The Perfect PR and SEO Relationship

The Perfect PR and SEO Relationship:

 
Collaboration between PR and SEO teams can lead to new content, better publicity, and even new business. Here's how to make it work.
Does your PR team know SEO best practices and vice versa?
PR and SEO teams share a common goal--to increase a brand's presence in the marketplace--but they take different approaches. As a business grows, it can be easy to silo groups and overlook opportunities for collaboration. Forming stronger ties between these two teams can lead to new content, better publicity and even new business. Working with Julie Perrigan, Rise Interactive's SEO manager, we outlined three areas for companies to begin their PR and SEO collaboration:

1. Increase Quality Content and Links
The goal of public relations is to create content, find opportunities to share it and to gain exposure for your organization through media, print and digital efforts. SEO should be a piece of that puzzle, not an afterthought. Creating quality content allows your PR department to promote your company, by providing an easy-to-follow path back to your site through relevant links in your content. But both teams need to share common ground in order to build a website's authority and brand awareness.
Before your PR team creates or pitches a story, members of both SEO and PR teams should discuss key messages, targeted keywords, distribution tactics and overall goals for each team. Also, both teams should explore the content landscape, then brainstorm, and develop content that sets you apart from the competition.
With Google algorithm updates--such as Panda and Penguin--changing the landscape of SEO, there is a growing need for quality content and links in high-authority sites.

2. Build Relationships
Building ongoing, mutually beneficial relationships can help create a more holistic strategy. PR and SEO both utilize relationships to promote websites and brands. While a PR department makes more personal relationships via phone or in-person, SEO groups can build and foster relationships online. Finding those key influencers within your industry and building relationships to obtain links is where SEO and Link Building is heading. Make certain your PR and SEO departments are sharing their media lists and relationship-building opportunities (both online and offline) with one another.
Relationships are instrumental in building a strong network of brand advocates and will provide the most value for your business. However, if your teams are uncoordinated, it can lessen their credibility and damage new and existing relationships.

3. Promote
Social media is the perfect tool to strengthen PR and SEO. Its power to promote a brand and build awareness, coupled with the ability to generate high-authority links and shares, makes it the perfect outlet for certain brands. While print and broadcast channels are the bedrock of traditional PR, promoting your original content via social media platforms exposes that content to an audience of people who have already opted to follow you. As you gain a larger online following, set up tools which can analyze and monitor your social media efforts. By employing these tools, you can test and track which content resonates with your audience. This investment will make your PR and SEO efforts more competitive.

Also, with the rise of social signals as a ranking factor, the more quality content you can provide, and the more your PR and social channels can promote, the better. By utilizing your relationships and promoting your content, you open the door to higher rankings, increased quality traffic and more exposure in every capacity.
So whether you have in-house PR and SEO departments or use an outside PR or SEO company, it is imperative that each channel communicates and collaborates to ensure you are getting the most value and greatest exposure for your business and brand. Integrating the various channels of your organization not only fosters multi-channel knowledge and communication, but allows employees to feel more connected with one another and with the company as a whole. It will also help employees to speak intelligently about every channel in your organization, leading to a whole new level of brand advocates.

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4 Reasons Yahoo's Telecommuting Ban Won't Last

4 Reasons Yahoo's Telecommuting Ban Won't Last:
Telecommuting, handled properly, creates more effective, harder-working, employees. Eventually, Marissa Mayer will figure that out.
The tech world and its websites are abuzz today with the news: Yahoo is banning any form of telecommuting or working from home beginning this June. Even staying home to wait for cable installation is frowned upon as shown in this confidential memo sent by disgruntled employees to AllThingsD.

