Who reads this stuff anyway?

One really important point about digital press releases is that nobody reads them. But allow me to explain - the operative word is nobody. For the purposes of page ranking, getting noticed or just having your press release 'lodge' somewhere on the net, it's mechanised search engines that trawl the internet, not people. And they just don't have the same tastes as humans.

That doesn't mean you can copy and paste 1000 words of search terms without any syntax and get away with it - you need real content but there's no requirement to keep it quite so brief. These guys are so much faster and more 'patient' that it's a good idea to keep in all of those notes and background that you would have edited out for time-poor human eyes. What might have been a one page (double spaced) release becomes possibly three or four pages.

Company and author profiles, more detailed product/service specs and a nice section of relevant links - in addition to those embedded in the text - it's all grist to the mill. And when your client (if you're an agency) or you MD (if you're in-house) says 'I think we should put out a release our our investment in a new set of step ladders' or 'a change of a pantone reference in our logo,' there's no need to argue any more. Don't send it to journalists if you think it will weaken your reputation, but do issue it on a wire service. It will get picked up somewhere and together with stronger material can possibly help you deny a competitor some space on the initial pages of a Google search.

A place called Convergence

Everybody knows content is king, but where is that content coming from? Who can you rely on to consistently provide informative, on-message and interesting material for your website? It’s interesting that I have met a number of SEO consultants recently who have found themselves quite literally dragged into PR. It’s a service that their clients clearly need, it’s just that they aren’t that sure of being qualified to offer it.

The other side of the coin is the PR consultant who finds him or herself working more and more in the digital space. We have the writing skills and everything that goes with that - the ability to collect the right information and produce engaging copy that gets the point across. But the learning curve is a steep one when technology is constantly evolving.

There’s no shame in admitting that we all have to learn new skills and there are some great training courses on offer for people who want to fill in gaps in their knowledge. What is really striking is that PR and SEO professionals often find themselves in the same sessions … filling in the gaps in each others’ knowledge. Now that’s what I call convergence.