FX: Fanfare
This the very first Guest Post on In Front Of Your Nose. And Iām delighted to welcome Kelvin Newman from SiteVisibility for this auspicious debut with his take on The Myth Of Press Release Syndication. His views on the subject are highly pertinent – not least because he knows what he is talking about when it comes to SEO – and the PR world on the whole has a very distorted view of what they can, could or should do with regard to press releases and search.
Kelvin is Creative Director at SiteVisibility (without question, one of the top SEO firms in the UK), as well as editor and presenter ofĀ iTunes most popular marketing podcast (again, along with a sub to Econsultancy, people could save themselves a lot of pain and heartache by simply listening to this every week).
Anyway. Iāll shut up. Kelvin, take it away….
Guest post: The Myth Of Press Release Syndication: Kelvin Newman, SiteVisibility
āWe all understand that Googleās algorithm is trying to mimic the real world. Googleās reliance on links to determine authority is based on what happens offline. If a trusted person or media outlet recommends a product, the more I trust the recommendation. And the more likely I am to believe them. Makes sense, doesnāt it? So why do so many people believe that Press Release Syndication services (who will shill for anyone who hands over the cash) are going to be good for your rankings?
In my opinion, rather than just being a benign distraction for the naive, Iām genuinely concerned that huge swathes of the PR industry think that in order to āgetā SEO they just have to start adding a few keywords into their press releases, bung them on a wire. And their clients willĀ automatically shoot up the rankings.
The links that have the most impact are those that are hardest to achieve; genuine editorial mentions on relevant pages of sites with huge trust. Press release syndication will never enable you to do that. All it does is get you a link from a website which no real person ever visits. There are no real editorial standards being used. So the chances are even higher that really low quality spammy sites are being linked from and tainting your clients by association.
Some people occasionally justify this process on the basis it might help a website get at least some links and coverage from journalists who subscribe to the release wire service concerned. Personally, I canāt see it. When I used to work on Zoo and Arena,Ā journalists were swamped with releases by email. I doubt theyāre going to go out of their way to sign up to get more.
Some services even charge you more to get some shiny social media buttons on your release. What a complete waste of money. I can count on one hand the number of times a press release has been shared in my social networks. And in those cases, it was only because what was contained in the release was hugely news worthy. The latest āme tooā product launch or made up survey is never going to get shared socially.
And do you think Google, with their sweat shops of PHDs, havenāt twigged that these websites will link to anyone who pays? Itās not a huge leap to assume that they might have tuned out any minor value that these websites might have had years ago.
So why do people still think it works? Well, itās easier than actually wrapping your head around how link building really works. Itās a small nod to SEO without actually having to drastically change approach.
However, I canāt be completely against the technique.Ā It can be a great way to open up communication between whoever is responsible for PR and SEO. It shows that on both sides of the table, weāre starting to understanding that weāll get better results if we work together.
Of course, it is beautifully ironic that in the area where you most frequently see collaboration between PR and SEO currently, the outcomes hardly justify the effort. The real value of PR and SEO working in unison is in creating stories and content that appeal to the people who have the power to link to – and influence – a siteās reputation in a positive way.Ā This is where PRs and SEOs should be concentrating their efforts.
In summary, my attitude is if the news release has already been written, itās mad not to try to eek out a bit of SEO value by publishing it on a wire. Itās not going to do any harm. But anyone who thinks press release syndication is an important link building strategy needs their head testing.ā
What do you think?
Comment below like your life depends upon it.