Press Releases are Good for SEO
December 22, 2009
If you promote, work for, or own an online business, you know that Search Engine ranking can make or break your business. You can create the most attractive website on the Net that sells the hottest, in-demand products at dirt-cheap prices… but if Internet searchers can’t find your website, you don’t exist. Let’s look at an example.
Girlz Rule
Priscilla Pretty loves pink. Anything pink will do. Her pink fetish creates a voracious spending appetite and she needs money. She’s about to graduate from college and she decides to start her own business instead of working as an intern in a stuffy office cubicle for peanuts while she lives in her parents’ basement and pays off her student loans. She comes up with an idea for Girlz Rule, an online shop that sells all things pink, girlie, and great.
Her dorm roommate is a design and IT major, and after some haggling over the trading of a pair of pink Jimmy Choos they both love, she produces an awesomely pink, edgy website for Priscilla’s new business. Priscilla chooses her favorite pink products on the web, taps into an automated checkout system that lets her visitors order from her website, and sets up the products to ship directly form a third party vendor.
Easy-As-Pie, right? Wrong. Even though Girlz Rule has the new 5th generation hot pink iPod nano for $100, no one is ordering because no one is visiting the website. It’s lost in CyberSpace.
So, what’s Priscilla to do?
Content (and girls) Rule(s)
She can optimize her content. Contrary to popular opinion, SEO content does not have to be boring or stuffed to the brim with keywords.
You can have exciting, spunky, sassy, classy, or edgy content and be search engine optimized. SEO writing can be as fun and creative as any other type of writing, it just takes a skilled SEO writer to pull it off. So Priscilla hires an SEO writer to produce her website content and she starts getting natural, relevant traffic to her website- and a few sales. But she needs more sales to save up for a down payment on a loft apartment, so she keeps asks her SEO writer for help. She recommends an SEO press release.
SEO Press Releases
Priscilla can also publish an SEO press release. In Priscilla’s case, this is a news-style article detailing the arrival of Girlz Rule. It contains all the details of the new website, its owner, the products sold, guarantees offered, special promotions, and background information. It’s sort of like a newspaper article and sales flyer combined. It includes a link back to a special landing page on the Girlz Rule website.
The SEO press release is then distributed to key websites throughout the Internet, where visitors can read about the new business. But more importantly, the information (and the link back to Girlz Rule) is indexed and crawled by search engine spiders- on regular basis. The repeated mention of the Girlz Rule link boosts Priscilla’s search engine ranking because her website content has been optimized for relevancy to her target audience and it draws relevant visitors to her website who buy her products.
Proof in the Pudding
Web Pro News recently published a report on How Press Releases Can Be Great for Search. They cite a study by Arketi Group, that shows the media regularly uses the Internet as a tool to help determine what gets covered in the press. Wouldn’t it be great if the media came across your business on the Net and found it to be newsworthy?
By the way, Priscilla is doing great with her new business. She moved out of her parent’s basement and recently struck up a deal with a clothing designer to produce eco-friendly pink t-shirts to sell to Prius owners. Sean Platt is Priscilla’s biggest fan. He is anxiously awaiting the arrival of this week’s package. He bought three iPods and a t-shirt. 
The History and Future of Search (according to Google)
December 17, 2009
This is an interesting, but lengthy, video of Google’s presentation on the history and future of Search.
Seth on SEO
April 13, 2009
If you work online, you know who Seth Godin is. Heck, even if you don’t work online, you probably know who Seth is. He’s the one who cuts through all the crap related to marketing. He’s a trendsetter in the business and doesn’t mince words. Seth’s written a post about making money with SEO, and it’s well worth a read.
How to make Money With SEO by Seth Godin
Oh! And because bloggers are on top of things today, Aaron Wall of SEOBook has written a post about Seth’s latest. You can read it here: Aaron Wall on SEO strategies.
