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Category: Online PR

Small Business Marketing – Online PR or PPC Ads

Posted on December 22, 2008

decision

Microsoft’s getting lots of attention [Small Businesses to PPC: Drop Dead] for its survey that finds 70% of small business owners would rather do their own taxes than manage a PPC [pay per click ad words] campaign.

We don’t do our clients’ taxes, but we do manage their marketing strategies, create online PR campaigns and help them prioritize their advertising spending.

We tell them to never purchase a PPC program until we talk to them about it first.

Why? Well . . . PPC is complicated to explain, to implement and to keep going. Yet, you have to keep going. Thinking of jumping in? Here’s a . . . 

PPC Preliminary Checklist

Purpose – why are you doing this?

For most small businesses, the answer is leads.

Goal – how will you know when you’re successful?

Do you need 1 or 100 clicks a week? The better your ad, your landing page and your offer, the lower number of clicks you’ll need.

How much are you willing to spend – for how long?

Think about this one carefully. If you want to play around and test, go ahead, but limit your investment to an amount you’re willing to spend.

Do your prospects click on ads?

Like most marketing tactics, it’s best to be where your customers are.

Is your industry overly competitive?

For keywords like “credit” you can expect to pay thousands of dollars to get traffic.

Will you design a landing page for every keyword?

To convert traffic, you’ll need a custom landing page. Sending ad traffic to a home page with no way to collect data or take action is like losing the lead before you get it.

Who will manage your campaign?

If you have money and the zeal to attack this task, then study with a master like Perry Marshall. If you outsource your campaign, ask to see comparable results from similar businesses. Make sure the contract has a cancellation and a competition clause you’re comfortable with.

When will it end?

Ideally, you will continue to run AdWords, but some campaigns may be cancelled as keywords change and costs increase. 

How Online PR [Public Relations, Press Releases, Page Rank] Stacks Up Against Pay Per Click Advertising

PR people like to tout the benefits of public relations over advertising. To us, it makes sense to maximize your budget by optimizing your efforts. Here’s how we think online PR outperforms pay per click advertising . . . and no, this is not apples to apples. We know that. But, we also know that online PR is one of the most under-utilized search marketing and community building strategies. Have you tried online PR? How about PPC?

  Online PR Pay Per Click
Uses Keywords Yes Yes
Organic Search Yes No
Pay per click No Yes
Distribution Fee Ranges from $0-400 None
Ads No Yes, for every keyword
Landing Page Recommended Recommended
Reporting Depends on Service Number of views and clicks by keyword
Stays in Search Engine Yes No
Picked up Media Yes No
Picked up by Bloggers Yes No
Delivered via RSS Optional No
Cost to produce DIY or Agency Fee Monthly expense
Word Count 400 words is ideal about 150 characters total
Include Links Yes, several may be included Yes in ad
Subject to Editorial Approval Sometimes Sometimes
Submit to Search Engines Yes No
Linked to from other sites Yes No
Budget One-time distribution cost, if any, agency fees Set per click
Relationship Story Ad copy
Headline 80 characters 25 characters
Attachments Yes None
Fast Results Indexed to search engines, usually within a few hours Takes time to get a track record
Geographic Yes Yes
Repurpose Yes No

 

Interested in test-driving an online PR campaign?

3 Comments - Posted in Online PR, SEO

Advanced Link Building | Search Engine Strategies Twitter Transcripts

Posted on December 11, 2008

Twitter transcripts for this session follow. As always, the updates are as exactly as posted with no changes – and they are in reverse order. So, start at the bottom and read from the top. This is one in series of articles. Browse my Chicago Search Engine Strategies 2008 category for the complete collection. Visit Search Engine Strategies’ blog for total conference coverage. Here’s the session description from the program guide . . .

Advanced Link Building from the Chicago Search Engine Strategies 2008 Program Guide 
How far is too far in optimizing your internal link structure? If you operate a network of sites, can natural interlinking be perceived as link spam? How should you handle affiliate links? Advanced linking issues like these and more will be explored during this session. This session is designed for experienced marketers. Beginners should only attend if they’ve gone through the Link Building Basics session earlier in the day.

  • Moderator:
    PJ Fusco, Natural Search Director, Netconcepts
  • Speakers:
    Michael Gray, President, Atlas Web Service
    Wil Reynolds, Founder, SEER Interactive
    Chris Boggs, Manager, SEO, Brulant, Inc., recently acquired by Rosetta