For a CEO already under the microscope as a rare female leader taking over a troubled Internet giant, announcing to the world that she's banned telecommuting seems a boneheaded move for Marissa Mayer to make. Here's what I'm wondering:

1. Doesn't Mayer know that telecommuting is good for business?
I'm the author of a book about the benefits of telecommuting--but you don't have to take my word for it. The Huffington Post commentary on Yahoo's new rule lists three separate studies showing employees who telecommute do more work than those who don't. One from Stanford, conveniently, was released on the same day Yahoo sent out its memo.
It makes lots of sense if you just think about it for a second: People who telecommute save anywhere from an hour to two hours or more a day not spent traveling to and from their workplaces. Even if they take one extra hour to play with their kids or start a roast for dinner, chances are there will be more time left over for their jobs. Likewise, if they have a bright idea in the middle of the night, or they just want to finish a report before bedtime, they can easily do those things without waiting to get to the office. Also, most people who work at home enjoy doing so and view it as a privelege. That may make them value and appreciate their jobs all the more.

2. What century is she living in?
It used to be a lot harder for people working at home to stay in close communication with co-workers and bosses but then someone went and invented the Internet. And GoToMeeting. And a host of other tools that people who are comfortable with the Internet can use to stay so completely in touch that they might as well be there. You'd think people at Yahoo would be familiar with that newfangled Internet thing and comfortable using it since they're supposed to be, you know, an online company.
Besides, in the current work environment everyone has mobile devices. Everyone is connected by email, text, conference call, video, social network, and so on at all times. Homes seem more like workplaces than ever before and in this world, the line between at-work and not-at-work is becoming nonexistent. Maybe Mayer is unfamiliar with these newfangled mobile devices as well.

3. Does she thinks telecommuting is one-size-fits-all?
As a manager, the very first thing you learn about telecommuting is this: It doesn't work for everyone. Yes, there are horror stories about employees who are supposed to be working at home actually holding down second jobs. There are people who think they can be full-time telecommuters and provide full-time child care at the same time. There are people who do not perform well--and may actually be unhappy--outside the social atmosphere of the office. That's why employees should be given leave to work from home on a case-by-case basis, and it should start out as a temporary trial.
Likewise, successful telecommuters do need to show up at the office on a regular basis to interact with their colleagues, in addition to remotely attending all meetings. And they need to have clearly delineated responsibilities that can be measured in terms of what they actually get done rather than how many hours they're in the office.
These elements set employees up for a successful telecommuting relationship, and also give managers an empirical way to determine if a telecommuting arrangement isn't working and take appropriate steps to either fix or end it. Within this sort of framework, telecommuting can be a real win-win. But issuing a blanket dictum that no one can telecommute is as nonsensical as issuing one that everyone can. Neither is a good approach to managing a large workforce.

4. Doesn't she care about Yahoo's public image?
The biggest challenge facing tech companies, especially large ones, is finding enough employees with the needed skills. That's forced most high-tech companies to outsource at least some of their programming work to other countries where there are more software engineers available. It's also inspired companies like Google to provide things like free gourmet food.
So why oh why would the CEO of a large tech company want to limit her available talent pool to those who live within a short enough distance from the company's offices to want to make the trip there and back 10 times a week? Why would she announce a blanket no-telecommuting policy and tie the company's hands when trying to recruit sought-after tech talent? To remove the option of working at home as an enticement or a perk during hiring negotiations?
To make Yahoo appear rigid and unreasonable to the entire tech world?
I think with time she will see that the answer to this last question is: she wouldn't. And so I predict that before June is out, the telecommuting ban will either be publicly lifted, or else, it will quietly go unenforced.

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Mobile Security in the Office

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Mobile devices have a huge range of benefits in the workplace – from increasing the productivity of employees by enabling them to keep working on the move, to allowing improvements in flexibility such as operating from home.









The technology now comes in all shapes and sizes: laptops, netbooks, tablets, smart-phones, pen drives and everything in between. It evolves at a rapid pace and many workplaces are keen to embrace the new technology. However, what many organizations fail to consider is the need to create secure mobile environments, which also maintain a high level of accessibility.

Personal devices

The problems begin with the fact that many employees now use their own mobile devices to enhance their working ability – rather than using simply what the company provides. This has booth benefits and drawbacks. For example, the company saves cash on equipment and the
employees are more productive; but the security risks caused by allowing unknown devices onto a wireless network are certainly increased.

