Using SEO as a PR Metric - Measurement Base Camp - Greg Jarboe - July 25, 2023.pptx

Greg Jarboe's presentation on "Using SEO as a PR Metric" at Paine Publishing's Measurement Base Camp on July 25, 2023.

1. Using SEO as a PR Metric Greg Jarboe President and co-founder, SEO-PR Measurement Base Camp Summer 2023 Tuesday, July 25, 2023

2. Publishers and news sites are using SEO metrics, and you should be using SEO as a PR metric, too The New York Times , CNN, and other major news sites use SEO metrics. When they started using SEO back in 2006, there was initial pushback from journalists. But 5-25% of a news site’s search traffic now comes from Google News, according to the Nieman Journalism Lab. You can use SEO as a PR metric, too. SEO-PR started using SEO metrics back in 2003 and we’ve taught SEO best practices to a variety of organizations – including publishers and news sites. Today, I’ll share the latest tips and strategies with you.

3. Incorporate SEO into your measurement program

4. Most communications professionals learned about Lasswell’s model of communications back in college Professor Harold Lasswell’s model of communication was developed in 1939 and published in 1948. As the Chief of the Experimental Division for the Study of War Time Communications during World War II, he had analyzed German propaganda and found five elements impacted the effectiveness of communication via mass media: Who : The sender. Says what : The message. In which channel : The medium. To whom : The receiver. With what effect : The outcome.

5. Lasswell’s model of communication was one of the first and most influential models of communication In 1939, it was conceived specifically to analyze German propaganda via newspapers, magazines, posters, radio broadcasts, newsreels, and rallies. After the model was declassified in 1948, it was used by many marketing and communication textbooks as a general model of communication. Most communications professionals have focused on measuring outputs (clippings) instead of outtakes (surveys) and outcomes (anecdotes).

6. I was one of the first to realize that Google News had reversed the classic model of communication Who : Identify your target audiences. Seeks what : Find relevant keywords your target audience is likely to use. In which channel : Use one of the press release distribution services crawled by Google News. From whom : Make sure your press release headline actually includes your target keywords. With what effect : Add links to related website content and measure results.

7. Katie Paine said back in 2003: “What a concept: Totally measurable results from your PR agency!” This counter-intuitive model of communication combines SEO and PR to generate traffic, leads, or sales, as well as publicity. This counter-intuitive model has also enabled my boutique agency and a wide variety of clients to get credit for our contribution to the bottom line. I’ve been teaching this class at Market Motive since 2007, in the Rutgers Mini-MBA Program since 2010, and at Measurement Base Camp since 2020.

8. Optimize your press releases

9. Think about the words users would type to find your release and then conduct keyword research Like consumer research, keyword research can help communications professionals discover what words that people would use to look for their content. Google Search Essentials say: “Use words that people would use to look for your content, and place those words in prominent locations on the page, such as the title and main heading of a page, and other descriptive locations such as alt text and link text.” Source: Google Search Essentials (formerly Webmaster Guidelines)

10. Here’s a list of a few places to find keywords and some tools for conducting ad hoc keyword research Places to find keywords: Google Trends . Autocomplete in Google News. Autocomplete in Google. “People also ask…” boxes in Google. Related searches boxes in Google. Keyword research tools: Answer the Public . Keyword Tool.io . Moz Keyword Explorer . SEMRush Keyword Magic Tool . SpyFu . Source: Greg Jarboe, SEO-PR, “ What is the best keyword research tool for SEO? (It’s your brain!) ,” Sept. 25, 2019

11. Enter your brand name and up to 4 competitors into Google Trends to see your share of search By default, Google Trends shows you the web search trends for the past 12 months. Now, click on the Web Search tab and select News Search. This shows you the news search interest in these terms. Now, click on the Past 12 months tab and select the past 7 days. Now, scroll down and look at the related queries for these terms. Source: https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=US

12. The engineers who developed the Google News algorithm seem to have used the inverted pyramid The headline is the most important news SEO factor. Headlines should be clear, concise and more than 2 and less than 22 words long. Subheads are weighed slightly more heavily than body copy. Subheads must stay true to the story, may contain relevant synonyms. Include keywords that relate to your subject in the first few sentences. Google’s systems analyze the content to assess whether it contains information that might be relevant and helpful.

13. Google’s news algorithms are now designed to help users find timely, trustworthy news and information Does your headline provide a descriptive, helpful summary of the content ? Does your content provide original information, reporting, research, or analysis ? Does your content provide a substantial, complete, or comprehensive description of the topic ? Does your content provide insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond the obvious ?

