What Are You Missing by Ignoring Online PR?

In the old days it was all about how many press clippings you could make into a large collage to show off that PR was working. In today’s world of highly trackable internet advertising your Online PR also needs to be more trackable than traditional PR. Make sure you have a way to determine what amount of visitors came from each link from a release and then what actions (such as buying products or filling out a form) were taken. When you not only have nice clippings and good coverage but you can also say with no question how much sales were produced from your efforts, you know you have landed on the shores of the new world.

online pr

64% of journalists report that they use either Google or Yahoo! news services and nearly half of all journalists reported visiting a corporate website or online newsroom at least once a week. Search is a great method for finding news. Now that Google is pushing universal search where news, videos, Flickr streams and more may all appear as part of the main search results, your press releases have a greater chance of being found by both consumers and journalists.

The benefits of online PR include:

  • Traffic to your website
  • Increased rankings in search engine results
  • Inbound links to your website
  • Pickups by industry publications
  • Being able to share that your company is “in the news”

Typical Content to optimize in your Online PR

  • Press releases / news releases
  • Online news rooms and media kits
  • Blogs
  • Reports / white papers
  • Webinars / demos
  • Email newsletters
  • Podcasts / interviews (write interview around keywords)

Write a press release and distribute it to some of the free newswire to get a feel for the process. If you need to get started quickly, write a release about hiring a new employee, a new service, a new product offering or an upcoming event. This may not go viral – unless it’s very compelling – but it will still generate those much needed backlinks and give you a feel for the Online PR process. Google likes to see regular mentions of you, so Online PR submission should be done monthly if possible.

Image: Bex.Walton

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