Threats to security include theft of information using a portable device and the leaking of important documents. But even more frightening for organisations is the loss of an individual's mobile device, whereupon personal and company information is stored simultaneously. It is all to
easy for small mobile technology to be misplaced – and this is regularly a cause for concern in the world of business as the penalties for data loss are high.

The stats

A recent survey by the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) found that two out of every three data breaches is cause by lost portable devices and paper files. While company-issued memory devices might be able to be wiped remotely, personal ones may not. Individuals are also less likely to encrypt data or use effective passwords when using their own technology.

This brings about several interesting questions – do companies insist on providing their own technology despite the high cost and inconvenience? Or do they just take the risk? Basically it depends whether you think your business can afford it. Judging by the $50,000 fine recently dished out to an Idaho hospice for the loss of a single laptop containing information on 441 patients, few organizations can cope with the financial penalties, let alone the implications to your business' reputation.

So how does a business face the threat to security posed by mobile devices? It may seem somewhat obvious, but one of the easiest solutions is to ensure detailed policies and procedures are in place and all staff are educated about them. If your business does allow personal devices to access to its network, make sure individuals understand the importance of encryption and passwords – however trivial this step may seem.

Author Bio: This article was written by Susie Francis, a content writer for HANDD, the secure file transfer specialists.

11 Keyword Targeting Mistakes

11 Keyword Targeting Mistakes:

Today, we’ll just focus on some of the common big mistakes the LunaMetrics team sees when it comes to keyword targeting.

1. Overemphasizing Volume

“Big numbers — YAY!”

Calm yourself, man. Volume is only part of the equation. It doesn’t matter how many people search for a word if its so competitive you’ll never get anywhere near the first search engine results page. And I’ll take a low volume key phrase that brings in people that actually convert over a keyword that brings in a large amount of worthless traffic anyday.
Never forget the long tail. The overwhelming majority of search engine traffic are those rarely searched-for long-tail key phrases, and they are more likely to convert anyways. Get that low-hanging fruit.

 2. Misunderstandering Volume Estimates

Surprisingly few people want read your article on raw cuisine in the “Apple Big”.

But, yeah.. volume still matters. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t know what they’re looking at here. As helpful as Google AdWords Keyword Tool is (I’m a big user myself), you can’t take the numbers at face value. Those are estimates of ad impressions, not search query volume. If you’re going to use it, make sure to look at all 3 match types and use it mostly for apples-to-apples comparisons to see which terms have more volume — be careful making organic traffic projections, and never rely solely on broad match. Also, avoid estimating organic competition solely on AdWords PPC competition,  and only use Global volume if you’re targeting the entire globe.
For very important keyword research consider collecting multiple data points on search query volume. Other free tools to estimate volume include Wordtracker(limited trial), Google Trends, and Bing Webmaster Tools’ Keyword Tool.

3. Underestimating Difficulty

One of the reasons those head keywords are often the wrong choice is that ranking on the first page for them might just not be feasible. Since you might as well not exist if you’re not on the first page and click-thrus increase exponentially as you climb up the rankings, you need to pick your shots and shoot for #1.
But getting to #1 is way harder than most people realize. I’ve seen many new SEO practitioners slap half a dozen or more target keywords onto pages that barely have the ability to rank for one of the keywords. Chances are, you’re going to need to devote a single page to 1-3 semantically related keywords, and you’ll need to spend some real effort to make a compelling case that your page is the best one for searchers of said keywords to land on.

4. Targeting the Same Keyword Throughout the Site

Warning: Keyword Cannibal Lecture

So you’ve done your research, and you’ve got these sweet keywords picked out, and they have that new keyword smell and everything. “What do to with them?” you wonder. Bingo – you’ll just put those keyword into every single thing you write and you’ll be raking in traffic in no time. That’s the ticket right?
Well you’d be wrong, but not alone. First, rather than spreading your beloved keyword all over your site, you should concentrate your efforts into one page that has the page authority to rank and make it the page on the net that searchers of your keyword want to land on. Remember, in SEO , we need to pick our battles and concentrate our forces if we don’t want to get destroyed.
Secondly, this “tactic” commits the abominable SEO sin of keyword cannibalism, wherein if you do manage to rank for the keyword you’ll be competing against yourself and killing off your pages’ ability to draw new traffic for other keywords. Remember, each page is an opportunity to reel in more traffic for a different keywords.

