using Google Analytics’ Site Search feature to improve your content appeared first on PR Daily.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is just one of the tools in a PR pro’s toolbox. Yet, in an increasingly digital marketplace, it is becoming more and more important.

Digital PR pros know all about creating backlinks and driving traffic to brand websites—but with the big companies like Google and Amazon (yes, it is a search engine) constantly changing the rules, everyone must brush up on their SEO knowledge.

Alan Bush is a SEO expert and a coach affiliated with the PR Daily Leadership Network where he advises members on their SEO plans and strategy. In a recent member call for the network, he shared four tips for comms pros to make sure they reach the right online audiences:

1. Discover new keywords with some crowdsourcing.

You already know what words come to mind when you think of your brand or product—but what other terms might you be overlooking?

A group brainstorming session to help create your list of relevant keywords can expand your horizons, Bush advises. He recommends creating a working group made up of both internal experts and outsiders who have a different view of your organization or department.

Keywords should be broken down by category into how they drive important business outcomes. Bush’s handy acronym for this is ARC:

• Awareness. How is your content helping new audiences find you and your services?
• Research. How is your content helping audiences who have heard of you choose you over the competition?
• Conversion. How is your content helping convert purchase intent into that final action—and revenue for your organization?

2. Identify audience personas associated with different phases of purchase intent.

Bush shared some questions you can ask to better identify the different consumers of your content:

• What is their role? Are they a manager, brand executive or member of the general public?
• What problems do they face? How does your offering solve this problem for them?
• What are their goals? What is your consumer hoping to achieve? (Hint: it’s not the same as what you are hoping to achieve.)
• What are the conversion points where their intent and your intent align?

 Bush says you don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time when creating content for these different personas. Instead, he advocates for a “hub and spoke” model where different targeted pieces of content connect back to a shared core content piece.

“Multimedia is going to be a big deal,” he says. “Get into video.” Even though video production can be an expensive and labor-intensive prospect, video assets can be repurposed and repackaged into a broad range of content, from articles and whitepapers to podcast episodes and social media posts.

3. Map out your content plan to ride the W.A.V.E.

Bush breaks down content assets into four buckets that create the acronym W.A.V.E.:

• Content that drives website traffic, including blog posts, websites and more.
• Audio programs from podcasts to social audio hubs.
• Content that offers a visual splash, form images to video.
• Content that hopes to teach users about the world around them as well as your products.

Bush says a good content plan assigns various content assets—from recorded webinars to blog posts or podcast episodes—to one of the W.A.V.E. categories. Make sure your portfolio covers all elements of the W.A.V.E.

4. Navigate your website using a variety of devices to test user experience.

With the rise of mobile devices as the primary means of digital content consumption, users engage with your content in an variety of platforms and formats. If your content isn’t optimized for a certain use case, you could be invisible to some audiences.

Bush recommends you consider key metrics like page speed and other indicators that Google uses to evaluate websites.

After Google rolled out the BERT update, its algorithm now seeks to prioritize the best user experience. Bush’s advice: Write for users—not search engines—and use language that your customers and clients would use.

This article is part of our PR Daily Leadership Network. Get access to the full piece, including Bush’s list of essential SEO tools, by joining this exclusive membership.

The post 4 tips to help your content find bigger online audiences appeared first on PR Daily.

When it comes to managing your business’ online reputation, most public relations professionals focus on the conversations taking place on social media, producing content that promotes the brand and managing potential crisis situations. While these tasks are undoubtedly important, they can sometimes lead to neglect of the website itself.

A business’ website is the hub of its digital presence. As such, it should be a top priority for building and maintaining a strong online reputation. Common website issues may seem like little more than technical errors or a lack of design knowledge, but they can significantly harm a company’s online reputation by creating an unpolished, unprofessional image. 

Here are five errors to avoid:

 1. Using HTTP protocol instead of HTTPS

According to research from GIACT, 47% of Americans experienced identity theft in 2019 and 2020, with government benefits applications and credit card fraud being the most common categories. While identity theft has long been a problem, it has been exacerbated by the ease with which malicious individuals can steal information entered into an unsecured website.

However, customers are increasingly aware of this—and as a result, they are wary of visiting websites that use the HTTP protocol rather than HTTPS, which securely encrypts data transmissions to prevent hacking and theft.

Many web browsers will actually block users from visiting an HTTP site that asks for personal information. If your website doesn’t use HTTPS protocol, you’re signaling that you’re willing to put customers’ information at risk. 

2. Spam comments

Most company blogs nowadays give visitors the opportunity to leave comments so they can ask questions and share their opinions. While these comment sections are well-intentioned, they often become a source of spam. 

Many of these unsolicited comments include links to illegitimate or offensive sites. Even though they aren’t connected with your brand, the presence of such links can harm your reputation with both visitors and search engines.

To avoid this, consider requiring that all comments be approved by your team before they can go live on the site. This will allow you to delete spam comments before they have the chance to do harm to you or your website visitors. 

3. Not disclosing how customer data will be used

The way businesses use customer data has come under increased scrutiny in recent years, leading to initiatives such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guidelines, which have actual legal power over how businesses ask for and use personal information. 

Even if your brand doesn’t do business overseas, following these guidelines can help your business earn the trust of visitors. As KlientBoost founder Johnathan Dane writes:

You need to be as transparent as possible throughout the data transfer process. Give users an opportunity to abandon marketing activities such as newsletters, promotions, etc.

You should also make sure to explicitly tell them why they’ve been added to certain lists. For example, in your initial welcome email, you should say something like: “You’re receiving this email because you signed up for our newsletters.” Making sure there’s a clear and easy way to remove themselves from the list is also important.

4. Outdated design and confusing navigation

We live in a time when many public relations professionals are planning for how they’ll engage customers in the metaverse—but if their company’s website looks like it belongs in the ‘90s, customers are going to have a hard time believing the business is ready for the digital age. It only takes a few seconds for visitors to form their first impression. It needs to be a good one.

 A clean, professional website design with quality images and compelling copy speaks volumes about a business’ competence and tech knowledge. Of course, with design trends frequently changing, public relations professionals should stay on top of current trends to ensure that needed updates are made in a timely manner.

Navigation could prove even more important. Small Business Trends reports that 94% of consumers cite easy navigation as the most useful element of a website. By making it easy for visitors to find the information they are looking for, the business comes across as professional and reliable, as opposed to confusing and secretive.

5. Poor SEO optimization

The average website visitor isn’t going to notice if a business’ website is fully optimized for SEO purposes. However, search engines will. For most internet users, the position that a particular website appears in their Google search results directly correlates with trust, reliability and relevance.

Search Engine Journal reports that 28.5% of users click on the first result in a Google search, with that number dropping to 15.7% for the second result. Only 2.5% click on the tenth result, and fewer still go beyond to the second page. 

A business that doesn’t implement SEO essentials such as alt text, improving page load times and using proper keywords and tags will hurt its reputation simply by not showing up in online searches.

While cleaning up your website may not seem like as big of a deal as responding to customer complaints that go viral, the quality of a company’s website could have an even longer-lasting impact on a brand’s reputation.  

Like it or not, the quality of a website communicates a company’s legitimacy and competence, key factors that will influence whether a customer decides to do business with them in the first place. By making the website a true priority, public relations professionals can ensure that their company makes a positive first impression.

The post 5 website issues that hurt your brand reputation online appeared first on PR Daily.

Editor’s note: This article is a re-run as part of our countdown of top stories from the past year.

Search engines are constantly changing and improving on their algorithms. This means that what worked years decades ago is no longer relevant today.

Google is always giving webmasters hints on how to optimize for SEO. Acting on that advice can instantly improve your rankings in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Here are 12 factors you must consider:

1. Core web vitals

Google Core Web Vitals are the latest user-centered ranking factors introduced by Google in 2020. They’re launched to help search robots assess page experience more accurately and improve search usability.

These metrics go beyond loading speed and page responsiveness and dig deep into user-experience trying to improve how fast a page loads and how soon can users interact with it.

Although there are still lots of unanswered questions around Core Web Vitals, one thing is for sure: User-experience is the future of SEO.

2. High-quality content

Content quality has always been a top priority to search engines, which explains why it is a key ranking factor. Your content needs to be valuable in order for it to stand out and rank high. It must anticipate all the answers inside your prospects’ minds and meet them where they are.

Every organic visitor is facing a unique challenge that they need help with. Thus, search results that fail to provide detailed answers to those problems shouldn’t come at the top.

Duplicate, repetitive articles are never preferred by Google or its users. That’s why you need to go the extra mile and write all-inclusive articles for your audience. You must also revisit your old content regularly to keep it updated with the latest trends and provide new solutions to your readers.

Finally, every sentence you write must encourage the visitor to read the next one. So, keep your articles easy to read and skim through by using short paragraphs and phrases. Use a modern, elegant font on your website and leave a lot of white space around your text to improve readability.

3. Keywords in meta title tags

The title tag is the most important of all meta tags because it has a bigger impact on SEO. It helps Google bots quickly identify the context of the page and understand what it is about.

Title tags are also the most visible part of any search result. They paint the first impression users have when landing on your website.

Be sure to write a unique, descriptive title for each page and keep its length less than 50-60 characters. Then, optimize all titles using your main keywords to boost clicks and conversions.

4. Backlinking

Backlinks will transform your brand and increase your domain authority, allowing you to easily outrank the biggest competitors in your industry.

High-quality backlinks are a signal that tells Google that your content is worthwhile and trustworthy. Search engines will then rely on your backlink profile to rank your site high in the SERPs.

But what matters here is the word “White Hat.” Backlinking is sure to enhance your SEO progress and help your site rank faster, but it could also have the opposite effect if done illegitimately.

“Black hat” link building is the practice of attracting high-authority links to your website through unethical practices. For example, a webmaster might buy a few backlinks from another website to boost their rankings.  Such tactics can yield quick results, but the rankings it gets are very short-sighted. Once Google detects the illicit activity, your website will get penalized.

That’s why you must always stick to white hat link building in your SEO journey.

5. Niche relevancy

Expertise, authority, and trust (E.A.T.) are three crucial factors that will put you ahead of your competitors in 2021.

Search engines favor sites that specialize in a specific niche. They prefer authoritative, credible brands and businesses with long years of experience to provide the best solutions to search users.

6. Internal linking

Internal links allow you to pass link juice (domain strength) from one page to another. That helps Google better understand your site hierarchy based on significance.

Internal linking is also an excellent way to maintain an organized structure and connect all your pages together. That keeps your visitors longer on your site by allowing them to move between your pages easily.

An effective internal linking structure could look something like this:

You build links to a long-form guide on your website to boost its authority. From there, you link to smaller pages on your site to boost their page rank as well.  Then, you’ll create links from your smaller pages leading to your main page to interlink everything together.

7. Visitor “time-on-site”

Time-on-site is the average time a user spends browsing a particular page on your website. It varies widely based on the audience, the search query and the content on the page. This metric is an accurate indicator of your content quality.

