Blending the traditional tools of public relations with innovative search marketing techniques opens a new avenue of promotion for savvy content providers and site owners. Understanding how news search engines operate is as vital to a public relations (PR) campaign as understanding how to contact reporters.
News search engines
According to Greg Jarboe, President and Co-Founder of SEO-PR, search engines have become an indispensable utility for journalists.
“Normally, it can take up to 30 days for a search engine to index a new page of content and get found,” said Jarboe. “So by definition, what the search engines are serving up is old news.”
“A couple of years ago, along came news search engines. They fill a very strategic gap,” he continued.” The only pages in the search engines are articles and press releases less than 30 days old. So if you are a journalist and you are about to do a story, you’re going to go to news search engines and poke around. You will find everything that has been there 30 days or later. If you are doing historic research, that is very useful.”
“We use news search, mainstream search, and other channels that will drive traffic directly and will be in the mainstream search results,” said Nan Dawkins, Co-Founder of RedBoots Consulting. Dawkins recommends using a gateway site into news search engines.
“In the environmental sector, we have found a great little site called Environmental Media Services,” she said. “Google will pick it up within 2 hours.”
“You have to roll up your sleeves and figure out what those are gateway sites are for you,” she continued. “They are out there. There are sites that Google News and Yahoo News like a lot. Yahoo has ‘full coverage’ where they group the news with other coverage about that news topic. To get content in, email the editor of that topic. It does not have to be your news, specifically.”
Newsgroups are another good source for PR. “If you have content that relates to the topic of a topic specific news group, and if you are a contributor to that news group don’t be afraid to post a message to that newsgroup,” Hawkins recommended. “Let people know you have some content they might be interested in. When you do that be sure to treat it like a press release. Put keywords in your subject line and in the message you post.”
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Sydney Public Relations Agency, CP Communications provides specialist media, traditional and online PR strategies that get amazing results. Contact us today. For more great tips visit our website www.cpcommunications.com.au.