 5. Neglecting Localization in SERPs

The keyword “plumber” is searched for many times more frequently than “graphic design software”. Chances are, however, that Joe the plumber is more likely to be able to get some traffic for “plumber” than Sam the small software studio owner is for “graphic design software.” Why? Because Google is smart enough to know that when people search for plumber, they often want to find a local plumber, so Google might show Joe’s website when people in his hometown Google “plumber” in the local section of the SERPs. Given that there are a lot of local searches these days, and the ranking factors are different than standard search, it would make sense to carefully account for localization in your keyword research and targeting. Not doing so can  result in missed opportunities or  getting crushed by companies with a more advantageous physical address. (Trust me, I’ve learned this one the hard way.)

Tip: Switch up your location to see how localization impacts the SERPs of your keyword

6. Failing to Look to Historical Data on Relevance/Quality

One of the best keyword research tools is right under your nose: Google Analytics. Look deep into your current organic search traffic data, and figure out why your users stick around for some keywords and bounce from others. Do keywords involving “how to” have a fraction of the conversion rate that keywords involving “price” do? I promise you there are patterns in the data of your current keywords that will help you predict which new keywords will get you good quality visits. Your web analytics is also especially useful at researching the very long tail.

7. Not Getting Assistance from Outside the SEO Dept.

It took a few years, but prudent Internet marketers realize that good SEO doesn’t exist in a vacuum. When it comes to keyword research, a solid understanding of the target audience is a going to help you target keywords that have a higher per-visit-value. Remember, you’re not targeting strings of characters — you’re trying to find the best match for user’s queries. Below are just a few examples of great places to look for assistance when doing high-level keyword research:

• PPC : Speaking of great historical data, the conversion data from any existing AdWords campaigns will be invaluable as you project the value of potential keywords.
• non-SEO marketing execs in the organization can give great insight into the target market and might be able to share previous market research. They’ll also help you utilize keywords that are consistent and perhaps synergistic with existing brand communication.
• Customer service and sales reps might have the most insight in the organization into the everyday jargon and language of the target audience.
• Competitors might be using certain words on their sites’ because they are bad at SEO or because they know something good. It could be worth a glance at their site for ideas in case the latter is the case.
• Random people who fit the target demographics might help as well. If you don’t have the budget for primary market research, your mom or uncle might help too.

8. No Strategy

Great keyword targeters utilize keyword research as one component  of the larger SEO plan, which they know is itself a critical component of the larger integrated marketing communications plan. Such keyword targeters know how to use keywords to reach the audience at desired points in the conversion funnel.
Many sites inexplicably obviously target keywords on some ages of their site but fail to utilize basic keyword research for other key pages. Great keyword targeting means looking at the big picture of the entire site and to devise a plan for effective utilizing each piece of the real estate to target the right keywords.
Another myopic mistake is to simply have no long term keyword strategy. What keywords do you want to rank #1 for over a year from now?  I’ve learned the hard way the importance of thinking a few steps ahead; once you manage to hit #1 for your current keyword targets, you’ll plateau if you haven’t already been targeting new keywords.

9. Not Prioritizing

Keyword research, and SEO in general, take way too much time to not have a plan to allocate time effectively. Don’t make the mistake of not answering 2 important questions (and communicating it to the rest of the web team): 1)Which keywords deserve the most/least effort?  2)Which pages warrant the most keyword research effort based on authority and inherent ranking potential?

10. Not Doing Keyword Research Before Designing the Site Structure

Keyword research is too often an afterthought. If there are 4 lucrative competitive head keyword groups for what your eCommerce operation sells, it might make more sense to have 4 main subdirectories in your store than 20. If the lucrative long-tail keyphrases all involve a common word, it might make sense to include that word in the URL structure. I can tell you from plenty of experience that SEO is waaay easier when the architecture compliments rather than inhibits keyword optimization. In addition, keyword research can be a useful market research tool: keyword research literally tells you how many people are interested in certain things. Yet many (dare I say most) organizations still fail to design a more consumer-oriented site by utilizing keyword research in their market research in the initial phases of site design.