To increase your time-on-site:

• Be sure to produce helpful content with targeted keywords and relevant information.
• Keep your pages highly readable with short paragraphs and sentences to hook visitors in.
• Lead the visitor’s eye with a simple page layout and lots of white space.

8. Mobile friendliness

Mobile device users account for more than 50% of online traffic today. Yet, those numbers are only going up with the number of unique mobile users growing up by 2% each year.

The shift Google made to mobile-first indexing in 2019 was inevitable. Chances are, you can’t remember the last time you came across a webpage that didn’t work on mobile. That should indicate the importance of mobile-responsiveness for SEO.

To test your site for mobile-friendliness, you can use the free Mobile-Friendly Test tool from Google. It will run a quick test on your site and analyze its pages to tell you if there are any issues you need to fix.

9. Page loading speed

Site speed isn’t about optimizing your pages to be a few milliseconds better than those of your competitors. Yet, you can’t neglect the effect a few seconds could have on your rankings.

As a start, you need to test your site speed to identify the ways you can improve it. Thankfully, Google has the free PageSpeed Insights tool that will generate a detailed report for that.

10. SSL

Without a solid security strategy for your website, you’ll put your business at the risk of getting hacked. Google can’t put its users at such a risk, which is why unsecured websites will never be at the top of the SERPs. Your brand will lose lots of it’s ranking potential if your domain doesn’t have an SSL certificate.

An SSL certificate is free and can be installed easily with a few clicks. It’s a quick way to protect your sensitive data and keep it private across computer networks.

11. Schema markup

Schema markup is a code that you add to your site to help Google extract rich information from it. It will make your results stand out compared to your competition, which boosts your organic click-through-rates.

Google prefers websites that use schema markup because it improves the user experience. It allows search algorithms to provide accurate results to the searcher quickly.

Users won’t have to visit a website to get a direct answer to their questions when a rich snippet is served. Instead, the result is displayed in the form of a short answer, saving the user their time and effort.

12. Keywords in URL, header tags, and meta descriptions

Keywords aren’t as important as they used to be. Aside from providing context to crawling spiders, they’re no longer considered a top-ranking factor.

Yet, strategic keyword placement can still make a difference when it comes to SEO. Keywords placed differently on your page are also treated differently.

For example, placing a key phrase in your page’s URL is a lot more important than using it in your conclusion. That’s simply because search algorithms look closely at the URL to better understand your page context.

Your keywords must also be used repeatedly in your header tags, meta descriptions, and image descriptions. However, PR pros must take care: Over optimizing your content with keywords can hurt your SEO success. Don’t overuse your keywords and keep the tone of your article reader-friendly for human users.

Michael Dowson is a writer and content manager with Let’s Get Optimized.

The post 12 ranking factors that matter to Google for 2021 appeared first on PR Daily.

Editor’s note: This article is a re-run as part of our countdown of top stories from the past year.

A recent study conducted by Pew Research indicated that post-pandemic, most employees would like to continue working from home.

Organizations are taking note, and many plan to adopt a hybrid work model as their new norm. This paradigm shift makes facilitating virtual collaboration more crucial to business success than ever before.

Thanks to its integration with Microsoft 365 and ever-expanding capabilities, Microsoft  Teams (MS Teams) is now the collaboration app of choice for more than 500,000 organizations.

But a successful rollout of MS Teams involves more than just the IT department deploying the application; it also requires internal communicators to exercise their change management expertise to ensure proper adoption and use of it.

Here are six tips for fostering successful collaboration when using MS Teams:

1. Keep files organized with a uniform folder structure.

We’ve all seen it: the same file saved in multiple folders, cryptic folder names only the creator can discern, a single folder functioning as a digital “junk drawer” for absolutely every file associated with a project. These are all roadblocks to good collaboration.

The solution? As a group, decide what the folder structure will be for your channels, and stick to it. By establishing this uniformity, team members will always know where to save their work.

Saving work to a Teams folder brings the added benefit of version control. As a SharePoint-based platform, changes to Teams documents are automatically saved, and each iteration can be accessed via the document’s Version History.

2. Get quick access to folders by syncing with OneDrive.

For quick access to the files in your Teams folders, sync them with OneDrive. This will make them accessible from File Explorer so you can bypass the Teams app and immediately open files in the appropriate desktop app i.e. MS Word, PowerPoint, Excel.

3. Organize how you communicate with smart use of posts, chats and email.

MS Teams presents a great opportunity to separate internal communication from external communication. For example, many organizations opt to use Posts within MS Teams for internal discussions about projects, while reserving email for external communication with their clients, partners and vendors. Bonus: that means you have a full archive of work conversations all in one place, for easy access and reference whenever you need it.

To make the best use of Posts within MS Teams:

• Give your Post a subject line.
• Use the @mention function to address it to someone.
• When responding to a Post, be sure to reply to the thread as opposed to creating a new Post.

In terms of Chats, think of them as the virtual equivalent of the cubicle pass-by. They’re great for quick, one-off questions and casual conversation. (And gifs. Lots of entertaining gifs.)

4. Use status updates to signal your availability.

Don’t let co-workers think you’re ghosting them! Consistently updating your status is an excellent way to let others know when you’re available to collaborate, when you’re taking a lunch break, when you’ve signed off for the day and when you need to work without interruption. Think of the “Do Not Disturb” setting as the online version of closing your office door.

In addition to cutting down on those dreaded impromptu calls, this functionality also enables you to set an out-of-office response to appear when you are on vacation. And as we can all likely agree, true vacations—where employees are able to fully disconnect from the virtual office—have never been more important, as more and more companies focus on the health and wellness of employees.

5. Post information in the Wiki for shared knowledge.

All those Post-it Notes on your desk with important phone numbers, URLs and reminders related to the project you’re working on are no good to anyone if everyone can’t access them.

Enter the Wiki, a fantastic, digital memo board where such information can be organized and made accessible to all team members 24/7, anytime, anywhere. You certainly won’t miss those late-night texts from colleagues asking for things like account passwords or login information!

6. Create shortcuts to important information by using tabs.

We’re all short on time. One way to save precious minutes (or hours) spent hunting for the most recent status report or meeting notes is through the strategic use of tabs for such documents in the MS Teams channel for that project. Team members can have one-click access to any uploaded file via Excel, PowerPoint, Word, or PDF.

Keep in mind, great collaboration is also about building camaraderie. Consider creating a dedicated channel for socializing where team members can share memes, funny stories and good news with one another.

What is your company doing to promote successful collaboration on MS Teams? Share your best advice in the comments below.

Dana Haase is the SVP of Communications Strategy at The SPI Group. 

The post 6 tips to make Microsoft Teams work for your organization appeared first on PR Daily.

2021 is almost history. As we make plans for the new year, what marketing advice for 2022 should we focus on?

The unpredictability of our world makes it a challenge when it comes to formulating a strategy to reach our target audiences. What factors are most vital to our success?

To help provide some guidance, 22 marketing influencers answered this question: What one piece of marketing advice would you offer to brands as we head into the new year?

Here’s what they had to say:

1. Create an influence map for your target customers. It’s wild to me that so few marketers do this! If you’re not familiar, the concept’s simple: you make a list of all the ways your potential customers learn about the problem you solve, research solutions, and decide on whether/what to buy. In your industry that could be Google Maps or Reddit threads or a well-regarded conference or a million other things. But until you have this mapped out, you’ll surely underinvest in potential opportunities.

– Rand Fishkin, founder, SparkToro

2. Marketers don’t make meaning, people do. There is no marketing communication more influential than the media of people. Therefore, it is critical that marketers focus on the cultural frames by which people make meaning and how meaning is negotiated and constructed among people like themselves. Marketers don’t make meaning, people do. Understanding this sets the stage for all the messaging we put in the world in order to establish meaning congruence. But it all starts with people.

– Marcus Collins, cultural strategist and keynote speaker, www.marctothec.com

3. Google your brand. Welcome to your other homepage. This is what your potential visitors see before they click. And it’s a key piece of your brand.

• See negative reviews? If so, reach out to a few fans. Ask for good reviews on high-ranking platforms.
• See any bad press? If so, reach out to a PR pro. They can help you respond to negative press.

– Andy Crestodina, co-founder and chief marketing officer, Orbiteers

4. Authenticity. Brands try hard to be who they think their customers want them to be on social media—instead of who they actually are. Start with re-evaluating your mission, vision and values. If that doesn’t align with how you’ve been operating, go back and see where you’ve gone astray. When you decide to put your brand on social media, your audience makes judgments about you in less than 30 seconds. Be true to who you want to be and let that guide your messaging and marketing.

– Katie Robbert, co-founder and CEO, Trust Insights

5. Collaborate as if your budget depends on it. It does. Budgets of integrated programs are showing growth for the coming year and with that growth comes increased demand for results. Brands that collaborate across paid, earned, shared and owned will move from correlation to causation in a more meaningful way, allowing them to leverage talents and data through the funnel.

– Johna Burke, global managing director, AMEC (International Association of Measurement and Evaluation of Communication)

6. Ask yourself: How is your brand deserving of authority in every part of the marketing funnel? To create a brand people really trust, you need to be building multiple levels of authority. For example, at the top of the funnel, are you creating newsworthy content and getting media coverage? For the middle, are there relevant how-tos you’re creating that provide value and match up to your product/service offering? At the bottom of the funnel, do you have case studies, testimonials, demos, trials, and social proof to prove you know what you’re talking about? All of this matters, so audit your 2022 content plan to assess if you’ll be earning authority as comprehensively as possible.

– Amanda Milligan, head of marketing at Stacker

7. Tune into your audience. The purchase decision-making process starts with your audience and whatever issues are on their minds. These days, how and where you can influence the actions of your audience is all over the map. The important lesson is that if you aren’t in tune with what your audience is seeing, feeling, believing, or perceiving, good luck getting them to try to take action.

– Katie Paine, CEO, Paine Publishing

8. Prove your social conscience. The combination of life during the pandemic, political turmoil and climate change—no pestilence…so far—will put more pressure on companies in 2022 to prove their social conscience. Marketeers would be well served to showcase companies doing their part to make for a better society. I expect this to accelerate the use of integrated campaigns; can’t solely depend on earned media to carry this torch.

– Lou Hoffman, CEO, The Hoffman Agency

9. Focus on the long-run with humans over short-term transactions. Looking to improve traffic to your content? Think about the people behind the screen and take a look at optimizing what you already have vs. shipping more stuff. Want to grow a following on social media? Give more than you get. Don’t worry so much about “going viral” with a single post, think about how you build a consistent audience of engaged followers. Looking to build a high-conversion pipeline to sales? Focus on building relationships, engaging in conversations, and matching problems with solutions for the people you serve.

– Ashley Faus, content strategy lead, Atlassian

10. Actively listen to your stakeholders. As we head into 2022, we are, unfortunately, nowhere near our “new normal.” …We don’t even know what our “next normal” is going to be. The brands that will make it relatively unscathed through the pandemic are those that are actively listening to their stakeholders and adjusting their marketing accordingly. Today, that means paying even closer attention to your analytics, to see what is, or isn’t, working and tweaking your strategy accordingly. When you do this, you are truly being of service, which will grow customer trust, loyalty and market share.

– Shonali Burke, chief marketing officer, Arena Stage

11. Prioritize and focus. According to The JOTW Strategic Communications Survey for 2021, the top communications challenges today are:

• “Too many priorities” (40%)
• “Cutting through the noise” (37%)
• Working with “leaders that don’t understand comms” (36%)

These three problems are interrelated: It’s virtually impossible to cut through the clutter if you are trying to do too many things while also justifying every message, tactic and move. Therefore, the key for 2022 is prioritization and focus.

You’re more likely to cut through the clutter if you do two or three things exceptionally well, rather than striving to do many things half-baked. The results of focused effort are also more likely to produce results that you can use to help educate leaders.

– Frank Strong, founder and president, Sword and the Script Media, LLC

12. Diversity and inclusion should move beyond hiring to marketing strategy. Companies should become intentional about how they market to candidates (hiring), coworkers (employee engagement), consumers, and the community which all impact the brand’s bottom line. Leverage your digital platforms to show how diversity and inclusion are implemented in the organization.

– Michelle Ngome, inclusive marketing consultant, Line 25 Consulting 

13. Consider how you can build experimentation into your strategy.B2B is often branded as boring because companies are afraid to take risks – they stick with what they know, even in the face of diminishing returns. But the only way to unlock what I call ‘gear change growth’ is by taking calculated bets on fresh channels, campaigns or creative. Good rule of thumb? Set aside a minimum of 10% of your budget to try new things.

– Jason Bradwell, host of B2B Better

14. Create accessible social media and digital content. The crisis has forced many companies to do more business online. As a result, they’re discovering the importance of digital accessibility. And marketing plays an important role in this as it creates a lot of customer-facing content. Marketing is the one posting videos, images, and content that aren’t accessible and lockout customers. Get ahead of it now and start creating accessible social media and digital content.

– Meryl K. Evans, accessibility marketer, meryl.net

15. Marketing goes beyond the product story. In 2022 it will be important for marketers to look beyond the product story. With the demise of third-party cookies in digital advertising, they’re obviously rethinking digital marketing and measurement practices. What’s still important? Brand purpose. The war for talent rages on, and employees are showing their clout by moving on to better opportunities. What’s more, most consumers think it’s important for businesses to be good employers, according to new research. That means that issues like pay equity, fair labor practices, good corporate citizenship, and a commitment to diversity and equity are at the forefront. Interestingly, the trend is even more pronounced among business buyers.  So, marketing isn’t just about products and services anymore; it’s about the entire organization. At least, it should be.

– Dorothy Crenshaw, founder, Crenshaw Communications

16. Understand the latest technology. Don’t come up with an NFT plan; figure out how bolstering your offerings with virtual goods and tokens can meet your customers’ needs. Don’t come up with a DAO or Web3 or blockchain or crypto plan; resolve to understand the latest community-driven technologies better, and then figure out the right way to use them (or not). The rate of change may feel more daunting than ever, but you have the power to learn and adapt and grow based on the needs of your organization and the brands in your care.

– David Berkowitz, founder, Serial Marketers

17. Nurture audience relationships. Nurturing your audience relationships through empowerment and access creates brand love you can’t buy. Companies that can share their vision and how their audience can have a deeper role will build fan armies that take the power of word of mouth to the next level. We see this with NFTs, sports and more. Vision + access = fandom buy-in.

– Christina Garnett, senior marketing manager, HubSpot

18. Focus on social-first customer care. In 2022, we’ll see bigger increases in the use of social media for making connections with brands – including the compliments and complaints consumers have about them. The impact your (quick!) response has on these mentions includes everything from customer acquisition to retention and loyalty. I can easily argue that social-first customer care is one of the most important marketing initiatives for 2022 and beyond!

– Brooke Sellas, CEO, B Squared Media

19. Give creativity room to breathe. If 2020-21 proved anything, it’s that stress isn’t conducive to creativity. Work still gets done, but is it the best work? Maybe 2022 is time to retire the idea that a fast turnaround is a good turnaround. Sometimes fast is necessary. But sometimes it’s just pressure that crushes creativity and guarantees mediocre results. So, stop treating every project as a sprint, plan further in advance, and pad out those Gantt charts and schedules to give creativity a little more room to breathe.

– Jonathan Crossfield, content writer & storyteller, https://jonathancrossfield.com

20. Double down on understanding your audience in 2022.You know how sometimes a good friend or a significant other knows you better than yourself? Your brand needs to be that friend or significant other to your audience. Yes, strive to understand your audience better than they do. Emails or Slack don’t cut it. Spend quality time talking to your audience: phone, Zoom and yes, even in person. The impact of your marketing will thank you for it.

– Dennis Shiao, founder, B2B marketing agency Attention Retention

21. Be consistent in your messaging. Make sure you’re conveying one central and consistent message on all of your marketing platforms (blog, video, social media post, press release, speech, event, newsletter), not creating brand new ideas to suit each platform. Marketing campaigns should start with the defining brand message (“What is my value proposition”), not with the platform (“Let’s make a viral video!”) because anyone can make a website, a video, or a hashtag; only you can champion your brand.

– Joel Schwartzberg, presentation coach, writer, and author of “The Language of Leadership” and “Get to the Point!”

22. Address internal discord by focusing on alignment. And my advice? Work on addressing any internal discord within your organization. When there’s a lack of alignment internally, your work with any external consultant or agency can suffer. While you’re at it, get rid of the siloes that separate critical parts of your marketing like PR, content and social media.

Over to you

As we’ve learned, the best marketing plans are the ones that you revisit and evaluate throughout the year.

Yes, you should plan – but be sure to check in often to gauge how any changes in the marketing landscape may affect what you plan to focus on moving forward.

What advice will you focus on as you make marketing plans for 2022?

Michelle Garrett is a PR consultant and writer with a focus on B2B clients. A version of this article first appeared on her blog.

The post 22 expert tips to help plan your 2022 marketing strategy appeared first on PR Daily.

The media industry hasn’t been immune to the direct-to-consumer revolution of the past few years.

Now, instead of subscribing to a newspaper or magazine, more and more subscribers are paying directly for a newsletter produced by their favorite writer. Platforms like Substack have created an industry where writers with a following are able to drive big numbers with their creativity.

The New York Times wrote recently:

Substack has captivated an anxious industry because it embodies larger forces and contradictions. For one, the new media economy promises both to make some writers rich and to turn others into the content-creation equivalent of Uber drivers, even as journalists turn increasingly to labor unions to level out pay scales.

But what are the brand opportunities for this new platform capturing audiences online? Substack has promised no ads, ever—leaving a perfect opportunity for PR pros to connect with audiences through popular writers. And it’s a big opportunity—the platform has more than 1 million paid subscriptions, up from about 250,000 last November.

Of course, traditional media outlets are trying to get in on the trend.

“Major media outlets such as The Atlantic and The New York Times recently launched their own ‘independent newspaper’ platforms in response to Substack’s growing market presence,” explains April Marguiles, president and founder of Trust Relations.

Yet, so far the PR opportunities have yielded slim pickings.

“Most of Substack’s early-adopter superstars have been controversial political writers, who would not be very pitchable by PR pros,” says Marguiles. “However, the tide is starting to turn, as a number of other, more approachable freelance journalists have begun to join the platform.”

In Marguiles’ view, PR pros should look to follow writers who essentially create their own publication on Substack to build new audiences. “Those new publications might be a great fit for your clients.”

Pitching a newsletter

So, how can PR pros start working with newsletter writers to reach targeted audiences?

“Search for Substack writers who are relevant to your clients and see whether they have a newsletter you can subscribe to,” Marguiles shared with PR Daily. “Then, gauge whether they are writing and sharing stories that might be a fit. Substack even offers a feature to help you identify the Substacks of journalists you currently follow on Twitter.”

As an example, you could search for technology on Substack where you might find “Platformer,” the creation of longtime Silicon Valley reporter Casey Newton.

Substack has other uses for PR pros, too.

“Some freelancers and journalists do not use the platform to publish stories, but instead use it to let publicists know what they’re currently writing about—and how to pitch them,” says Marguiles. “For example, Lindsay Tigar, Bryce Gruber, Aly Walansky, Leah Groth, Alice Dubin and Jill Schildhouse offer a detailed guide on how to pitch them, including exactly what they need and what they’re working on, at the bottom of their Substack newsletters. All publicists need to do is subscribe (for free) and follow their instructions.”

Practical tips

When pitching a newsletter, the rules of media relations still apply.

“As with any journalist, make sure you read a number of their newsletter stories before you pitch them,” says Marguiles. “This will help you understand their point of view, tone of voice, areas of interest and any themes they gravitate towards as journalists. Given that you’re pitching them as individuals vs. as representatives of a long-established news outlet or organization.”

She adds: “It’s especially important to do this, because they are free agents who can make independent decisions, without the institutional checks and balances in place.”

Most writers and editors on the platform have very detailed pitching instructions. If you don’t follow them, don’t expect a favorable response.

“Many consumer freelancers also require clients to be on certain affiliate networks and they will list those out, too,” adds Marguiles. “You don’t want to waste their time or yours by not reading and following their guidelines to the letter.”

Asking for metrics

If you do get a placement on someone’s newsletter, can you get their audience metrics to report your reach?

“This is at the writer’s discretion,” says Marguiles on authors sharing subscription data, “so there is no guarantee they will share the number of opens and clicks—or even the number of subscribers.” Yet, there are some workarounds.

“The number of likes and comments are always public, as is whether they have ‘hundreds of subscribers’ or ‘thousands of subscribers,’ so you will always know at least that ballpark figure, regardless of what other details they disclose.”

Mistakes to avoid

The newsletter trend offers a fresh opportunity for PR pros—but unscrupulous digital PR practices could ruin it for everyone.

“The main mistake to avoid when working with newsletter writers—again, as with any journalist—is to rush to add them to a media list and then pitch them blindly, without customizing the pitch to reflect that you understand their point of view and areas of interest,” says Marguiles. “This could be an especially costly mistake when pitching newsletter writers, since they are only responsible to themselves, and not to a larger organization, and many tend to have opinionated takes on the topics they cover.”

The bottom line: A bad pitch is much more likely to make it into print with a newsletter writer, lambasting the unlucky PR pro who sent it.

Political leanings

While Substack has been viewed in some cases as “a strictly political platform,” Marguiles says PR pros shouldn’t consider that to be the full story. Yes, the platform has become a home for writers with controversial views that have seen them booted from other outlets. But there is a vibrant ecosystem of users on the platform.

“As a result, it’s important to keep an eye on this space and see how both Substack newsletters —and other recently-launched competitive newsletters at major media outlets—influence journalism and, in effect, PR,” Marguiles says.