Advanced Link Building Twitter Transcript by Barbara Rozgonyi for Wired PR Works


wiredprworks: .edu links-every university has student pages, every student has access, get an intern, might put a link to your co/client #ses

wiredprworks: .edu links actually become conversions, especially with discounts for profs #ses

wiredprworks: aim for regional .gov, typically involved with you giving something back #ses, show up a meeting, take notes and post to blog for links

wiredprworks: .edu lists contests-client in an industry get them in there as a sponsor, had a lot of success, build curriculum to class @davesnyder #ses

wiredprworks: to get .edu links, go to local college department, offer to speak or sponsor, then give them your link for their site #ses

wiredprworks: dmoz still what uses as a Google defacto directory, submit it once and let it go, content builds links #ses 
 
wiredprworks: directories: does it rank for its own term, search industry+directory to find them, submit to better ones first #ses

wiredprworks: paid links: check referrer’s logs to see if they’re sending traffic #ses

wiredprworks: affiliate links should come straight through, even better without an affiliate id could create a duplicate content problem for yourself #ses

wiredprworks: try to stay within your PR [page rank] neighborhood, understand your industry #ses

wiredprworks: bookmarking your own stuff on delicious can turn you into a commercial account #ses

wiredprworks: watch out for hacking and encrypted text with links in sidebars or footers – visible or invisible #ses

wiredprworks: link injection- not good, some plugins carry a hidden trojan that inserts links into blogroll, check your blogroll #ses

wiredprworks: black hat-questionable strategies to link building by @graywolf #ses

wiredprworks: @wilreynolds squeezes in more delicious tips: find “librarians” in towns, subscribe to tags, use MechanicalTurk to rank sites #ses

wiredprworks: tag sites in delicious to profile sites and then order sites in terms of most link value based on Alexa, Technorati, etc. #ses

wiredprworks: ways to get links: write a testimonial, sponsor a large charity, search for ways to give in-kind donations #ses

wiredprworks: seo company doing PR outreach for links [now, there's a new concept!] #ses 

wiredprworks: ask tons of questions to find out what people are talking about to find pockets and opps for links #ses

wiredprworks: @ltrosien ‘s twitter grader profile up on screen, helped speaker plan trips to Chicago, use twitter grader to find out more #ses

wiredprworks: twitter bi-weekly contest for free AC unit, created by @adamm based on twitter search, works for anything that fixes people’s problems #ses

wiredprworks: next speaker, Wil Reynolds from SEER, link buying should be evaluated based on ability to assess risk, #ses

wiredprworks: @boggles – thanks for the remediation linking tips :) #ses

wiredprworks: Google webmaster tools go to links, to pages with external links, look at 404 pages and try to reclaim links #ses

wiredprworks: http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com to get inbound links to your site, look for external links to entire site #ses

wiredprworks: Advanced Link-building #ses remediation tactics for inbound links: free yahoo site explorer, Google Webmaster, WeBuildPages

2 Comments - Posted in Online PR, SEO Tagged with: ,

Online PR Resources | How to Manage-Monitor Your Reputation

Posted on December 4, 2008

It’s priceless. And it’s yours. However . . .

The way people see you online is not all up to you. Your reputation is in the eye of your reader.

While you have some control over where you show up and how you position yourself, [trust me on this] you really want people to have an opinion about who you are and what you do. Hopefully, a good opinion, but even constructive criticism is welcome when it leads to a higher level of service. In fact, it’s essential.

But, so is being responsive. If people are out there talking about you and what you could do better, you better be there to run and go do it. Hiding out and being oblivious only serves to keep the counter-culture spreading. That’s why you have to listen, be vigilant and responsive.

And, it’s not just people you have to watch out for. Try this one on: search engines. This may be a no-brainer for some, but for others it’s a revelation.

To see what others had to say about online reputation management, I sent out this twitter update:

working on a blog post about managing online pr – reputation, any links, tips, ideas welcome :)

Barbararozgonyi-speaker_bigger

wiredprworks

Thanks to Dave Taylor [check out Dave’s blogs Ask Dave Taylor – Free Tech Support, Intuitive – Strategic Leadership for the 21st Century and Attachment Parenting] for sending this reply:

@wiredprworks my tip: give up the illusion of control and think about leading through cookie crumbs and rewards for good behavior.

Icon-100kb_bigger

DaveTaylor

Give up the illusion of control

Let’s talk about losing control. Because you don’t have it. Not anymore. There is absolutely no way you can close off commentary about anything. If people want to talk about it/you, they will. And, they’ll help you out like Dave helped me when I live-tweeted the wrong twitter ID for @skydiver. Or, when he checked in to question a stat a speaker quoted. You are your community and they are you. Got it?

Glenn Raines suggested that people read B.L. Ochman’s What’s Next blog, a suggestion I second.

Finally, someone asked that I let them know when I would launch a reputation management blog. Well, I don’t have any plans to do that, but I did enjoy rounding up this list and would like to explore the topic in more depth. What would you like to know about online reputation management?

12 Online PR, Search Engine, Social Media and Reputation Management Resources

  1. MarketingProfs says trust is the most important measurement of all
  2. Brendan Cooper tells you how to own your google page
  3. Compare reputations of the 60 most visible companies using the Harris Reputation Quotient[sm]
  4. Brands and Reputation says the answer about how to best measure reputation is this: use a measure of reputation that designed to best assess your reputation with the stakeholder in question.
  5. Three fundamental concepts to master when dealing with search engine reputation management: Monitor, Optimize and Engage from Top Rank Blog.
  6. Ducttape Marketing supplies an online reputation management toolbox.
  7. Marketing Pilgrim suggests using the best web content to fill up the first page of Google results, including getting a website with your name and starting a blog.
  8. Business Week answers the question: Do reputation management services work and how much do they cost?
  9. Top Rank Blog’s online reputation pr seo guide suggests you buy “yourbrandsucks.com” before somebody else does and give guidance on how to monitor and listen to dissenters.
  10. Marketing Pilgrim’s online reputation monitoring beginners’ guide includes helpful shortcuts for online reputation management.
  11. Lifehacker offers tips on how to get the most search juice from your Flickr (photo sharing), YouTube (video sharing), Digg (social news), Wikipedia (collaborative encyclopedia), Facebook (community) and Twitter (micro-blogging) profiles.
  12. Wired PR Works online reputation management category houses a collection of articles

What do you think?

