The MarCom Strategist: A Free B2B Marketing E-Newsletter

February, 2008
Published by Dianna Huff
Volume 8, Number 02

Welcome!

Want to know journalists' thoughts with regard to corporate sites? Download the latest research report from Bulldog Reporter and TEKgroup, International: "2007 Journalist Survey on Media Relations Practices: Exec Summary." One finding: 47.3% of respondents generally agree that it's difficult to find organizations' online newsrooms -- meaning companies may need to do a better job of optimizing them.

Last issue I talked about why you should optimize a media room. In this issue I cover how to optimize specific items in a media room, including blogs, podcasts, images and news releases, in order to help journalists, buyers, customers, and investors easily find this content.

Regards,

Dianna Huff

Optimizing Your Media Room -- Part II

By Dianna Huff

If you're a heavy Google user, you've probably noticed that Google now includes more than just Web pages in their search engine results pages (SERP). Type in something like "MacBook," and you'll get listings for Apple product pages, news articles, the Wikipedia entry, blog posts, and even a YouTube video of a disgruntled MacBook user smashing his laptop. (Ow!).

(On a related note, Yahoo! is now incorporating pages from del.icio.us, the book marking site, in its search results.)

In addition, Google also adds links across the top of the SERP including "News," "Video," "Shopping," and "Blogs." (Look for the blue bar just below the Google logo -- it doesn't appear for all searches.)

Click on the Video link, for example, and you can find listings to hundreds of videos. Click on the Blogs or News links and you'll find hundreds of listings for blog posts and news articles respectively.

What this means is that Google is indexing pretty much everything, so it behooves you to ensure *your* online media room content, including podcasts, blog posts, articles, newsletters, and images, is optimized for search engines.

Why? You want journalists, buyers, investors, customers, and job seekers to find this information when searching, and you want to ensure *your* content is high up on the SERP -- versus a YouTube video showing someone dissing your product.

Optimizing blog posts, images and the like can be a bit challenging. Creating a Title tag for a static HTML page is relatively easy, but how do you optimize blog posts and podcasts?

What follows are some easy tips for doing just that:

Optimizing blog posts -- Most blogging programs simply use the title of your blog or the post headline in the Title tag. Do a search to see if you can find an SEO plug-in for your particular application. For example, WordPress users can use the aptly named SEO Plug-in which allows you to customize the Title tag for each individual post by including specific keywords.

Optimizing podcasts -- This procedure is a bit more complex. According to Grant Crowell of Search Engine Watch, you'll want to use a number of tactics, including optimizing a landing page for each segment of your show, and providing a transcript of the podcast on that landing page.

Optimizing images -- Instead of naming your images something cryptic like, "intx_342.jpg," use keywords. Apple, for example, used this phrase to describe the photo of its Apple MacBook, "Pure front white MacBook." Type that phrase into Google and you'll find it's the number one listing.

Optimizing press releases -- Optimizing your press releases is another great way to ensure your news ranks high in the search engines, but very few companies do it. Be sure your release is optimized for search engines by incorporating keywords in the usual places: Title tag, meta tags, headline, sub-head and body copy.

Although you may not understand search engine optimization or Web design, it behooves you to know that you can and should optimize *all* of your Web content. Tell your Web designer or SEO firm what you want to accomplish -- either one should be able to help you.

What can Dianna Huff do for you?

My goal is to make your job easier -- and to help you succeed with your marketing projects and campaigns.

• Want your site to rank well in Google through search engine optimization (SEO) copywriting?
• Responsible for a B2B e-newsletter and need help getting it out the door?
• Need a complete Website overhaul and don't know where to begin?

If you answered yes, then give me a call at 603-382-8093 or send e-mail to info@dhcommunications.com. I can help you.

Or, take a look at my B2B marketing communications copywriting and SEO services to see how you can put my award-winning expertise to work for you.

Contact DH Communications

Telephone: 603-382-8093
Email: info@dhcommunications.com

Keep up with the latest MarCom news at The MarCom Writer Blog.