The post How PR should adapt to the rise of Substack and the niche newsletters appeared first on PR Daily.

AstraZeneca believes that curing cancer takes more than one company—it takes a community.

Working with agency Zeno Group, the YOUR Cancer campaign wanted to highlight the voices of not only AstraZeneca leaders but oncology leaders throughout the country. To achieve its goal of fostering impactful changes in cancer care across the U.S., four main pillars were decided upon and executed.

YourCancer.org was created to be a central hub with educational resources, the Cancer Community (C2) Awards were created to celebrate unsung heroes at grassroots levels, roundtables were held at the state level and numerous speaking engagements helped elevate the voices of community leaders.

The website now features more than 50 advocacy partners and has had nearly 300,000 page views. The C2 Awards have received more than 220 entries over its two years and 30 million engagements through a variety of media. More than 50 thought leaders and policy makers attended the four roundtables and placements in California Biotechnology Association’s newsletter were sent to every member of California’s State Legislature. An article in Scientific American led to 12 million total impressions, and more than 100 people attended the 2019 Washington Post Chasing Cancer Summit.

Learn more about Ragan’s and PR Daily’s current and upcoming awards programs here.

The post Campaign brings national leaders together to find advancements in cancer care appeared first on PR Daily.

 When it comes to creating a localized marketing strategy, search engine optimization (SEO) and PR are frequently driven by two different teams, with two different budgets. However, these two strategies are complementary, and integrating SEO tactics into your PR efforts can help bolster results in both areas.

What is local SEO anyway?

Local SEO is a sub-strategy of SEO that focuses on how you rank in search engines for local searches. Why should you care? Nearly half of all Google searches have local intent.

When experts talk about local SEO, they focus on two results on Google: “local pack” and “local organic results.” The local pack is the map and top listings that are returned at the top of the search results. The local organic results are the links that appear below that map.

How do I improve my local SEO?

According to experts, the core factors that make up local SEO are on-page optimization, links, Google My Business (GMB) listing and reviews, behavioral patterns, citations, and personalization.

As a PR pro, factoring all of these elements into your strategy may seem insurmountable, but there are four core ways you can integrate local SEO into your PR without feeling overwhelmed. We have little control over behavioral and personalization factors (they’re really based on searches and visitors to your site), so focusing on on-page optimization, links, GMB and citations is a great start to improving your site’s local rankings in search.

4 ways to integrate local SEO

 1. On-page optimization

A core tenet of local SEO is optimizing your website for local searches. There’s lots of great content out there on meta-descriptions, H1 tags and more, but as a PR pro, focusing on the content you are producing for your website will make all the difference.

First off, the basics: Be aware of your NAP (name, address and phone number). Google will look for these on your site to determine your location and whether or not to include you in local search results. Additionally, mentioning your city in titles on landing pages will go a long way in helping point out to Google that you have a local presence (think “Best IT Services in Chicago” or “One of Portland’s Premier Restaurants.”). If you have multiple locations, you should have an individual page on your site for each of those locations with NAP info that Google can point to.

Once you have the basics in place, on-page optimization should focus on incorporating important keywords organically into your content. We can all get too familiar with our own internal or industry jargon and forget to focus on what buyers are searching for. The good news is that there are a ton of free keyword tools out there, including Keyword Planner directly from Google. Once you’ve identified the best keywords for your site, work on incorporating them organically (as well as your city name and localized content) into your content strategy and editorial calendar.

2. Links

Links are probably the single greatest way that your PR strategy can impact your local SEO success. Google wants to know that your site is an authority on the keywords you want to rank for. If your on-page optimization is how you tell Google you’re an authority, links back to your site from other reputable sites are how the entire internet tells Google you’re an authority. These backlinks are both about quality and quantity. The more authority (trustworthiness and visibility) a site that links to you has, the more credit Google gives you for that link. These pages that include these links should also include your keywords and location whenever possible.

PR placements are a key element in recruiting top-notch backlinks. To add a local twist, look for local blogs and media outlets for placement that can help you boost your local search rank.

3. Google My Business listing and reviews

Having a Google My Business (GMB) listing for your business is essential to appear in local search results. It’s not hard to set up a GMB listing (minus a pesky postcard!), and once it’s done, you’re set. Google will look at your primary category, but if you can, also try to have keywords in your GMB business title.

The harder part is focusing on Google Reviews. It’s important to look at both the quality and quantity of reviews, and Google will also pay attention to any of your keywords that are included in the reviews. Recruiting reviews is a time-consuming and ongoing effort, but it’s an activity that can have a significant impact on your local search rankings.

4. Citations

 Addressing citations can also be a quick win. When you identify your keywords, do a local search with those keywords and see if there are directories that rank high in the organic results, and make sure your business is included. This can include a big consumer directory like Yelp! or it can be a niche directory for your particular industry. For instance, UpCity lists B2B service providers like digital marketing agencies and IT services companies, and ranks well in local searches. Don’t forget to ensure that your NAP matches across your site, your GMB profile, and any other citations.

PR efforts with link building and conscious use of keywords in content can help boost local SEO rankings, while overall improvement in local SEO can help continue to build on the PR objective of brand reputation and visibility improvement.

Heidi Sullivan is SVP of product and marketing for UpCity. Prior to that she spent 13 years in various executive roles at Cision. She frequently speaks at industry conferences and events and has won numerous marketing industry awards throughout her career.

The post 4 ways to integrate local SEO into your PR strategy appeared first on PR Daily.

With state governments lifting COVID-19 restrictions and more people having access to vaccines, consumers across the country are starting to make their return to “normalcy” by visiting their favorite small businesses.

While these shifts are happening, it is crucial for small business owners to understand how to manage their online presence, staff and reputation to find success in this post-shutdown world. Consider these tips to ensure a successful reopening.

1. Acknowledge if you are short staffed.

Due to the pandemic, so many industries were forced to cut staff and in turn, are experiencing longer wait times or delayed service requests. The best way to mitigate longer wait times, bad reviews and a stressful environment for employees is to communicate that gap with customers.

Ninety-seven percent of consumers use the internet to find local businesses, meaning the most effective way to acknowledge staffing issues is to update the website, social media and online listings.  Make an announcement explaining staffing issues and acknowledge it might lead to issues, such as longer wait times.

Customers will appreciate the honesty and are more likely to return to the business and treat employees with kindness.

2. Use popular platforms to update your company’s specific requirements.

Let customers know about updated hours, if masks are required, or if the business is requiring employees to be vaccinated. The most popular platforms to make these updates include Google My Business, Facebook, Yelp and Bing.

A good rule of thumb is to post once every seven days to optimize listings and increase customers viewings based on search algorithms. Plus, Google My Business listings are 70% more likely to attract local visits and will increase a business’ sales and web traffic.

3. Update your website and social media profiles.

Its best to be transparent about your company’s policies. This way, customers won’t feel blindsided by specific regulations, or lack thereof. Update your website and all social media pages with COVID-19 related business policies to create trust with customers.   

4. Take the time to respond to every review.

Ninety percent of buyers reported to have checked a business’s reviews before reaching a decision and ultimately making a purchase. This means that handling reviews is one of the important aspects of a business’s credibility.

If customers are complaining about long waits, mask guidelines, or other pandemic related issues, it’s important to respond to all of them. Direct the customer to your website or social media page and let them know that these guidelines are specifically posted to alleviate someone feeling uncomfortable prior to visiting your establishment.

According to Chatmeter, businesses that respond to reviews appear 1.7 times more trustworthy to consumers than businesses that don’t. Respond to negative reviews quickly, between 24-48 hours. This allows the business to quickly offer an actionable solution while decreasing the amount of time the review is sitting unattended on the web. The faster you respond, the fewer people will see the review on its own and be negatively influenced by it.

No matter the changes made to business policies, the bottom line is that its crucial to use all customer communication channels available to keep consumers in the know. Managing all of these different facets of a company’s online presence is a lot for any business owner to handle, but it can save on headaches and negative customer reactions in the long run.

Jonathan Brooks is president for Business Warrior.

The post Navigating your online presence during a return to ‘normalcy’ appeared first on PR Daily.

After a year of Zoom meetings, virtual conferences and innovation, creating a virtual world to make up for lost in-person connection during COVID-19, the world feels like a very different place.

Many corporate offices have yet to return to their workspaces, or are considering hybrid workforces with increased remote work, super-commuters and reimagined collaboration. And yet, the amount of digital transformation that our world has undergone still stops short of some of the prognostications about the advent of VR and the future of online connection. We’re not yet to the point where everyone has a VR headset in their home.

So how are smart communicators and marketers using technology to connect to audiences—and what does technology’s cutting edge offer for brands looking to fill the gaps as in-person interaction slowly returns later in 2021?

Ryan Schmidt, head of technology at Landor & Fitch, warns against going for what he calls “shiny object syndrome.” Instead, he recommends starting with a goal about self-presentation. A question his team asks whenever starting a new project: “How does this fulfill or exceed the expectation of how a customer or brand wants to present themselves in the world?”

That might take the team towards creating a virtual reality or augmented reality experience. Or it might lead the team to a much more low-tech creation. Schmidt says that for one client, his team took the digital completely out of the campaign, making the product a tactile experience that customers could interact with.

Bridging the gap between physical and digital

Schmidt puts the innovations he is seeing around creating digital alternatives to physical experiences into three buckets— “strategic technical architecture,” “virtual worlds” and flexibility in the creative process.

First is the actual architecture to be able to create a digital experience for a consumer, something that requires a lot of work on the back end enable a seamless front-end experience. “Oftentimes it becomes a conversation about ‘How do we create a roadmap from a technology perspective to get you to your ambition?’” Schmidt says. Without the infrastructure in place, organizations are limited in what they can accomplish with offering a digital experience to consumers.

It’s in these conversations that Schmidt offers the phrase “minimum viable experience” (MVE), a coinage borrowed from the tech industry’s “minimum viable product.” For Schmidt, MVE allows the team to iterate, creating one experience on a small scale and then building upon what works.

It’s this iterative process that is part of his third bucket, the flexibility in the creative process, which drives innovation for the team and its clients. “So if we’re building a physical space, sometimes we will test,” Schmidt says. “We might build a pop up for a touchpoint or an experience, instead of building it into a store, and that allows us to evolve quickly from an infrastructure standpoint.”

And when it comes to the actual virtual world? That’s about being able to put yourself in consumers’ shoes, Schmidt says.

Empathy, empathy, empathy

“Empathy is at the core of the design thinking,” Schmidt elaborates, “being able to put yourself outside of your own experiences and understand the world through a different lens.”

It also requires self-knowledge, understanding authentically what the brand is, its culture and its people, and how it interacts internally,. Only from a foundational understanding can you start to build the virtual world on top of these core values, Schmidt explains.

Technology should be used to fill a human need, and experiences that try to fill those needs empathetically are the only creations that are likely to have long-term success. To evaluate your offerings, Schmidt recommends taking it back to the MVE and using your test run to understand what is connecting and what isn’t.

