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PR without SEO may soon mean no PR at all. A front-page story in a major newspaper might boost your ego, but a top 10 Google ranking will boost your business; if you have any doubt — read on... The Wall Street Journal is the world's most-esteemed and widely read business publication. With about two million readers, what could be better than getting your company on its front page? Before you answer, consider this: Yahoo!® News has almost 25 million subscribers;
Google™ News has more than seven million subscribers;
33 million Americans use search engines every day; and
Google™ estimates it receives more than 10 billion business searches per year. At staggering heights now, the popularity of search engines keeps climbing. News aggregator site MSN® Newsbot, now in Beta, figures to capture a hefty audience, despite its late entry. To filter the massive information output of business blogs, new types of engines are popping up all over. Google™ Blog Search, only in Beta, already pulls enormous traffic. Ice Rocket™, Technorati™, Feedster™, and Blogdigger™ are other blog-centric engines delivering information to news-hungry audiences. Even journalists have become search engine junkies: a whopping 98 percent look at search engines daily, scouring them for article research, new sources, blog postings and press releases. Conclusion: your PR message will rarely and barely be heard unless you optimize it for the search engines. Here is how: Find an SEO partner to help you analyze potential keywords and key phrases. Selecting the right ones for your Web site content and press releases will make or break you when your audience is searching;
Write press releases fully optimized for search engines. Since this requires a completely different style from that used for print media, professional copywriting assistance may be helpful;
As you and your SEO partner develop a linking strategy for your Web site, make sure it includes measures that drive traffic to your PR pages;
Build an article bank for your Web site. Besides providing customers with useful information about your company and industry, article postings give your site the fresh content that search engines crave; and
Speaking of fresh content, consider launching a blog. Blogs have the power to reshape attitudes like no other news medium can. Microsoft and GM are two well-known examples of how blogging turned around very negative customer perception. Search engines reward blogs because of their frequent content updates; connecting a blog to your main site will lift its rankings. Even small companies can attract a wide audience by orienting their PR to search engines. Thomas Mahon, a struggling but passionate Savile Road tailor, grew his business to unheard of levels with a blog, The English Cut, and by cultivating on-line news sources. Companies no longer need huge PR budgets and cozy relationships with newspaper editors to get noticed. All it takes is an appealing, honest story and expert SEO. Aaron Wittersheim is president of Whoast Inc., a suburban Chicago search marketing firm. For more information, visit http://www.whoast.com
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