11. Forgetting about that ROI

Staying ROI focused is important for keyword targeting just like everything else. If there’s a magic pill for keyword targeting, it would simply be: maximize ROI for every keyword targeted.

ROI for a keyword = Value of ranking high/cost of ranking high

The Value of Keyword = per visit value x search volume, where per visit value = value of a brand impression + (conversion rate x conversion value)
The cost of a keyword is the keyword difficulty, or the time and money invested in ranking high. This depends largely on competition, as well as current ranking and difficulty of implementation.
Thinking about per visit value, volume, and difficulty for every potential keyword you review will dramatically improve your keyword targeting effectiveness.
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So have you learned about any of these mistakes the hard way, too? Are there any monster mistakes I’ve missed? Let me know in the comments!

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7 Old Post Revival Techniques You Won’t Believe You’re Overlooking

7 Old Post Revival Techniques You Won’t Believe You’re Overlooking:
This guest post is by Ahmed Safwan of To Start Blogging.

Do you have hundreds of posts in your archive?
Most of them receiving a big zero in traffic?
You aren’t the only one who has this problem. Most of the bloggers, even pro ones, have this problem. That’s why this post was created.
Your old posts can generate additional visitors for you. Let’s see how.

1. Create internal links

You’ve heard me talk about internal linking before. This is because it’s very important.
When you link to your old posts, you are giving more value to your readers and also to Google itself.
You will be able to get traffic to your old posts, decrease bounce rates, increase average time on site per visitor, and increase your rankings. All this from just linking to your old posts!
So, whenever you write a new post, remember that your old posts can also give value, and link to them in your new post.

2. Update your old post and republish it

Do you notice how CopyBlogger republishes some of its old articles from time to time?
Doing this will let you catch a break, and also get a raft of traffic to your old content while making sure that content remains current over time.

3. Spread it on social media

Social media can also send more traffic to your old posts. Tweet more than one post each day, to get the best results.
As well as scheduling tweets for the upcoming week, see if you can’t theme your old post tweets around events that are happening in your niche, or the world in general. Depending on your topic, a post you wrote six month or a year ago may provide an interesting coutnerpoint or reminder for readers.

4. Create a follow-up post

Maybe you have an old post, but something has changed around that topic. Great: create a follow-up post that shows what’s changed since you wrote that old post, link back to it, and you will get traffic to it as well.
This can be especially effective if there are valuable comments on the old post, and you can pick up on those in the new one. Tactics like this, which weave the posts together, give readers a solid reason to look back at the past post.

5. Use a “related posts” widget

When your readers reach the end of a post, they want to know what to do next. Show them related posts from your archives. This revives your old posts and provides more context and information to your readers.
Remember, they can be your loyal readers forever, so always try to provide them with the content they need. Your archives should be chock-a-block with it!

6. Use cornerstone content

Do you have a number of posts on a similar topic? Create a single post that contains all of these posts, as a one-stop resource for your readers.
This way, you’ll get more traffic from search engines, and show your authority on this topic—which can only help build loyalty among the visitors you help.

7. Link to your old posts in an email series

Last week, I received an email from Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income. It’s an email that’s sent to all new subscribers after a given time, and in the email, he was promoting an old post. What a great idea.
Create autoresponders to send weekly to your new subscribers. In these emails, you can include links to your old posts and relevant tips. This is a great way to create a richer relationship with your new subscribers.

Do you have any other ideas?

These are the common ways to promote your old posts. If you have another idea, share it in the comments!
In addition to being a successful blogger and a talented freelance writer, Ahmed Safwan is on a mission to help bloggers who want to succeed build the blog that can help them to do so. If youíre one of them, check out his blog for more Blogging Tips that Help you make money.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger