Read my May 10, 2004 interview with Dan Forbush, founder of ProfNet, where he served as president for more than 11  years. Forbush has nearly 40 years of experience in Public Relations, and has served as the Executive Director of Communications at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, since May 2007.

Since we posted our query on “PR and the Blogosphere” a couple of months ago, Melanie Broemsen has become one of our most reliable sources of interesting stuff. We’re not yet into a daily blogging rhythm and so have not been passing these items along (apologies), but we’re nonetheless grateful to Melanie for keeping us posted. It was Melanie, for example, who first filled us in on the phenomenon of the “google bomb,” pointing out that keying “miserable failure” will bring us to the biography of President George W. Bush and that “waffles” will take us to John Kerry’s site.

Melanie is an SEO Specialist in Canton, Ohio. “SEO,” of course, stands for “search engine optimization” and the fact that agencies are now hiring people into such roles says a lot about the priority that clients are attaching to their Web presence. Among Melanie’s main tasks is the preparation of Internet marketing research reports, providing clients a comprehensive review of their Web sites, an analysis of related online market conditions and the competition, and an Internet marketing strategy.

“I like to joke that I surf the net all day,” she says. “That’s easier than attempting to explain what I really do and watching eyeballs glaze over.”

Melanie really does surf the net all day, but with the purpose of gathering information for client reports.

“To be able to help our client best utilize their sites, I have to understand the underlying cause-effects of the important relationships on the net — in short, why things work the way they do. I’m in the trenches — I see the results on a daily basis, client by client, so I have a good understanding of what’s really happening.”

We asked Melanie to tell us what’s really happening — particularly with respect to blogs and search engines. She forwarded the following.

Blogs Rank Higher

Blogs tend to rank higher in Google than other Web content. That’s because blogs are heavy on content and links – two of the factors that Google considers important when it determines rankings. The underlying “code” it generates isn’t very complex, so search engines, like Google, are able to index it. Google also prefers “fresh” content, and since blogs are typically updated more frequently than a traditional Web site, they are given a little “boost” when rankings are determined. In fact, blogs can create a phenomenon called a “Google bomb”, which is how the whole “miserable failure/George Bush” search got started. Basically, the blogging community works together to manipulate the rankings. Here’s a link to a recent article that explains the Google bombs.

What It Boils Down to in Terms of PR

Just one disgruntled employee or dissatisfied customer can wreak havoc on your company’s reputation, simply by appearing in the search results with a ranking higher (or near) your own. We’ve been approached by some organizations that wanted to have the listings removed. Unfortunately, you can’t — unless you can gain a legal judgment. You have to beat them at the game – and they have the home field advantage. From another perspective, PR professionals can provide news via RSS feeds to interested parties. We have a couple of clients that have such busy news sections, it makes sense. With the click of a button, you can distribute your message to your key publics. It enhances an organization’s reputation, helps branding, and reinforces corporate identity, and that doesn’t even account for any boost in rankings or the endless possibilities of incorporated marketing campaigns.

What to Do

The most important action you can take is to develop a strong relationship with your Web development and / or Marketing team. Work with them to develop text-heavy content, and supplement it with a link development campaign — for your site or your blog. Keep in mind that Google, by default, only shows two pages of results per site. If two already show, don’t expect more. If you need more listings in order to push a “bad” result further down the list, you will have to create new sites (different domain) or work with other organizations to improve their rankings. If you feel that you’ve implemented the strategy above and aren’t getting results, consult an SEO specialist for advice.

Extra Info

Google uses a complicated mathematical algorithm to determine rankings. When Googlebot (Google’s spider) “looks” at a page, it measures factors such as links and content. Then, it assigns a weight to each factor and makes a calculation. That’s pretty much your ranking. Only Google knows what the actual algorithm is, but the SEO industry has been able to evaluate trends and identify many of the influencing factors, such as content and links.

One of the most important factors Google considers is content. If your keyword density is high, then it assumes your page is relevant. For example: If you use the words “March Madness” six times on a page, then Google would give a higher ranking than a page that only uses it once – for the search query “march madness.”

Another important factor that Google considers is links. It matter what those links say, and where they come from. In essence, it is a popularity contest. It is better to have a link pointing to your page from another high ranked page than one with a low ranking. And if you wanted to rank high for the terms “March Madness,” then the link say “March Madness 2004″ instead of “Dan’s Homepage.” The page with the best links wins the top slot.

If you score high for text and links, then you will rank even higher.

[View the original article]

Would you pay someone $1500 to publish your words?