How do you manage your online reputation? Do you have goals in place?

 

 

2 Comments - Posted in Online PR, Publicity, Social Media Tagged with:

Online PR Study | Digital PR Gets 5% of Budget over 50% of the Time

Posted on December 2, 2008

A recently released survey from Citigate Dewe Rogerson suggests that online PR needs to be explored further. [First spotted on DirectTrafficMedia.]

Citigate Dewe Rogerson surveyed more than 100 marketing professionals in the UK and Ireland in October 2008 to come up with these findings:

· Over 50% of marketing pros allocate under 5% of budgets to digital PR

· Over 65% of marketing pros in the UK and Ireland believe online-digital PR will be integrated into corporate communications by 2012.

· Biggest barriers to adoption: budget-48%, skills-40% and understanding business benefits-31%

· Over 50% tried some online PR, including search engine optimization ad pay per click

· More than half of marketing professionals devote less than 5% of PR budgets to digital activity

Phil Szomszor, head of digital at Citigate Dewe Rogerson, said: “It’s encouraging that online PR is firmly on the radar of marketing departments, with many committed to spending more as a proportion of their PR budget in 2009. But we urge companies to consider areas that will deliver greater reputation management value than SEO and e-newsletters, such as buzz monitoring, blogger relations and, where appropriate, social network engagement and producing company blogs. Companies can learn a great deal from those brands that are already blazing a trail with online PR, including the need to measure results, involve a wider range of disciplines, secure senior management buy-in and use a wider range of tools and channels.”

How do you think the US compares?

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2 Comments - Posted in Online PR

Why You Need Year-Round Thanks-giving PR Strategies

Posted on November 26, 2008

When I first published this post on November 20, 2007, the world was a different place – for me and my business. Wired PR Works, at this URL, was only about eight weeks old, I wasn’t on twitter and social media was something I read about, not interacted with. It’s time for an update.

Being thank-full is a mindset for me that I don’t practice as much as I should. Yet, when I reach out and thank people, it opens the door to a better relationship. For example, when people follow me on twitter, I check their profile and their site for interesting connections. Then, I send them a direct message that mentions details. Personalization is key. A blanket thanks to everyone isn’t as effective and may actually turn off the relationship at the outset. Who wants to break up before they start connecting?

Yes, it takes more time to write or type a thank you note. I think you’ll be surprised at how the quality of your communications directly impacts relationships. If you want to get to know someone, how do you make time to make the effort?

And now, here’s the original article . . .

When you thank someone, you recognize them for the goodness they bring to your business or your life. When you publicly thank partners, vendors, employees – and of course, clients, your create publicity opportunities for both sides.

Start at the first point of contact

One dreary day I strolled into a splashy gift store. After spending 20 minutes looking around, I walked out empty-handed. On my way out the door, the cashier said, “Have a nice day!” – the only words she said the entire time I was there. Is it any wonder the store was out of business a few months later?

Let your prospects know – right away – you’re glad they are there. Bloggers can add a static page or a link to a blog post with a welcome message and a reader’s guide. Want to reach local journalists? A phone call, email or comment on their blog might start out with, “Thanks for the story you did on time management. Here’s how you helped me.” Online PR is a little different. You can’t “welcome” search engine spiders, but you can link to a welcoming landing page from your news release.

Keep affirming the relationship

When my hard drive crashed last week, the repair center called to give me a replacement price. I picked it up and didn’t check the receipt until a few days later when I saw they charged me for installation, but not the part. Back at the store, the associate took my card and talked about the repair center contact in front of me, but they didn’t thank me for buying the hard drive. They were too caught up in their own conversation to notice the customer on the other side of the counter.

Always, always, always email or call with a thank you to someone who mentions or refers your business. Use Google Alerts to track where your name shows up. Bloggers can email people who post a valuable comment and show thanks with links. While there’s no need to send a formal thank you note for a Facebook gift app like a cute penguin, you can acknowledge the giver with a quick thank your reply or reciprocate and send them a gift. Online PR continues from the news release to a landing page to an order page to a – you guessed it – thank you page where you can offer additional products [in addition to thanks].

Be Thank-full at Thanksgiving

Stand out from your competition by showing you care with a personalized message to everyone that contributes to your success. This is the time to think big and write a personal note to authors, bloggers, company presidents and yes, your mom for the good things in your life. You know you wouldn’t be who you are today without them.

What about you? What or who are you thankful for this year?

 

3 Comments - Posted in Online PR Tagged with: