Writing the Headline

How to be found AND be interesting

Title

Google News indexes 65 characters, including spaces.

Yahoo! News indexes 120 characters

Keep it short and to the point = 7 or 8 words

Be interesting and clickable

Have your keywords in the right place

Example: Google News

Program gives an educational assist to Merced County migrant students (69)

How it looks in Google

Yahoo! News

Tulsa's Dynamic Sports Development Owner Announces New Programs for Olympic, Professional, College and High School Athletes as Olympic Games in London UK This Summer

165 characters with spaces

Headline Example

Ladybug Steam Cleaner Marketer Announces Goal to Help Eliminate Toxic Chemicals in Homes

(88 characters)

Google News

Placing Keywords

• Close to the beginning of the headline

• Your brand is not always a keyword

News Release Headline

Original headline: ABC Company and the Green Foundation Educate Parents on the Effects of Chemicals on Children (92 characters) Google published headline ABC Company and the Green Foundation Educate Parents on the Effects…

Optimized headline: Toxic Household Chemicals can be Harmful to Children (52 characters)

Subhead

This is where you can add more information. This is the place to put your brand and company name.

ABC Company and the Green Foundation Hold Seminars to Educate Parents on the Harmful Effects of Chemicals in Household Cleaning Products. (136)

Google News = 150 characters

Yahoo! News = 350 characters

Takeaways

• Keep the headline short - 7 or 8 words

• Google only indexes 65 characters in the headline

• You can use the subhead for more information

• The headline and the subhead are the Title and the Description people see in the news search engines – make them enticing

Exercise

Rewrite these 5 headlines

Consolidated Credit Advises Latinos to Evaluate Personal Situation Before Purchasing Health Care

TiVo to Acquire Leading Platform for Improving TV Advertising Effectiveness Based on Connecting Same TV Household Viewing Data and Purchase Data

Avaya and Carousel Keep Families Connected at World's Largest Ronald McDonald House® in Chicago

Three More Leading Medical Centres Join VentriPoint Multi-Centre Clinical Trial for Congenital Heart Disease

Essex Fire Crews Set to Commence 24-Hour Strike Accuse Managers of Being Intransigent, Dictatorial and Hell-Bent on Confrontation by Forcing Through Dangerous Cuts

Writing the Release

Value of a Good Release

"As news is posted faster, often with little enterprise reporting added, the official version of events is becoming more important.

We found official press releases often appear word for word in first accounts of events, though often not noted as such."

Pew Research Center for Excellence in Journalism

Keyword Placement for SEO

Use the main key phrase in the first paragraph

Recent research commissioned by Aloevera.com and conducted by ABC Laboratories has brought to light a new factor in dry skin

Bullet Points

Journalists have asked for core news facts in easy- to-read bullet points. • New research shows that damage to the

protective layer of the skin causes dry skin, aging and can contribute to eczema.

• Researchers and dermatologists to hold webinars for women with dry skin problems

• 8. 4 million people in the US suffer from dry skin - NHIS

Link to supporting information

Place a link to your website where you have more information for the reader at the end of the first paragraph.

Use a keyword or phrase as the anchor text for the link.

Anchor Text

Recent research commissioned by Aloevera.com and conducted by ABC Laboratories has brought to light a new factor in dry skin: damage to the natural protective layer of the skin. AloeVera.com’s researchers will be hosting a series of webinars with leading dermatologists to educate women with dry skin on how to preserve this all-important protective layer and treat dry, aging skin.

Call to Action

When you ask for the action you get dramatically better results. Use the full URL link to the place where the action can be taken. Some sites might republish the press release without your anchor text (links embedded in words). If they do, the URL link will still be in the press release. Register here for the webinar series http://www.aloevera.com/research-webinars

Keyword Density

Absolute maximum 2% of the word count

Keep use of keywords natural

(remember Panda)

Use alternative words that are related and relevant

Always use it again in the last paragraph

Quotes

• Add pre-approved quotes from relevant parties mentioned

• You can use quotes to repeat key phrases

• Offer custom quotes and interviews

• Suggest experts for interviews, if you have them

• Link to their bios

Boilerplate Use this for corporate messaging and positioning

Write it so it has substance, not just marketing spin

Use this area for anchor text links to the corporate site or newsroom

Contacts

• Still the biggest complaint from journalists –no clear and easy to find PR contact information