14. Add links to help people find interesting, related content on your site and measure your results The primary reason to add links to a press release is to help people find interesting, related content on your site, when it’s available. But you can also use Google’s free Campaign URL Builder tool to help you measure your results. This tool allows you to easily add campaign parameters to your URLs so you can track Custom Campaigns in Google Analytics. You also have the option of converting the long tracking URL to a short link. Source: Google Analytics Demos & Tools, Campaign URL Builder

15. You need to use a press release distribution service or have a newsroom that’s indexed by Google News Several press release distribution services are indexed by Google News, including: BusinessWire.com. PRNewswire.com. GlobeNewswire.com. If you primarily publish press releases on your site or within a particular section URL of your domain, then it may be crawled if your site is popular. For an example, take a look at the Kodak Press Center . Source: https://www.kodak.com/lk/en/corp/press_center/default.htm#

16. Measure what matters

17. Launch of the Rutgers Online Professional Master’s in Human Resource Management program in 2019 In January 2019, SEO-PR helped the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations (SMLR) to launch an Online Professional Master’s in Human Resource Management program. Our objective was to generate 30 applications by Aug. 1, 2019. Students could complete the 12-course Master’s program in as few as 18 months and as long as 5 years. Tuition was $3,174 per 3-credit course, or $38,016 for 12 courses.

18. Although keyword research told us what people were searching for, we used surveys to find out why Our survey found target audiences included personnel, staffing & recruiting, and talent acquisition as well as human resources supervisors, managers, and professionals. Respondents with 4 or more years of HR experience said the follow factors were important when selecting a university: “No GRE/GMAT required”, “Top-ranked university”, “Fully 100% online program”.

19. We included these three important factors in the subhead of our optimized multimedia press release

20. We used the Google Campaign URL Builder tool to add campaign parameters to URLs in our release We used Google’s free Campaign URL Builder tool to add campaign parameters to the URLs in our press release to track our Custom Campaign in Google Analytics. This enabled us to track the number of users, new users, sessions, bounce rate, pages/session, average session duration, conversion rate, conversions, and goal value generated by our press release, which was distributed in five countries.

21. A copy of our press release without multimedia was posted in the news section of SMLR’s website

22. We shared our press release with Emily Bader of ROI-NJ and David Hutter of NJBIZ under embargo

23. On Google News, our press release ranked #1 for online masters in human resource management

24. In first 2 hours, news release got 1,429 total views, 69 link clicks, and 61 multimedia views

25. Google does good job of choosing which version of duplicate content to show in search engine results Doug Lederman, the editor of Inside Higher Ed , wrote a roundup story on Feb. 20, 2019, which included a high-quality, relevant link to the copy of the press release posted in the news section of the Rutgers website. Although the optimized multimedia release was distributed to 271 news sites, Google only showed the one without multimedia on the Rutgers site in its search engine results page (SERP), not the “duplicate content” on the 271 other sites.

26. The campaign parameters let us track acquisition, behavior, and conversions from our press release

27. Campaign increased familiarity with and likelihood to recommend Rutgers to a friend or colleague We used a post-campaign survey to measure the impact of our campaign. Our second survey asked the same questions as the pre-campaign survey, enabling us to measure brand lift. The percentage of respondents who said they were “familiar with” Rutgers University had increased from 13.8% pre-launch to 18.5% post-launch. The percentage of respondents who said they were “very likely” to recommend Rutgers to a friend or colleague had increased from 16.7% pre-launch to 19.0% post-launch.

28. C ampaign drove 8,337 new users to our landing page and generated 38 completed applications Our campaign drove 8,337 new users to the Rutgers Online Professional Master’s in Human Resource Management landing page. The landing page generated 694 soft leads (people either clicked on the Apply Now button on the page or the Apply tab in the website’s navigation). We also evaluated the source/medium of the new users and soft leads in Google Analytics: Optimized multimedia release generated only 1% of the new users, but 8% of the soft leads. Google organic search generated only 3% of the new users, but 19% of the soft leads. Google Ads generated 11% of the new users, and 18% of the soft leads. LinkedIn ads generated 81% of the new users, but only 37% of the soft leads. More importantly, the launch campaign generated 38 completed applications , worth up to $1,444,608 in tuition over the next 18 months to 5 years.

29. We won 2019 US Search Award for Best Use of PR in a Search Campaign by measuring what matters Our case study won in the Best Use of PR in a Search Campaign category for demonstrating that an optimized multimedia press release, duplicate content in the news section of SMLR’s website, and an optimized landing page had generated only 4% of the traffic, but 27% of the leads. And measuring PR and SEO using the same set of metrics and KPIs used for Digital Advertising – including pay-per-click (PPC) advertising – is a game changer. It means that we no longer need to treat PR and SEO as “faith-based initiatives”.

30. In today’s economy, you’ll want to know how to use GA4 to show your contribution to the bottom line Today, I told you why adding campaign parameters to URLs can help you measure PR campaigns in UA. Thankfully, this works in GA4 as well. In 2 weeks, I’ll cover 6 more important things you need to lean about GA4: Who needs an editor’s role? What does Google mean by “events”? Where do you create conversions? When should you build PR audiences? Why is data-driven attribution better? How do you analyze GA4’s reports?