“We have 12 vacancies. 12 cabins, 12 vacancies.” - Norman Bates

Folks will never tire of telling you how beneficial press releases are to search engine optimization, but can rarely recite the minutiae as to exactly why. It’s also important to understand the double-duty press releases can play in supplementing your online marketing efforts as a whole - SEO being only one facet of a comprehensive strategy. I thought about the potential confusion earlier this morning as I wrote some material for our sales monkeys. I’ve edited it a bit, and now - perhaps - it will give you a leg up. PRs are indeed great for boosting SERP rankings if you know what you’re doing, but that’s not the only traffic benefit they can provide on the interwebnets.

Press releases have two major benefits in regards to SEM (Search Engine Marketing). The first is direct traffic generated upon publishing. This traffic is a considerable spike which trails off after a while. All of the best PR networks allow you to target your release to some degree – be it geographically or topic/industry specific. It is possible to tailor submissions to these networks carefully and with the site’s target audience in mind. These releases can also be also tagged, re-purposed on the website (in a blog or news section) and submitted to dozens of social media outlets – depending on obvious variables like topic, mass appeal, etc. A press release about a new vacuum cleaner attachment isn’t going to attract as much direct attention as say a release about a corporate merger.

The second benefit is long-term and ongoing. Most PR networks allow you to tailor at least one link back to your site. The text contained in an HTML hyperlink is a major factor which search engine algorithms consider when associating a site with a specific keyword or phrase. For example, if a site wished to rank well for the term “discount DVDs”, you would link that phrase back in a subtle manner within the body of the press release. As the release is picked up by major networks like PR.com you will generally see a large boost in the SERPs (search engine results pages) for the targeted term. Over time, this press release will very likely be syndicated across a wide variety of websites, all with unique IP addresses, and usually with the hyperlink intact. So, although you pay $200 to submit the release to PR.com, in reality the value has the potential to eventually quadruple depending on the same variables I mentioned earlier.

Mental illness is nothing to poke fun at and that’s not what I’m here for. Press releases can, however, be likened to a split personality in the way they can provide so much visibility value when used effectively and by companies that know what they’re doing. One personality is loud and brash and wants to get picked up by Google news for a quick traffic fix and followed by obscurity. The other wants to quietly lurk in the background and percolate over time. Is this a good or responsible analogy? It’s accurate at any rate. Now if you’ll excuse me, my mother is calling.

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If you’ve been using press releases for direct online marketing and search engine optimization, you probably have a few favorite networks bookmarked by now. Some are pretty pricey (PR.com, PRWeb.com), but pack a lot of SERP punch depending on the keyword phrases you link back to your site with. Other sites aren’t quite as effective (SanePR.com, PRLeap.com, PRLog.org) but allow you to post releases for free, with as many outgoing links as you want, making them a sensible part of a comprehensive SEO strategy. Every time I create a press release for a client, I utilize a combination of these paid and free sites/networks - with great results.

There’s one important thing to remember - take it easy on the outgoing links. I follow a rule of thumb that I only optimize for one phrase per press release, and never have more than two outgoing links. It is generally agreed that the more outgoing links a web pages or a press release has - the more diluted their effect becomes. So call your shots carefully and don’t get greedy.

This logic also applies to valuing paid links. If you contact a webmaster about purchasing a text link and they have already sold links to 100 other websites - the value of that link is greatly reduced. The potential influence of a text link from a page is lessened the more links there are on said page, so don’t get taken for a ride.

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What exactly is online brand reputation management (BRM)? Basically, negative or malicious press in SERPS (search engine results pages) can be combated by creating positive content or and knowing where to post or submit it. If the positive content is deemed by the search engines to appear on more integral websites, the negative rankings will be pushed farther and farther down the SERPs until that post by a disgruntled blogger is on page three and your good name has been restored.

Brand reputation management and search marketing were once very separate entities – but with the emergence of blogs, forums, social media and other user-driven content sites, they now must be performed in tandem. You don’t have to be a skilled programmer, or even know how to build a website, to get your opinions online anymore - This can be a very scary prospect for any company. If you’re not scared, you should be. Boo.

How do you combat a high-ranking negative reference to your name or company? Luckily, it is far easier to attain good rankings for a business or domain name because there is far less competition for these words than for the goods or services they provide. It is also reasonable to push down negative rankings for individual people’s names. But not always, obviously. If your client’s name is Gavin Wunderschnitzen, you’re laughing. If your BRM services have just been retained by John Smith, just give him his money back now.

The same blogs, forums and social media sites which can be used to negate or slur a brand, can be used to defend it. Here are some of my methods, and I look forward to your feedback and tips on the subject. Lots of folks are selling BRM as a service nowadays, but before you cannibalize a considerable part of your marketing budget because some 12 year old with a Bebo account and a crap in their diaper didn’t like one of their Christmas presents, consider the following Free BRM tips.

1. Well-written, newsworthy press releases are a great BRM tool for simultaneous direct traffic and SERP manipulation. Even if you’re using free PR networks, they will still make a visible impact if your targeted name or company is reasonably unique. Ask your client if they have any existing traditional releases that you can repurpose online quickly.
2. Build a Kiva.org lender profile page for your client. You’ll probably want to donate at least $25, but there’s no harm in building your karma while building your rank. Google seems to treat Kiva with very high regard. Hat tip to Dan Zarrella for this one.
3. Build Squidoo lenses and HubPages for your client. Use their name in the title and URL - as in both cases you get to pick it yourself - and it is static. This works absolute wonders, regardless of whether or not your lens on Sea Monkeys made any affiliate revenue last year. Oops, that’s mine.
4. Build a Blogger account for your client, and use their name in the title and URL. Don’t fret too much about content - use their mission statement or About Us page and split it into a few posts. Leave it to simmer and watch what happens.
5. Social Media/Networking sites with more of a professional audience - Your LinkedIns and your Facebooks as opposed to your Friendsters and MySpaces - will get indexed quickly and rise just as fast. Build profiles for your clients, post haste.
6. The next step is indexing - Now that you’ve built 7 profiles, a blog, 2 lenses and a hub what next? Get it all spidered lickety-split by linking to each from the sidebar of the blogger account you just created and then linking to that from your client’s site - or another juicy property that gets crawled regularly.
7. Build a custom RSS feed for the phrase you want to protect. Use the Yahoo! News tool to watch for negative stories or press releases, and a Technorati feed to monitor the blogosphere. This way, you can start to battle any negative mention of your client before they’re even spidered.

Those are my quick tips for the tightwad - and boy do they work wonders. For a more comprehensive guide which includes paid options visit Andy Beal’s take on Online Reputation Monitoring.

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Update: 6/13/07

Straight from the horse’s mouth (Vanessa Fox):

“Google wants to serve up unique results and does a great job of picking a version of your content to show if your sites includes duplication. If you don’t want to worry about sorting through duplication on your site, you can let us worry about it instead. Duplicate content doesn’t cause your site to be penalized. If duplicate pages are detected, one version will be returned in the search results to ensure variety for searchers. Duplicate content doesn’t cause your site to be placed in the supplemental index. Duplication may indirectly influence this however, if links to your pages are split among the various versions, causing lower per-page PageRank.”

Sorry to sound like Magnum P.I. - but I know what you’re thinking. Why are press releases and article distribution sites so very useful for SEO and branding, and yet you’re hearing warnings about duplicate content penalization everywhere you turn? Before Higgins releases the Lads, here are a few things you need to know.

If you’re up nights worrying about being penalized for offering an RSS feed or participating in other forms of syndication, you’re taking the term ‘duplicate content’ too literally. A press release or article which appears on more than one unrelated site is not going to get anyone penalized. The operative word here being unrelated. Not every website in the world can be 100% original, and multiple domains are naturally going to aggregate the same news, quotes and other content.

On the other hand, If you sell pet food, and you’ve registered petfoodrules.com, www.buycheappetfood.org, petfoodinmypants.net - and they all contain exactly the same content (copy, tags etc.) - now you’re playing with fire. And gosh help you if you’ve got them all on the same server/IP address. This is what is meant by duplicate content that can get you penalized. Pick one of the domains to focus on, implement 301 redirects on the others and stop being so silly.

If you’re very attached to your multiple domain strategy, and are of the opinion that penalization will never happen to you, bear in mind that one of two things is probably inevitable, at least within Google:

1. All of your domains will be banned except for one.
2. All of your domains will be banned, period.

That sort of a slap can be dynasty-destroying. You’ll return to square one in terms of search engine visibility and be trying to get your old job at the liquor store back. Know what duplicate content is, what it isn’t - and then don’t do it. For more detail on the science of DC, including a break down of the different levels of severity, read this fantastic article by Todd Malicoat.

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The World Wide Web is absolutely starved for content. I mean, collectively we just can’t get enough of the stuff. Spiders devour it, webmasters have to keep feeding the spiders, bloggers have to manufacture content daily or risk losing their audience, press release sites have to keep populating their distribution networks - it’s a feeding frenzy akin to that scene at the end of Piranha 2. So from a marketing standpoint, it pays to know how to throw as many bikini-clad coeds into the surf as possible. One of the ways to ensure some successful visibility for your original content is to understand the difference between a press release and an article.

Online press releases are meant to relay newsworthy information about a company, product, service, event, etc. They are more often than not self-serving, strategic marketing tools. This doesn’t have to be a negative connotation, as many businesspeople want to stay current on happenings within their own company, industry or to keep an eye on competitors. If your press release is hot news, i.e. you work for Mozilla and your release is entitled “FireFox 2.0 Released Today”, in addition to PR networks you may also stand a change in SMO tagging sites like Digg, Reddit and del.icio.us. If you manufacture rollerskates in Toledo, and your release is entitled “ACME Rollerskates Hires New Product Manager”, then maybe don’t bother. Skip ahead to the articles section.

Popular press release sites and distribution networks include PR.com and PRWeb.com and both paid and free submission options exist. It’s worth it to pony (no pun intended) up the money for increased visibility within the networks and to get yourself a hyperlink (not part of the free option) in the process. Totally free PR services - which include hyperlinks - do exist including OpenPress and PRLeap.

Online articles can be about almost anything. If they are written well, and perceived by readers as an interesting and objective source of information, they can spread online like wildfire with a little help from our new friend social media. SMO success depends greatly on your subject’s position and article title. People love lists, and personally I have had great success positioning client-related articles with Top 10’s and the like. Don’t angle your article around the premise “Why You Should Buy Air Conditioners From Us”. Put one together called “How to Store Air Conditioners During Winter” - or better yet, “Top 10 Tips for Winter Air Conditioner Storage”. Do you see where I’m going with this?

Here is a great list of article release sites and distribution networks. Articles are great fodder for Digg and other social media sites due to their versatility and the potential for creative license above the boundaries of what has to constitute a press release. Before you submit an article to the various networks or a social voting site, post it on your own website via a news page or blog. If you’re taking the time to produce original content, repurpose it on your own domain. And again - don’t write an article that is blatantly marketing your company. Write an objective resource that relates to your product or services and then attach a subtle URL to your site near the bottom.

Just don’t ask me why I didn’t entitle this post “Top 5 ways to Write a Successful Article” or something. Obviously, I need to start taking my own advice. And to stop watching Piranha 2.

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