The customer ecosystem

To understand how various touchpoints interact with each other and move a customer along a buyer’s journey, Schmidt offers a different model.

“One thing that’s been happening for a long time now is the move from a singular linear customer journey to a curated ecosystem of experiences,” Schmidt says. Therefore, it makes sense to offer a mix of experiences and touchpoints, both physical and digital, to draw in and engage consumers. Instead of thinking of e-commerce, or traditional shoppers following one path or another, it’s crucial for brands to consider how consumers will experience multiple touchpoints with a brand or organization.

The ecosystem of experiences also allows for scale, Schmidt says, building experiences on top of each other. Where brands often go wrong, Schmidt says, is in trying to do too much too fast, and then floundering in the deep end with a tech experience that offers nothing of substance to a consumer trying to evaluate a purchase.

Instead, start small. Embrace the minimum viable experience and build on what is working to find your footing in an increasingly digital marketplace.

The post After the COVID-19 crisis, where will the cutting edge of experiential tech be? appeared first on PR Daily.

To carve out space for your company in today’s digital-first landscape, it’s crucial to have a strong SEO strategy. While there are several factors that have a role in boosting your startup’s SEO, like blogging, mobile first website design, solid SEO website infrastructure, and YouTube videos, one lesser-known way to strengthen SEO is through the use of public relations.

PR has long been seen as a channel for increasing brand awareness and strengthening organizational credibility, but what’s not always well understood is the power that media coverage has on a long-term SEO strategy.

Here’s how PR helps boost SEO and a few ways to use it to your company’s advantage:

Nuts and bolts

So, how exactly does PR help out with SEO? The answer is simple: backlinks. When your company lands earned media coverage in reputable news media outlets with high domain authority, like Forbes, The Wall Street Journal or Business Insider, your website traffic will subsequently increase. And with the credibility of these sites attached to your brand, Google will begin to recognize your website as a trusted source for related content, which will help boost your ranking.

With enough solid media coverage, you can ultimately build a backlink strategy that’s constantly working for you. This ability to build out high-value links that the Google algorithm prioritizes gives PR more influence over SEO outcomes than many of the common tricks (link directories, tier 3 blogs, sketchy pay-to-play media outlets, etc.) employed by less reputable SEO firms.

PR tactics that deliver SEO results

 1. Earned media coverage 

Let’s say your company has an exciting product launch in the pipeline and you want to build momentum around the product prior to launch. Landing earned media coverage will help your company get the news in front of the right people: customers, prospects, industry influencers.

What’s great about earned media, however, is that not only does it momentarily put the spotlight on your brand, but it continues to work to your benefit even after the campaign is complete.

Once a publication with high domain authority writes about your company and, subsequently, adds a backlink to your website, you’ve essentially solidified your place on their website and boosted your own SEO in the process.

2. Brand awareness 

When executing a media campaign, many PR agencies will target a diverse list of news media outlets for your startup. And the more articles you can rack up, the more potential customers will begin to recognize and research your brand. That’s especially important for B2B companies with longer purchasing cycles.

This is crucial for a couple of reasons. First, an increased interest in your company could lead to more people conducting Google searches about your products or services. Secondly, an increase in searches around your brand will let Google know that your company is indeed legit and in demand, which will help boost your ranking even further. Google prioritizes brands with proven search volume and online presence, so it’s safe to say that an increase in brand awareness through PR will ultimately improve your Google ranking.

3. Thought leadership 

A component of earned media, thought leadership initiatives are key to boosting your company’s SEO. In order to build credibility, it pays for your company executives and key stakeholders to share their take on industry trends and submit contributed articles to industry publications and even mainstream media like Forbes.

A contributed article to a high domain authority site like Forbes can increase referral website traffic, not just through the published article on the website, but anywhere else the news outlet shares it, like social media or an email newsletter. Not to mention, a contributed article differs from a write-up on your company because it offers an opportunity to share your industry expertise, which in turn increases your brand’s credibility.

In addition to contributing articles to industry publications, consider adding speaking opportunities at conferences or industry events (now virtual thanks for the pandemic) to your thought leadership strategy.

4. Social proof 

Once you’ve earned media placements in top tech publications, don’t forget to include that press on your company’s website. This is a small yet crucial step in the earned media process that shouldn’t be overlooked.

By including either logos or links to the media coverage your company has received, you’ll be creating social proof. Social proof amplifies your company’s industry credibility and helps build trust between your brand and potential clients, stakeholders, or anyone visiting your website.

Dave Manzer is the founder of Swyft, a PR and marketing agency focused on tech startups.

The post The foundation of an SEO strategy should always include PR appeared first on PR Daily.

Editor’s note: This article is a re-run as part of our countdown of top stories from the past year.

Many small-business owners and freelancers seek ways to streamline projects and squeeze more productivity out of the workday.

As a PR consultant and freelance writer who sometimes dons a reporter’s hat, I’m always interested in trying out tools that allow me to get more done—but as a solopreneur, I’m also cost-conscious.  I’m often asked what my favorite free or low-cost solutions are to accomplish communications-related tasks.

Here are 14 top picks:

1. Favorite social media tool: There are many social media management tools out there, but I don’t know how I’d get along without Buffer. I’ve been using it for a few years now to help me manage my social media posts—and those of my clients.

Buffer is like the “crockpot” of posting. You can set it up to post for you at any time. It keeps your feed current when you may not be online, for example, overnight, on the weekends, while you’re on vacation, etc. It’s helped me attract Twitter followers.

It’s simple to use. I use the paid version, but the basic version is free if you want to try it out.

One note: Even though Buffer makes posting consistently much easier, remember to engage with your followers. Social media isn’t a “set it and forget it” type of initiative. Buffer isn’t a substitute for true interaction.

2. Best image creator tool: Pablo by Buffer is free, and it’s so easy for pulling royalty-free images to use with your social media or blog posts.

Choose from Pablo’s database of images from Unsplash and Pixabay, or upload your own image. Because it works with Buffer, it’s a seamless way to get your social media posts ready in record time.

3. Best newsletter solution: Mailchimp is free up to 2,000 email addresses and very simple to use. You can see analytics on how many subscribers opened your email, who subscribed, who unsubscribed and so on.

Mailchimp can help with other things, too, like sending out email marketing campaigns and creating landing pages. I used it to create a pop-up subscription form for my newsletter, which has helped me build my subscriber list.

4. Best writing/editing tool: I’m doing more writing and ghostwriting for clients than ever. Nothing beats a good human editor, but when you work on your own, there’s not always one available. For those occasions, I use Grammarly.

You can upload or cut and paste your text into Grammarly for suggestions on how to improve your writing. You can easily accept or reject the suggestions. Grammarly also “follows” you online, so it catches errors you may make as you’re typing an email or on a social media platform, for example. It also has a plagiarism checker.

5. Best source for royalty-free images: There are many players in this field, but the two I use most often are Unsplash or Pixabay. Both are incorporated into Pablo by Buffer (see No. 2 above), so if you use that tool, you can skip this step.

Whatever solution you’re using, be sure you’re selecting only royalty-free images. Don’t just Google an image and plug it into your post. Check to ensure it’s free to use, or you could incur a fine.

6. Best free press release wire service: Have a press release you want your stakeholders to see but no budget for a paid wire service? Try PRLog or PR.com. These free wire services can help you get it on search engines and boost the SEO value.

Of course, there are also paid wire services like the lower cost PRWeb or the larger PR Newswire (both owned by Cision). In general, I recommend using a wire service sparingly and pitching each press release you publish directly to the journalists you’re most interested in reaching.

7. Best free media database: Mondo Times is a free media database, ideal for small businesses or startups that haven’t the budget for a pricier tool.

In Mondo, you can search for media outlets and build a list to use to pitch your news. Mondo is organized by geographic region so that you can see all the media outlets in a particular city or state.

Of course, you can also build a media list by visiting each of the media outlets’ websites, but this saves you some research time.

8. Best free source for media opportunities: Looking for media opportunities for your small business or personal branding purposes? HARO (Help a Reporter Out)is a free subscription service where reporters post queries looking for sources. Any subscriber is welcome to respond to the queries. Emails are sent to subscribers three times each day. And yes, you can get earned media results this way.

There’s always a deadline associated with each opportunity, so pay attention to that when responding. It’s best to read these as soon as they hit your mailbox and reply as quickly as possible, as they do receive many, many responses in some cases.

While HARO shouldn’t be a substitute for a consistent media relations strategy and program, it can be part of your approach to score earned media for your brand.

9. Best research tool: Google. I do a lot of research when I’m writing or creating press releases for clients, and Google is the most helpful tool.

I also set up Google Alerts to stay on top of news about my clients or their competitors. So helpful—and free.

10. Best social media listening tool: Talkwalker offers free alerts so that you can monitor when someone’s mentioned you online. I use these in addition to Google alerts.

Talkwalker Alerts is described as “the only free alerts system that follows your digital footprint across the internet and Twitter.” Talkwalker’s Free social media search monitors every conversation about your brand, hashtags and competition on social media. Talkwalker also offers paid solutions with additional features.

11. Best portfolio tool: Muck Rack offers free portfolio services to journalists and bloggers. You can set one up here.

Bonus: Who Shared My Link is another feature of Muck Rack that comes in pretty handy. Want to see who’s sharing something you wrote? Paste the URL, and the Who Shared My Link tool will tell you (again for free).

12. Best headline analyzer tool: OK, it may be the only headline analyzer tool out there, but CoSchedule offers a way for you to test your headlines before you publish your next blog post.

If you’re like me, you write anywhere from five to 20 headlines per piece. (Andy Crestodina has some great advice on writing effective headlines here.) The headline analyzer scores your headlines so you can evaluate which may be most effective. After all, if the reader doesn’t get past the headline, your post won’t be read—or shared.

13. Best contract creation tool: Contract Canvas developed by Chris Brown of Venture Legal is an easy way to create client agreements.

Designed for creative professionals, the platform enables you to type information about your project into the contract wizard. A contract is generated for you to send to your client. Both parties e-sign the agreement in the Contract Canvas platform. There’s a free trial, or you can pay by contract or per month.

14. Best conference call tool: Zoom is free for conference calls, with or without video. One-on-one meetings are unlimited; there’s a 40-minute limit on group meetings. The service also records calls up to 45 minutes. The paid version offers additional features, but try out the free one to see if it meets your needs; it works fine for me in most cases.

Michelle Garrett is a PR consultant and writer at Garrett Public Relations. Follow her on Twitter @PRisUs or connect with her on LinkedIn. A version of this post originally appeared on her blog.

The post 14 terrific—and affordable—tools for PR pros appeared first on PR Daily.

Editor’s note: This article is a re-run as part of our countdown of top stories from the past year.

Marketing automation isn’t a thing of the future—it’s very much a part of the here and now for small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) worldwide. 

However, many pros are unaware of an array of marketing automation tools that can help SMBs reach customers in a timely, effective way. For SMBs to compete with larger firms when it comes to customer reach, they must approach their marketing plan with a strategic mindset.  

Marketing automation provides important opportunities for interaction with customers, but it can also save time. Time is valuable, especially true if you’re running a small business. Time saved on marketing means being able to capture new business and having more hours to commit to other vital tasks. Here are just a few benefits:

• Marketing automation drives a 14.5% increase in sales productivity.
• It can help guide sales and marketing teams to work together for a common goal. 
• It boosts ROI as many automation tools do the work of a large marketing staff.
• Automation  can compile a complete view of customer behavior.
• Three-quarters (77%) of users see an increase in conversions.

If you’re interested in taking advantage of these tools but don’t know where to start, here are four marketing automation solutions that every SMB should have in 2020. 

1. Social media updates

A social media management tool can be indispensable to small-business owners trying to make the most of their online presence. Having timely online content is imperative in 2020, given that 77% of consumers say they are more likely to buy from a brand they follow on social media and 67% say they are more likely to increase spending with a brand they follow on social media. 

Securing a tool to handle this important customer connection is an essential way to streamline your social media management. It spares you from having to post at an exact time across multiple platforms, and instead lets you schedule content in advance. 

That means businesses can plan social media posts a week or month out and not worry about interrupting their weekends, holidays and busy workdays to post. These programs can also provide SMBs the opportunity to create an organized posting strategy, analyze performance and respond to customers across multiple platforms from one easy-to-use interface. 

2. CRM with email marketing

Capturing important customer information in one place can help you deliver an excellent customer experience and boost sales revenue. The right customer relationship management (CRM) software that is designed for SMBs will help you track all customer interactions and purchases. Some even offer predictive analytics technology that can help determine potential next steps and drive transactions. 

You’ll also want a CRM that integrates email marketing automation, which will enhance the customer experience and increase the success rate of your email and follow up campaigns. Email is a fantastic way to reach customers because they require the reader to opt-in and allows for several layers of personalization. 

On average, marketers see a return of $32 for every $1 spent on email marketing, so having a CRM that facilitates this type of communication is imperative. 

3. Online surveys

Customer feedback is a vital way in which companies can improve. Small businesses can often achieve significant growth simply by soliciting (and heeding) the feedback of their customers. The challenge is that in-depth market research can be costly. 

Enter the online survey. This tool will allow SMBs to gain valuable insights from customers without having to invest in lengthy market research programs. An online survey is convenient for the consumer and allows the data to be tracked and analyzed for insights. 

Do your customers like your most recent product upgrade? Is the packaging holding up during shipping? Do they feel the product was accurately represented online? How was their experience with your customer service associate? 

All those questions and more can be answered through a short online survey. Small-business owners can even create different surveys for different customer interactions, allowing for customized feedback to propel growth. 

4. Chatbots

Chat is another marketing automation tool that can strengthen the customer journey. Through the power of artificial intelligence (AI), a chatbot gives a personalized experience and can field a variety of frequently asked customer questions directly from your website. 

Chatbots can also gather customer data for future marketing efforts as well as helping businesses reach their sales goals. A chatbot gives customers an instant response to their requests and can send links to purchase or transfer the customer to a live associate if needed.  

Chad Ruff is chief technology officer at Swiftpage.

The post 4 marketing automation tools to help small and mid-size businesses appeared first on PR Daily.

If you think search engine optimization isn’t for PR pros, think again.

Especially during COVID-19, SEO is increasing in importance, as organizations seek to reach their target consumers and stand out in a noisy and cluttered digital media landscape.

“SEO is extremely adaptable based on the situation, goal or need,” says Jason White, director of SEO for Texas-based digital marketing agency PMG. “Depending on the approach to generating press, SEO can help identify the opportunity, guide content development and be a catalyst for success for how a piece is optimized.”

Whether you’re looking to get the most out of your next press release or aiming to take advantage of growing digital trends, such as online shopping, consider these keys to success:

1. Collaborate to create strategies and best practices.

Just as you shouldn’t execute your efforts or campaigns without a plan, SEO initiatives require a thoughtful and strategic approach.

“Planning allows communicators to maximize the impact of every action through deep analysis of strategy and discovery of cross-channel opportunities,” White says. “Without it, brands would struggle with disparate messaging.”

Because SEO’s benefits can boost PR, as well as marketing and sales efforts, it’s important for communicators to work with colleagues across departments to create effective strategies that span the entire organization.

Looking for a place to start? Try schema markups—code placed on your website that tells search engines what your data means.

Here’s an example from IT pro Nat Miletic:

Do you know that you can boost your website SEO by using schema markup?

You have probably already encountered it (see image).

Put simply, schema markup helps search engines understand your content.

This is one of the latest trends in SEO that can help tremendously. pic.twitter.com/9AOi8xcWlG

— Nat Miletic (@natmiletic) November 16, 2020

White says:

Schema markups are one of the most impactful implementations PR practitioners can take to support social media, websites and email marketing. Schema gives bots more context, allows brands to ensure consistent messaging across channels and devices, and enables all the features available in modern search, social media and more.

Work with your colleagues to implement this strategy along with other SEO and analytics best practices that can extend the reach and performance of your content, media coverage, campaigns, tweets and more. Don’t put off a brainstorming session, either—the rapid changes both with consumer behavior and with search engine algorithms throughout COVID-19 offers opportunities that won’t be around forever.

“We’ve witnessed new keyword verticals created overnight,” White says. “This makes information sharing and keyword targeting even more impactful for PR functions.”

2. Don’t spend your time chasing algorithms.

White says focusing on an algorithm or what your competitors are doing are wastes of time—especially when your focus could be better spent with proactive strategies.

As Google’s algorithm continues to evolve, his advice is even more crucial. Though you don’t want to ignore Google as a traffic source, it shouldn’t be the only thing in your sights.

Our consumer insights team was asking which search engine sends the most traffic. Google obviously:

94.6% was the lowest
99.8 was the highest from our client set.

— Jason White (@Sonray) October 22, 2020

White says:

The reality is that Google is unlikely to share enough about their magic sauce, and even if you can glean some insights here and there, you’re ultimately working from a reactive position, which is never a good place to be.

Though you won’t uncover the secrets behind the algorithms of popular social media platforms and search engines, you can still overcome common roadblocks that keep you from ranking high and reaching your target audiences.

“The good news is that SEO is incredibly rational, and the issues you face are similar to those that your competitors deal with,” White says.

Act proactively by making website changes that can improve your standing over the competition—and monitor each change to see if there’s a measurable, positive impact to your website (and bottom line).

3. Tailor your analytics and evaluation processes to your business goals.

White says:

Brands have different goals, so there is no cookie-cutter approach to analytics that is applicable to everyone. You need to first decide what you want to track, why it’s important, and how it can be tracked and maintained.

Setting up your evaluation procedures should include frank discussions on what key performance indicators matter to your efforts. If your analytics can’t paint a picture of your audience’s behaviors or help connect your efforts to audience actions, go back to the drawing board to see whether your measurement setup should be adjusted, along with your campaign(s).

White also advises investing early into the time and resources necessary to create good analytics processes, including dynamic dashboards, automatic reports and reminders. If your measurement strategies are no longer a fit, make the business case to overhaul them.

White says:

If your analytics setup has become such a mess that you feel you cannot trust the numbers, then spend the time to fix it. It won’t be the flashiest project, but it will produce an outsized improvement in your marketing.

Whatever you do, don’t ignore the data. That includes measuring ineffectively just to report numbers, without connecting it to your campaign and business goals, or spinning the data into a narrative that fits your aims, instead of honestly looking at current actions and behaviors.

“The biggest mistakes I see marketers make include ignoring—or even worse, not believing in—analytics,” White says. Failing to engage with analytic data is a mistake you make at your own peril, he warns.

Learn more about optimizing your website, effectively using analytics and enhancing social media campaigns at Ragan’s Google & SEO for Communicators Bootcamp, Nov. 19. White will be joined by speakers from Condé Nast, Google Brazil, Lewis Global Communications, MIT’s Sloan School of Management and Klarna. Register here.

The post 3 ways PR pros can win with SEO and analytics appeared first on PR Daily.

Writing for SEO remains somewhat of a mystery to many, despite the number of articles, webinars, Twitter chats and workshops available on the topic. In fact, a study found that 1 in 4 businesses say they’re not at all or only vaguely familiar with SEO.

Let’s start by saying that no matter who you listen to, they probably don’t have all the answers. And if you ask a different “expert,” you’ll probably get a different answer.

If you’re paying someone to provide SEO services, the proof is in the pudding. If you’re getting results (i.e., ranking higher), their approach is most likely working.

But, for the rest of us, who may be trying to figure out how to write in a more SEO-friendly way without hiring an SEO expert, what should we be doing to help optimize our copy?

Some SEO truths

If you follow the topic of writing for SEO (search engine optimization), you may see a lot of conflicting advice. We know SEO is important for our businesses to be found online—but how much should we focus on it? And what are the right things to focus on?

“If you’re writing a blog post, for example, start with an idea, then do some keyword research,” said Holly Landis, digital marketing consultant and copywriter. “You might use Ahrefs or Buzzsumo to see if people are looking for that topic. Are people interested? Or is it a waste of time?”

How many keywords should you plan to include? Three to five keywords for a piece that’s 500 to 800 words long, suggests Landis.

The user experience is where you should start, Landis says. “If you forget just trying to write for Google and focus on providing a good user experience, all the metrics—traffic, shares—will increase. If your content is shareable and there are varied backlinks to it, these are great signs to Google that you have valuable content. This will increase the likelihood of it ranking higher and appearing more frequently in search results.”

If you make SEO less of a priority and write with your user in mind, that’s likely the direction Google will be moving in, Landis advises. “Google won’t be coming out with any guidelines that refute quality content, that’s for sure.”

Another point to remember: SEO is a long-term game. It may not show success overnight (like many other marketing initiatives), but If you focus on user experience, you can have peace of mind knowing that you’re doing the right things.

If you choose not to put your users first, you might damage your SEO in the long run. It’s not worth any short-term gains you may see, Landis suggests. “It’s kind of a common-sense direction Google is headed in.”

Practical tips

What are the main tenets when writing with SEO in mind?

1. Check the basics: There are nuts and bolts you can address on your site, such as site speed, rankings and tags. Check to make sure those are in order.

2. Make the content as long as it needs to be: Longer content may rank better because it contains more keywords, making it more SEO-friendly. Even so, make it only as long as you need it to be, says Landis.

Longer content won’t necessarily perform better. Producing quality content should be the goal. Google likes informational content, which could draw links from other sites.

3. Don’t write filler: Don’t produce content just for the sake of producing content. Audiences are looking for well-written content that gets to the point.

One example of content that is sometimes longer than it needs to be are those long recipe posts that have a lengthy opening that no one wants to read. “There’s no need to fill word count just to have a certain number of words. Just write till you’re done,” Landis says.