SEO Writing Tips: Keyword Ranking
March 27, 2009
If you are new to SEO writing, or are looking for a way to boost your online business, I have a million dollar tool for you. Imagine if you could travel back in time and snatch up desirable domain names, like Business.com, Loans.com, or Sex.com, before anyone knew they were valuable. You’d be a millionaire billionaire, right? Well, there are keywords out there that will be just as valuable in 20 years, we just don’t know what they are yet. That million dollar keyword could come from your website if you only knew how to market it properly and could accurately predict future consumer trends (or you could invest in a crystal ball and hope you get lucky).
Not interested in fame, just the fortune? Want a more realistic plan for online business success? You could concentrate on making the best of your website with SEO practices. The right keyword is a powerful tool. When carefully selected and put to work properly, it holds the potential to make your online business an instant success.
The Honeymoon’s Over
Selecting the perfect keyword phrase for your website is pretty anticlimactic. You sweat, cry and bleed over the keyboard for days, researching different keyword combinations. You finally find the perfect keyword for your niche with good search traffic, a decent PPC return, and a low page rank. You snatch it up, register a domain name, sit back, and scratch your head. Now what?
Well, lots of SEO blogs will tell you to run right out and hire an SEO writer to incorporate your new found treasure into your website before Google launches you out of the Sandbox. But the truth is, that may not be the first thing to do. In fact, your primary keyword phrase may not even show up on your website.
What You Talkin’ Bout Willis?
SEO experts have shown that it is possible to rank highly for a given keyword that rarely or never shows on your website. That means, in theory, you could select “Ice Cream Dream” as your primary keyword phrase for your Dairy Queen knock-off website, but not list it in your meta description, headers, domain name, or content, and still rank in the top ten for that phrase. How? Through inbound links.
Search engines currently place great value on anchor text. (That’s the blue text that is highlighted when a live link is displayed on a website.) With that in mind, imagine what would happen if you invested two hours a day sowing quality backlinks containing your primary keyword phrase as anchor text. Excited yet?
Have you ever gotten a comment on your blog that reads: Jamie Simmerman- SEO Writer, and wondered what the heck possessed that girl to post her name like that? Well, Ms. Simmerman is sowing her keyword phrase on your website to help boost her SERPs.
Now, before you feel used and offended, keep in mind that if someone is sowing backlinks on your website, they feel your website has something to offer them. You either have quality traffic, quality content, decent page ranking, or a heck of a lot of potential for them to invest their time in leaving a link. It’s a lot like putting a seal of approval on a website- they like you and think you’re cool enough to hang out with the popular kids at recess.
On Your Mark, Get Set…
So where the heck do you put all these lovely backlinks? You find websites that relate to your keyword and you join the discussion on their latest blog post, or even an archived blog post if you like. Websites with higher page ranks are obviously a natural choice, but any relevant site will do if the content is regularly updated and they draw traffic. (We’ll talk about how to determine those qualities in a later post, so don’t worry if you don’t know how to check the profitability of a website.)
That means commenting on your competition’s website is a definite plus. If you sell ice cream, you want to comment on every post Dairy Queen publishes. You also want to locate other blogs that talk about making ice cream, list ice cream facts, websites that sell ice cream, hate ice cream, or have ice cream fetishes. You want to place your name and backlink any place your target audience is likely to visit or congregate.
You may also want to spend some time finding higher Page Rank websites of any topic that allow backlinks, even if they are REF=NoFollow. (But you still have to follow etiquette and abide the rules below.)
STOP!
What you don’t want to do is contribute to the huge amount of worthless content floating around on servers and clogging up an otherwise good system. Only comment if you have something intelligent or helpful to say. Comments like “nice post” or “you suck” are inevitably destined for the spam file. If you can’t participate in the discussion, do some research or read along for a few days until you catch on. This not only helps build your SERPs, but your online reputation as well.
Always play nice. If you can’t say something nice, then keep your fingers off the keyboard. If you have a legitimate gripe or an opposing view, be responsible and state your comment without attacking or belittling anyone. You don’t always have to agree, but you don’t have the right to give a complete stranger a tongue lashing Internet-style either.