• 26% of top 100 brands have no contact details in their newsroom and 45% have no contacts on their press releases

• Use a real person’s email address

• Cell phone number

• Social links

Takeaways

• Give reporters what they need and want

• Create an interesting, good lead

• Use keyword or phrase in the first paragraph

• Max 2% keywords

• Link the keywords (anchor text)

• Keyword in last paragraph

• Use full URL with the call to action – http://www.yourcompany.com

• Contacts

Exercise

Rewrite your press release

SEO Images and Graphics

Why you need to pimp your press release

Photos

• 80% of journalists want images

• Original photos

• Offer more than one

• Tell the story visually

Optimize

• Use your targeted keywords in the image file names and folder names – Not img1234

• Separate each word in keyword phrase with dashes, not underscores backsplash-wall-tiles.jpg

• Place the image near other relevant keyword-related content

Descriptive ALT TXT

• ALT TXT = alternative text

• In case the image can’t be displayed

• For those who have disabled images on their browsers

• For the visually impaired (like search engines robots )

• It should describe what the image is about and get those visitors interested to see it

• Instead of using "Red Bicycle Helmet" as your ALT attribute, make it "This red bicycle helmet is from our 2013 collection“

Title Tag

• Used when you link the image to another page

• Tip: You should always do that

• Relevant, short, catchy and concise

• Follow the rules for all title tags

Pinterest

• Titles

• Descriptions – 500 character limit

• Use #hashtags

• Links –improves your link profile

Social Tagging

• Facebook, Flickr allow you to tag photos

• Use the keywords you used in your titles, alt txt tags and descriptions.

• Link to targeted, relevant pages on your Web site.

Graphics

• Link-bait

• Targeted to your audience

• Well designed

• All Image SEO rules apply

Takeaways

1. Visual increase views with news content

2. Media outlets are looking for visuals

3. Use descriptive names for photos and videos

4. Always add alt. txt tags

5. Link the image to a page and use a title tag as well

6. Add tags and descriptions on sharing sites like Flickr and Pinterest

7. Place on a page surrounded by optimized text

Optimizing Video

Getting seen on search and video sites

Videos are 53 times more likely to generate a first-page ranking than traditional SEO techniques.

Forrester Research

Keyword Research

Keywords

Incorporate relevant keywords into your videos

• Title

• Video description

• Category listing

• Keyword tags

• Subtitles or captions

Video URLS

Be descriptive

Use keywords

http://www.yourcompany.com/video/organic-apple-cider-vinegar-benefits

Create engaging content

• Relevant

• Interesting

• Short

• No long hype/sales/brand intro

• Get to the good stuff fast

Views count in the YouTube algorithm. They have to watch for 10 seconds to count as a view.

Link to the Video

Post the video in Your Newsroom

Put the full URL of the video as the first line of your video description in YouTube

Share and encourage others to link to and embed the video

Transcribe the Video

Pages with transcripts earned on average 16% more revenue than they did before transcripts.

The uplift was related to an increase in traffic through long-tail keyword searches resulting from matches in the transcripts.

Source: LiveClicker

Video Site Map

You’ll need help with this

• Create an XML video sitemap that tells the search engine exactly where your page is, and where your video is, along with some information about it.

• Submit your video sitemap through Google’s Webmaster Tools.

• It helps Google crawl your page to verify that the video exists and index the video so it can be ranked in the search results.

Tools

• Check out Google Video Sitemaps

• SpeakerText offers a quick and reliable video transcription service

• Use OneLoad.com for mass-video uploading

• Check out http://video-share-review.toptenreviews.com/

YouTube Analytics

Takeaways

• Use video – it has great SEO value

• Use YouTube search suggestions

• Use the search filters

• Add keywords to title, description and tags

• Add a link in the description

• Add keywords in the URL of the video

• A view must be 10 seconds – short and interesting

• Transcribe the video

• Create a video site map

• Distribute video to other sharing sites