4. Use common sense when it comes to keywords: When choosing keywords, Google knows, for example, that attorney and lawyer are the same. There’s no need to repeatedly use both throughout your copy.

Landis suggests using three to five keywords per post/page in defined keyword topic groups. Include the main keyword(s) in the first 100 words of your content. That lets the user know what it’s about right away, so there’s also an advantage from a practical standpoint.

5. Use headings strategically: Using headings within your post can help break up the copy, making it easier to read. Use of keywords in H1 or H2 headings can help give you an SEO boost, Landis advises. She says to use one H1 tag for every post, and perhaps H2 or H3 headings. “Use of headings can be helpful for both the reader and for Google,” says Landis.

6. Phrase titles naturally:Titles don’t need to be written with ranking purposes in mind, Landis says. Just write them naturally for the best results. “Use common sense—don’t worry so much about getting the little green button in Yoast. If you do, it isn’t always going to read well for a human being,” Landis says.

Resources to check

If you want to keep up on SEO advice, trusted sources to follow include:

• Moz
• Search Engine Land
• Search Engine Journal
• Women in Tech SEO

And Landis recommends following these individuals:

• John Mu, @JohnMu
• Kate Toon, @KateToon
• Dr. Pete Meyers, @Dr_Pete
• Britney Muller, @BritneyMuller
• Areej AbuAli, @Areej_Abuali
• Barry Schwartz, @RustyBrick

Questions to ask when hiring SEO help

 If you decide you want to hire someone to help with SEO, it can be challenging to find a consultant or company you can trust. Here are some questions you should ask:

1. Can you tell me about your approach to building a strong backlink profile?
2. What is your typical process for improving on-page content for SEO purposes?
3. Can you guarantee that my site will be on page one of Google?
4. How quickly can you get me ranking number one for [X keyword]?

“If someone answers 3 and 4 as ‘yes, I can easily do that in no time at all for $1 million,’ run for the hills!” says Landis. “Really what this is about is looking for someone who isn’t overpromising by doing sketchy work and not setting realistic expectations upfront.”

Michelle Garrett is a PR consultant and writer at Garrett Public Relations. Follow her on Twitter @PRisUs or connect with her on LinkedIn.

The post How to write great content that ranks for SEO appeared first on PR Daily.

In the late hours of March 2, 2020, Nashville was hit by a tornado that left more people without power than any other storm in the city’s recorded history. It was not only the biggest challenge the Nashville Electric Service (NES) had ever faced, it was the biggest communications challenge it had ever faced.

As its linemen raced to restore the city to full power, the utility needed to reassure countless customers that they were working as fast as possible. Fortunately, NES was prepared.

Approximately a year prior, we helped NES create a rapid-response website, working with its communications team to anticipate emergency scenarios, think through what they would need to relay to customers, and establish an online framework for both proactive and reactive response. NES’s site lay dormant for many months.

Yet when the March storm hit, NES was able to provide crucial, unfiltered information to the public within hours. The site continued to serve the community until all the lights were back on.

This is just one example of the ways rapid-response sites can help organizations be as proactive and prepared as possible, no matter what happens and no matter what sector or situation they’re in. Rapid-response sites ensure they are dispensing their own information rather than having it interpreted (or misinterpreted) by others. They are the first ones to update the people they care about. In this way, they become the most trusted source.

The relentless crises of 2020 are driving the need for rapid response as never before. We’ve worked with clients to develop the following COVID-related sites:

• The Nashville mayor’s office deployed a rapid-response site to keep the public informed about ways to stay safe, roadmaps for reopening, public resources, public health orders, and daily video press briefings in multiple languages; thus far it’s recorded 1.5M sessions and three times as many page views.
• A nonprofit food resource established a rapid-response site to dispense food gift cards to single mothers and other community members suddenly experiencing food disparity.
• A consortium of tourism and healthcare organizations established a health and safety program and launched a rapid-response site to help businesses in every industry let the public know they were safe to patronize.

Preparing for challenges your clients might face is paramount to any successful communication plan. Creating a preemptive rapid response website means that when trouble strikes, they’re ready to get messages out rapidly and reliably. We can help them develop the messages quickly, depending on the circumstances. Regardless of the specific messages, the rapid-response site is ready to receive and deploy them.

5 benefits of rapid-response websites

A rapid-response website gives organizations a separate platform to address crises, answer questions, or control a problematic situation on their own terms. A rapid-response website also helps to:

1. Establish the organization as the primary source for information.
2. Provide crucial content, such as customer instructions, public statements, updates, and media contacts.
3. Demonstrate the organizations’ commitment to transparency and corporate responsibility.
4. Mitigate the risk of dangerous rumors and speculation.

It’s also less costly and time-consuming to create than a regular website. A typical rapid-response site consists of a homepage and a couple of tabs, all developed to deal with only one crucial objective at a time.

Why the rapid-response site is better than tab on your homepage:

• It draws unwanted attention away from the regular site, allowing it to continue to be a source for visitors who have no awareness or interest in the crisis.
• It has its own unique navigation and provides a single source for reliable and timely information about one issue.
• It can be turned on at a moment’s notice and become invisible once a crisis is averted, never disrupting the regular site’s primary functions.
• It takes advantage of vital keywords in its URL to support search engine optimization.

Jonathan Carpenter is senior partner at Finn Partners and leads digital strategy and campaigns for Finn Southeast.

The post Why a rapid-response website is essential in a crisis appeared first on PR Daily.

In addition to building awareness of a company’ products and services and enhancing its reputation, PR can also boost search engine optimization.

As search marketing is now an essential PR and marketing element for any business, SEO can increase your search engine ranking and drive more traffic to your website. It can also improve the quality of that traffic.

SEO does not provide immediate results, so do not expect changes overnight; it is a long-term investment. By following these tips, you can begin your SEO journey to enhance your rankings and boost your brand’s online visibility:

1. Top-tier backlinks

A surefire way to increase your opportunity to rank for a handful of keywords is through gaining backlinks from other websites to relevant pages on your site. Search engines like Google and Bing view backlinks from third parties as a vote of confidence to your web content and brand. They provide “SEO weight.”

Be aware that backlinks from low-quality websites no longer fool the search engines and don’t improve search rankings. Your backlinks should come from high-quality editorial websites that are relevant to your brand and target audience.

Obtaining high-quality backlinks increases search engine rankings for your chosen keywords. To get those backlinks, the authority of your website matters, but also your content must be well written and cover a topic relevant to the linking site’s audience.

2. Brand association

One technique to gain additional SEO is associating a small brand with a better-known brand.

A example of an effective health care brand association is the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. When people think of the NHS, they think of hospitals, walk-in centers and treatments for illnesses. The NHS ranks well for search queries related to illnesses, symptoms and treatments, because the NHS website has abundant content relating to a range of health issues. It also helps readers with links to information on its social media accounts.

Searchers often will search for “National Health Service” and “Disease Name” or “Treatment.” A smaller company can therefore gain SEO by including those terms in a page on their website or in media placements. The content should be substantive and should include, preferably in the first paragraph, a sentence such as “The National Health Service” includes “Name of Product” as approved treatment for “Name of Disease.”

Another example from a different industry: “Name of Product” was shown on gowns designed by “Name of Fashion Designer” the “Name of Fashion Show” such as “New York Fashion Week.”

Search engines will begin to associate your brand with the other organizations or names. When your search results appear, consumers might head directly to your website to research general information about your products and services.

3. Third-party referral traffic

If a user searches for a product or service you provide but doesn’t include the brand in the query, you’re more likely to rank higher in search results if you have lots of backlinks and solid content containing the search terms. The most powerful of these backlinks are obtained from earned media placements.

Placements in highly visible media outlets helps the public associate your brand with another more familiar and respected organization or product. This will then drive more traffic to your site and provide more lead generation from customers who were not previously aware of your brand.

There’s no guarantee you’ll always rank for your chosen keywords, especially when they’re highly competitive.

You can instead use PR to place guest posts on websites that are industry-specific and have authority. The websites should also focus on the particular product or service you provide. As the websites have a higher authority, they’re more likely to rank for these keywords. This will then drive traffic to your site via their domain.

Use Google Trends or other sites that provide similar service to track the lists of terms becoming increasingly popular. It can also suggest similar keywords that may not be as competitive but are still relevant to your business.

4. Emerging keywords

When products or services are created, new terminology is created along with it. Use PR to spread awareness of this new vocabulary. People will soon connect your brand with those terms.

Then, when users type the terms into a search engine, you’ll have a far greater chance of ranking highly, as no other brands will be trying to rank for those keywords.

5. Previous PR reclamation

Use a search engine to look for other sites that have mentioned your brand but haven’t inserted a backlink.

You can reach out to these websites via email, social media, telephone or even their “contact us” form on their site. Kindly ask for a backlink to a relevant page on your site. If the post is published by a specific author, you can contact them directly.

Jo Spink is  the founder of Spink Healthcare Communications Agency.  

The post 5 ways communicators can bolster SEO appeared first on PR Daily.

Landing high on a Google search result page is not an easy achievement, and many brands struggle to land in the top results.

What brands can do, however, is create a strategy around Search Engine Visibility (SEV), which comes from earned media results. PR efforts focused on this will place your client or brand in front of “active information seekers,” aka, your top customer prospects. A new report from Visably, “The Ultimate PR Guide to Search Engine Strategy,” will help you do just that.

It explains:

• How to optimize link building with PR
• How to use keyword research to improve the success of press releases and pitches
• Why and how PR is key to brand success in search engine results
• How to build smarter lists using search results
• How to generate reports on media coverage that highlight SEO gains

Download your guide today.

The post A PR pro’s guide to search engine strategy appeared first on PR Daily.

When a crisis comes along, marketers are faced with burning questions about how best to respond.

Should we keep doing what we’re doing?

Is it time to cut marketing and PR budgets?

Should we pause to see what everybody else is doing?

Perhaps we should take this opportunity to evaluate data, pivot accordingly, and optimize content as we go?

That last one’s the tack recommended by Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Marketing, who shared sharp insights at Ragan’s Google for Communicators Virtual Bootcamp on Tuesday, May 13.

Odden says the coronavirus pandemic is forcing companies to pull back on explicit product marketing in favor of an emphasis on “purpose” and utility for the public good. Right now, marketers should focus on empowering customers—not on selling.

Enter the power of SEO, which can “help customers pull themselves toward solutions on their own terms,” Odden says.

If you’re not planning to invest in SEO efforts during this time of extreme reliance on web queries, you could be left in the digital dust. Odden cites a survey that found 63% of respondents believe SEO’s importance will increase dramatically during the pandemic.

So, how can you get in on Google’s game? Odden says, “You are what you E.A.T.,” which is to say your webpages should be stuffed—not with bogus keywords, but with expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. To optimize content for “findability and credibility,” you must provide “answers users can trust,” Odden says.

Suffuse your site with third-party expertise, use keywords strategically, and “write about things people are searching for.” Odden suggests using tools such as Traackr, Buzzsumo and SEMRush to get a sense of what your customers are seeking—and tailor your content accordingly.

“This is especially crucial during a pandemic, when every decision is digital,” Odden says.

Odden offers five steps to sharpen your SEO initiatives:

1. Create an ideal customer profile. Uncover what their job descriptions look like (and who they might report to), as well as topics, content types, social media platforms and media outlets they tend to prefer.

2. Identify influencers on specific topics. “Who is influential about topics that matter to your targeted accounts?” Odden says. Use can use a tool such as Traackr to find the right influencer for your specific niche.

3. Embark upon content co-creation and activation. Determine how best you can spark influencer collaboration. Find the right content types and social media platforms that suit your objectives, and use media relations tactics to earn broader coverage.

Odden says to create “power pages” that thoroughly articulate what a thing is and how it works. Answer common buyer questions, offer examples, include social proof and third-party validation, and include calls to action throughout.

4. Pursue content promotion. Now it’s time to get influencers to promote your optimized content. Encourage cross posting on different platforms. Pursue getting links published in earned and owned media. Consider repurposing old content, too.

Organic search is a moving target, and Google’s constantly tweaking its algorithm, but links from high-authority sources don’t go out of style.

5. Maintain ongoing influencer engagement. You’re not done once a piece is published. Maintain relationships, monitor experts, and actively connect influencers with each other.

Odden offers four further takeaways to boost SEO:

• Identify industry experts and high-visibility influencers who are creating on-topic content.
• Seek out experts who already have “knowledge panels” on Google.
• Evaluate an influencer’s link attraction rate when they publish or contribute content.
• Provide influencers with SEO audits of their blogs so they can improve their search visibility.

Ultimately, a key to winning the SEO game involves listening—and responding—to what your people care about. This sort of responsiveness and sensitivity is especially crucial during a pandemic.

As Odden says: “It’s time to banish tone-deaf, status quo marketing.”

The post How to boost SEO flow like a pro during COVID-19 appeared first on PR Daily.

As a business owner, you are compelled to explore new ways to thrive during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A slew of negative reviews questioning your operations and handling of this crisis may threaten your online reputation. How can you safeguard your reputation to win the customers back once this is all over?

Here are some tips to respond to online reviews concerning this outbreak.

1. Be empathetic. Reassure your customers that your business is making every effort to follow guidelines from trusted sources like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as federal, state and local governments to ensure the well-being of all customers and employees.

Dr. Colin Lentz, a dentist based in Dacula, Georgia explained his approach:

“In the unprecedented wake of COVID-19, our hands are tied when it comes to rendering treatment. Our general and cosmetic dental practice is currently closed because of state and federal guidelines. If someone reaches out to us with an emergency right now, I respond as quickly as I can, determine a recommended course of treatment over the phone, and find the appropriate specialist with access to CDC recommended personal protective equipment (i.e. N95 mask, gowns and face shields), which are being allocated only to hospitals/specialists.”

2. Monitor your reviews and review sites. Whether you’re a one-person team or a large corporation, diligently monitor your reviews across relevant review sites for any conversation related to this crisis. Do a daily check of Google, Yelp, Facebook and trade specific sites for revisions in their review policies. Google has suspended publishing any reviews or responses. Yelp will closely scrutinize reviews mentioning coronavirus.

3. Respond to all reviews. Make sure to respond to all reviews, positive and negative, across review sites.

“Keep in mind, it’s not just about replying to the reviewer, says Dr. Lentz. “It’s for everyone who’s reading that review.”

Use facts to develop your response, especially when someone is trolling your business or making false claims. Today’s customers are discerning; they can filter objective truth from an emotional rant.

“As a pre-school owner, staying on top of your online reputation is critical and directly proportional to your enrollments. Parents always look at online reviews prior to coming in to tour our school and will also ask about a negative review they read online and how we handled it,” says Tina Karnani, a pre-school owner based in Katy, TX.

4. Prepare FAQs. Offer brief responses to the questions you anticipate from your customers. This information will come in handy as you respond to different situations in online reviews. You do not have to include everything in every response. Questions could include:

• What precautionary measures has your business taken to protect customers and employees?
• Are the employees being provided any financial assistance?
• Are you revising business or store hours?
• How can your customers interact with you?
• Do you have an email, phone, or a website or a customer portal established?
• How will you handle cancellation and rescheduling of appointments and classes?
• Will you provide refunds or prorate monthly fee?

Here is a response to a review by an apartment resident whose maintenance request wasn’t completed:

“Thank you for reaching out, [name redacted]. We understand your concern about the completion of your maintenance request. During this unprecedented situation, nothing is more important to us than the well-being of our residents and team members. Our maintenance team is available to complete all emergency maintenance requests, and we will resolve any non-emergency requests at a later date. Please contact our team as soon as possible via phone or email if you have any questions or concerns. We appreciate your patience as we all learn to navigate through these difficult times.”

5. Establish an escalation email With any disruption in regular office hours, you must evaluate the contact information you share in responses. Establish a company-wide escalation email address and encourage the reviewer to direct all questions to that address.

6. Defer to a trusted authority. As new information about the virus surfaces and guidance for dealing with the outbreak evolves, encourage customers to refer to the CDC guidelines and/or government sources (federal, state, local) for further direction about how to protect themselves and their families.

7. Be flexible. As the crisis evolves, your business may need to make changes as well. You might need to adjust customer expectations as new information or guidance is provided by the experts and government leaders.

8. Engage your customers. Communicate frequently. If you are a restaurant owner, email your customers about any weekly changes in the take-out menu. If you’re a pediatric dentist, send tips on dental hygiene; a chiropractor could post online videos about relaxation. Remember, out of sight is out of mind.

9. Explore communication channels: You have a wide range of methods available to communicate with your customers. Pick what meets your customer expectations. Whether it’s texts, emails, e-newsletters, or social media channels, stay top of mind. Karnani reports success with weekly emails and Facebook posts.

“During this difficult time, our challenge is to maintain enrollment and retain our staff,” she says. “We are regularly sending communications about health and safety precautions and distance learning options to keep the families engaged, and this has been well received by the parents. We send at least one email or Facebook post each week with positive and uplifting messages.”

By demonstrating patience, empathy, de-escalating tense situations and communicating frequently, you may find this outbreak has a silver lining for your relationships with your customers.

Priyanka Agrawal is the director of public relations for J Turner Research.

The post 9 tips to protect your reputation during COVID-19 appeared first on PR Daily.

We are living in strange and challenging times.

COVID-19 is a global pandemic. Governments around the world are enforcing a range of measures, from social distancing to strict lockdowns, to stop the outbreak from getting worse and many businesses are struggling because of it.

If you’re among the lucky businesses that don’t have a storefront and you can do business virtually, your ability to run your business with everyone working remotely will be crucial in coming out of this in a (relatively) healthy position.

We’ve been doing this at Web Profits for the last couple of years. It started with our blockchain marketing arm, where the entire industry is decentralized, and then it expanded out to the rest of the company.

It started partly because we have offices in different countries (Australia, USA, Singapore, Romania), but mainly because we have many long-time team members that wanted to stay with the company, but needed a change in their lifestyle (e.g., traveling around Australia with 4G, moving to New Zealand with their family, frequent travels for family, etc.)

In addition, the talent pool available is far greater when you can include remote talent.

With that in mind, here are some of the things we have done to support a remote working environment:

1. Use Zoom for video conferencing.

Nothing is better than Zoom for video conferencing. Full stop.

Without Zoom, we wouldn’t have the same level of engagement across meetings, because the platform allows it to feel like you’re there in real-time.  Sure, you can still use Google Hangouts, Skype or other conferencing solutions (we’ve tried them all), but nothing is better than Zoom.

Difficulty to set up: Easy.

2. Use Slack for internal communications.

We use Slack for pretty much all of our internal communications. It reduces email significantly (we found that most of the emails our team received were from each other), and significantly increases collaboration between team members.

We also use Slack for communicating with clients if they’ve investing in our Fluid Marketing service and our team needs to communicate with them throughout the day. If you haven’t tried Slack yet, then use this as an opportunity to try it out. You won’t be disappointed.

Difficulty to set up: Easy.

3. Use Asana for project management.

Asana is one of the best project management tools around. We use it to manage projects, client campaigns and workloads—and we use it for meeting agendas, meeting notes and action items.

Difficulty to set up: Medium.

4. Use Google G-Suite.

We use Google for our emails, docs (the Google version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.), drives and calendars.  Plus, with Google being in the cloud, it means we can access everything from any device, at any location, and it’s synced everywhere.

The best part about G-Suite (aside from accessing your emails anywhere, anytime) is that we share calendars, collaborate on documents, and share files seamlessly.

Difficulty to set up: Hard.

That’s pretty much everything you need to run a completely remote workforce and still get everything done at the highest levels of performance.

Aside from that, it’s important to make sure that everyone has a good work-from-home setup including fast internet, a second screen and a good work space. You’ll also need to rethink how you get your team to work remotely together, effectively.

We are living in strange times, so by using a few new tools and changing the approach to our daily processes, you can make a new, productive “normal” workflow for as long as it takes for this crisis to run its course.

Alex Cleanthous is an entrepreneur, writer, technologist, and co-founder at Web Profits.

Get more strategies and insights on how to manage through the current crisis, and connect with you peers about these issues by joining Ragan’s Crisis Leadership Board.

The post 4 tools to streamline your remote workflow during COVID-19 appeared first on PR Daily.

SEO can be a tricky thicket for communicators.

Regardless of ilk or industry, if your website doesn’t appear near the top of Google’s search results, it’s as if you don’t exist.

Here to help untangle Google’s confounding algorithm is Alan Bush, VP of operations at Ignite and an instructor of SEO and digital marketing at the University of California, San Diego. He recently led a session at Ragan’s “Latest Google Skills for Communicators Virtual Summit”  covering:

• How search engines work and what they’re looking for (including BERT)
• The E-A-T framework: How to use Expertise, Authority and Trust to climb the rankings
• SEO strategy in three steps—a checklist for creating optimized content
• What’s next: How to optimize your content for mobile and voice search

He also offered six terrific SEO resources communicators can use, including:

Soovle. Per Bush: “This free tool is a great resource for generating ideas using auto-search from seven different popular search engines—simultaneously.”

Answer the Public. You’ll have to pony up to pay for unlimited requests, but you can access limited queries about “commonly asked questions to generate content ideas that will help with blogs, articles and FAQs.​”

Google Search Console. Why not get guidance straight from the source? As Bush says, “In addition to providing valuable information as to how Google sees your site, Google allows you to see ‘opportunity keywords’ within their own platform.” He offers a reminder that Google Keyword Planner is vital for PPC campaigns, the (free) Search Console shouldn’t be ignored for overall SEO insights.​

For more expert SEO advice, tips and tactics from Bush and a handful of other industry leaders, access the rest of “The Latest Google Skills for Communicators Virtual Summit” today.

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