GO!
If you read the blogs of your friends or family members on a regular basis, ask them about backlinking before you post. Explain what you’d like to do and ask permission first, it’s considered polite to bring it up if you have a personal relationship with the blogger or webmaster. With that said, you should know that Blue Duck posts all backlinks, as long as they are not spam-y or offensive. Feel free to link to your heart’s content. 
Keep in mind that it might take an obscene number of backlinks to see the results you want. Be patient and remember that every link counts.
BONUS SEO TIP: If you haven’t seen results in several months, you may need to rethink your keyword phrase. It’s possible that too many other SEO savvy bloggers are competing for the same phrase.
We’ll post another SEO writing tip next week, so stay tuned. And if you have an SEO writing related question, feel free to drop us a line in the comments section of this blog, via the Blue Duck contact form, or in an email.
SEO Writing Skills for the Rest of Us
March 26, 2009
Many SEO writers will tout their writing skills as unparalleled, exceptional, well worth every penny. I’m not one of them. In fact, my writing skills are not exceptional at all, I just paid attention in English class, read a lot of books, and have the gift of gab from God above. Fortunately, I can translate that gift into written communication and am blessed with some pretty good SEO professionals as associates who have let me pick their collective brains. (Truth be told, my brain picking skills are much better than my writing skills. ) Now, that’s not to say I don’t earn my paychecks. I work hard for my clients, and the end result is almost always exactly what they asked for.
With that in mind, I have an innovative thought for you: you can be your own SEO writer. Yep, you don’t need to hire me unless you are too strapped for time to learn the basics and write your own content. In fact, most of my clients come to me after they have been writing their own content for some time. Perhaps they have gotten too busy, sometimes they admit to exhausting their knowledge on a subject, often they are desperate for better results. That’s what I’m here for. But, if you have your own website, are strapped for cash, and have some free time on your hands, welcome to the world of SEO writing!
Paying it Forward
Rather than have you blunder your way around the web for the next six months, I thought I’d give you a hand up and share a few SEO tips to help you get started in SEO writing. Why would I do such a thing and endanger my future business profits by teaching you my business? Because someone did it for me, and I like to pay back my debts. God has blessed Blue Duck, and I believe He will continue to do so. But if He decides it’s time to close the doors and pass the business on to some young talented SEO writer, then so be it. So welcome to the first ever Blue Duck Copy SEO Writing Tips for the Rest of Us.
SEO Writing Tips for All
I had a hard time deciding where to start in all this. Do I start from the very beginning and define SEO and the terminology? Do I dig right in and give you the steaming hot latest SEO news from the experts? I decided to take the middle ground and go for something you can immediately put to use, keywords.
What This Tip Is Not
This post is not about how to choose the right keywords, or what keywords are, or how they should be used on a website. This is not a discussion about keyword density or siloing, or any other keyword building techniques. Those topics may appear in the future, just not here and now.
The Prerequisites
Before you put this tip to use, you’ll need to understand what a keyword is and how it is used to help people find your website. You’ll also need to have a list of the most profitable and relevant keywords for your website. The process of choosing the right keywords is often a hotly debated topic. If you don’t have a primary keyword phrase for your website, get one through whatever process you think is logical and acceptable.
You can find scores of information about keyword selection. I recommend visiting a few websites like SEO Book, Bruce Clay, SEOmoz, and Court’s Internet Marketing School. (And in case you noticed and are wondering why I’m suggesting marketing websites for SEO research, search engine optimization and search engine marketing are like peanut butter and jelly; you can eat them separately, but they go better together.)
For archival and search purposes, I’m going to publish the actual SEO tips separately in their own little posts. This may be a slight inconvenience for some, but it will give you a few minutes to do your research if you need to and give you something to look forward to in an hour or so.
You can read the the first installment of Blue Duck SEO Writing Tips here.