These days, it seems anyone can be a writer, or an author. Getting published is as easy as setting up a blog, slapping together an ebook, or paying someone to publish your work.

In fact, for a mere $1500 you can bang out a 1200-word article and have it appear in hardcover alongside “best-selling authors” who have spent decades earning their stripes. After all, why waste time earning credibility as an author when you can simply buy it?

Call me old school, but I actually respect my craft. I’ve invested the time and money to professionally study both classic and modern authors, and my bookshelves are brimming with my favorites: Fitzgerald, Shakespeare, Tolkien, Garcia Marquez, Rice and a collection of children’s literature, among others. I’ve been known to read cereal boxes and milk cartons, and occasionally and oh-so carefully, correct a professor.

To me, writing isn’t just a profession. It is one of my loves. And paying someone to publish my words just to see my name in print would equate to something much worse than being a snakeoil salesman. It’s something no self-respecting writer would do.

At least that none I know.

Thankfully, I’m not the only one that feels this way… There’s a special notation in the American Heritage Dictionary to address the frauds that try to pass themselves off as more than they are:

Usage Note: … The verb author, which had been out of use for a long period, has been rejuvenated in recent years with the sense “to assume responsibility for the content of a published text.”…. The sentence He has authored a dozen books on the subject was unacceptable to 74 percent of the Usage Panel, probably because it implies that having a book published is worthy of special lexical distinction, a notion that sits poorly with conventional literary sensibilities and seems to smack of press agentry.

Note the part about assuming responsibility for the content of a published text… There’s also clarification that states an author is someone who practices writing as a profession – meaning, of course, that they get paid to create, and not vice versa.

I feel sorry for these snakeoil authors. They don’t see the forest through the trees…

• The benefits of earning your stripes far outweigh the ego boost of instant credibility – You don’t have to be a starving artist, but making a real effort to learn and polish your skills will not only make you a better writer, it will earn you the respect of other writers. And of your fans. On the flip side, when people discover (and they always will) that the ONLY reason your name is in print is because you bribed a publisher with green just so you could boast that you’re a “best-selling author” – you’ll INSTANTLY lose the credibility you paid so dearly for. With no REAL credits to your name, you’ll become a laughingstock. You might even be called a fraud. On the flip side, getting a paid gig that you’ve earned by gaining recognition for your talent over time, and from your peers, will make it that much sweeter (and true) when you say you’re a writer and author.
• You’re a victim, allowing yourself to get preyed upon – Yes, there is a money-making scam behind this system – and YOU are the sucker. The publishers take your money, and then rely upon you to buy and sell their books. If you the words you write suck and they don’t resonate with your audience, they don’t care… Because they already made their money. After all, you already paid cash for the 500 copies in your garage… (No wonder it can be called a best-seller!) But hey, at least you can say you published a book, right?

Thankfully, these shams and quasi-authors are easy to spot. Google them. Google their publisher. Ask what they do FOR A LIVING. In fact, ask a lot of questions. How did they get gig? Who is their agent? Did they have a draw, and what were the royalties? Do they have any more books published? What was the editorial process like?

Then use the brain God gave you. If they’re a snakeoil author, they won’t be able to answer your specific questions without squirming. And if they claim to have written a recent best-seller and clearly aren’t working in the industry, and in fact have ZERO prospects, run. Fast. Trust me, you don’t want any of what they are selling.

Their willingness to trade integrity and respect for the craft for personal gratification is shameful. And presenting their pseudo-work as more than it really is seems like an indicator of a much bigger personality flaw. Perhaps poor self-esteem is driving an overwhelming need to feel important. Maybe taking the easy way out and cutting corners is their norm, rather than the exception to the rule. Or maybe, the postage-paid status symbol is compensating for a lack of real talent, a desperate attempt necessary to manipulate the unsuspecting and oh-so-willing sheep into buying their sub-par wares.

Just like the snakeoil salesman, I can’t take these wanna-be-writers seriously. They’re the type of people who spend a day visiting campus, and then say “they went to Harvard Law School.” Or they spend a week earning a certificate in a psuedo-science like NLP, and then spout expertise in neuroscience. Full of half-truths and exaggerations, these fluff-over-substance types will happily mislead you in any area, comfortable that they can always say they never “lied” if called on the carpet. But if you dig, you’ll find the facts don’t usually support their brash claims.

My advice? Steer clear, because their approach to life seems to ensure nothing but trouble if it becomes entangled with yours.

This Memorial weekend, my pops was stoked to share a slideshow of some old pics he scanned. This dapper lad is him, the day he was discharged from the Army. He was called for active duty shortly after marrying my mom – before I was born. Bless her heart for bundling me up, and hauling her fussy newborn through LaGuardia onto a transatlantic flight; It couldn’t have been easy, but as soon as I was “big enough,” she took me overseas to meet him!

We lived there until the day of this photo, when we moved back stateside. I did a bunch of cool things as a bebe, like visit the Alps and waddle through famous German gardens and forests – none of which I remember, but the photos are cool. Can’t be sure, but I like to joke that the experience at least partially contributed to my explorer ways…

Anywho, I wanted to do something nice this Memorial Day for our heroes, and found Soldiers Angels. I just finished the first letter to my adopted soldier, complete with a questionnaire and lucky charm – a coin a Navy friend brought back from South Africa. It’s a great organization, and gives you a personal way to support our troops.

There are more than 1400 soldiers waiting for an angel. Please take 5 minutes to send a care package, or adopt your own solider today.

When I studied Public Relations at Kent State University, I was fortunate to have a couple of really awesome professors – Zoe McCathrin and Bill Sledzik.

Thanks to Zoe, I still often read my copy backward in order to catch typos (and feel just as mortified when I catch one). Anyone who had her can attest to the fact she was a tough teacher – she’d fail you for a single typo in an entire media kit.

Needless to say, many students left her classroom in tears over the years. But her toughness made Kent JMC students much, much better than average. And the longer I am in the industry, the more I realize how well Zoe did her job, and appreciate her hard work.

Bill, on the other hand, was new to the academic scene when I enrolled in his class. His energy and enthusiasm made Public Relations more exciting. He brought a lot of fresh, real world experience and practical tips to the classroom.

It is thanks to one of Bill’s pearls of wisdom that I’ve enjoyed many of my successes, including getting my story and pic in The New York Times – a placement all PR professionals strive for, but rarely achieve. Even though I went a different path after graduation, landing early on in the field of Interactive Marketing, this common sense tip of his has always served me well when it came to getting a news release, or other piece of content published.

It went something like this:

If you want someone to publish your new release content, make it easy as possible for them to do so.

I’ve spent the last year on the other side of the fence, publishing online news for people in the PR industry. What I see on a daily basis is disappointing, and full of bad practices. With that in mind, here’s a few tips on how to write news releases for online publishers.

– I often write tongue-in-cheek, so while you should make a mental note of these things, don’t take my attempt at humor too seriously. –

Tips for Getting Your News Picked Up By Online Publishers

• Write good headlines – First, write a short headline. No one wants to read a headline so long that it wraps three lines on the page. Personally, by the time I get to the end, I forgot what the beginning said. It’s also an immediate red flag that you may not be able to write concisely, and heavy editing is going to be needed. Plus, it generally makes a good design look bad, and dilutes SEO efforts. Second, don’t shout (use all caps). All you’re doing is forcing an editor to fix your ego boost before they can publish your story. If an online publisher wants headlines in all caps, they can easily change every single one on the site in 5 minutes using CSS. What they can’t do is easily change your all caps to title or sentence case. Given the choice between running your story and one that is formatted correctly, which one do you think they will choose?
• Don’t put your name (or your client’s name) in bold every time it’s used – I have no idea what purpose this serves. What I do know is that it’s not only distracting to readers, it also mucks up my HTML and has a negative effect on my SEO strategy, and therefore, forces me to spend 10-15 minutes deleting them.
• Embed links the right way – If you’re publishing in a print environment, it might make sense to write out links the long way. But if you’re looking to get published online, this is just bad practice: Seriously, who does this serve? Certainly not YOUR readers, and definitely not the publishers you’re hoping will print it, and who will subsequently invest another 15-20 minutes to properly embed your links so that readers can actually comprehend YOUR message, which is now lost in a tumultuous sea of links. Also, you are missing out on highly valuable opportunities to improve the online visibility of your story, and your website, by following this bad, but widely prevalent, practice — but that’s another post for another day. To those in the know, it comes off as either lazy and/or ignorant of the basic best practices of online content development.
• Learn the basics of SEO – Every single article, press release, blog post and piece of content that’s published online by a third party has an opportunity to impact rankings through search engine optimization. Not understanding how your online PR initiatives integrate and impact other efforts, like SEO, to improve online visibility is playing with fire. If you are lucky, the only impact will be an opportunity cost. Worst case, it could have a negative impact on your rankings. It may even put you out of a job once your client wises up, too. (In a former life, I dedicated a significant chunk of my time to “fixing” news releases for Fortune 500 clients, who ended up investing top dollars twice to get the same results they could have easily achieved by hiring someone with both PR and SEO experience the first time around.) Once your client sees the evidence that properly optimized releases always achieve better results than a traditional one from a holistic marketing perspective, who do you think they will hire? At a bare minimum, you should understand the best practices of online content development, including link building.
• Avoid fluff, give me the facts – A lot of online publishers automate the posting of press releases. So, no matter how good or bad your story is, it will probably still generate some online coverage. But the credible sites – those that manually review, edit and post stories – don’t want a press release filled with self-serving language garbage.
• Provide value – See above. Then make sure your story is actually newsworthy.
• Don’t annoy the publisher – Sure, that sounds rude. But they are probably busy editing out the miscellaneous HTML that’s dragging down their page weight, the handshake quotes used to fill space, and the headlines that don’t follow good SEO practices from the 50 PR people that submitted a crappy story before you emailed them. So, if you send them several messages to check on a release you submitted less than an hour ago, unless you have something earth-shattering to offer, your story is likely to end up in the recycle bin.
• Submit your story – Sure, it seems like common sense — a real no brainer, really — but if you want a story published, you should actually submit it. I am thoroughly amazed at how many emails I get on a daily basis that:
  • Are a forward to a story from Facebook or another social media site, which when I click on the link, can’t be accessed;
  • Contain just one or two sentences alerting me to a story the PR professional wants published, and then links (or not) to a few details on another website.
  • Reference a file they sent me days, weeks or months ago (or not at all). If you think a publisher might need a logo or embed code, make their job easier by attaching whatever information is pertinent the first time around. If you force them to sift through the hundreds of email they have saved, or dig through YouTube to find the HTML to display the video you mentioned but gave the wrong title or link to, you’re creating more effort for the publisher than your story is worth. Unless they specifically asked for or initiated a story, they’re not that interested in it. In fact, routinely forcing publishers to compensate for your lack of time, or just plain laziness, could land you in their junk mailbox permanently.
  • Are provided in an image format (like a PDF or JPG file), instead of text, subsequently requiring the editor to convert files (which is relatively worthless from a content perspective) or retype the entire story. Send them your document in Word, or another text editor. If you can’t manage that, just put it in an email.

REPEAT: If you’re too lazy to send a publisher a written story tweaked to his audience along with your request, let alone cut/paste important details into an email, thereby forcing him become a detective instead of a publisher, so that he has to Google the crap out of your breadcrumb trail in order to wring lemonade out of a lemon, don’t expect your story to get published. It’s not that online publishers are lazy; It’s that unlike the traditional print publishers of the past, most online publishers don’t have an entire team of jockeys dedicated to turning your scraps into meaty masterpieces. They are probably one or two people who simply do not have the 2-4 hours it can take to track down the basic facts, then write/format/publish, a story they didn’t ask for, and that is your job, as the PR professional who wants it published, to provide.

Now, if you want to impress an online publisher, here’s a good juicy tidbit for you. Do them a favor and include well-written meta data. (I am still waiting to see this happen… Just once, even, would be nice!)

It’s too bad that all PR students professionals can’t take Sledzik’s class. If they did, they’d not only walk away with some best PR practices in the business, but also an invaluable life lesson:

Anytime in life that you want someone to do you a favor, make it as easy as possible for them to grant it.

Last week, Google updated its ranking algorithm in what’s been dubbed the “Farmer Update” because it targeted sites with low-quality content, like content farms which are often manipulated for SEO purposes. According to Google, the update affects about 12% of search queries.

Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land posted a report of the top winners and losers in the aftermath of the Farmer Update.

Google’s algorithm update comes on the heels of criticism from The New York Times regarding the relevance and quality of Google search engine results, and recent penalties for high profile sites like J.C. Penny, Overstock and Forbes, all of which were related to the use of link building tactics Google said violated its webmaster guidelines.

If you publish content online, the Farmer Update should be a wakeup call. Sure, Google’s said it before, but this time it was with a little more attitude. Google’s sick of crappy content (or getting criticized), and it’s going to punish you if it catches you gaming the system. So, it’s more important than ever that as a writer, online publisher or website owner, you understand how to make Google happy.

Tips on How to Make Google Happy & Avoid Penalties

First, don’t panic every time there is an algorithm update. Any experienced SEO consultant will tell you that it often takes weeks for rankings to “settle” following a change. Wild fluctuations in traffic and rankings are pretty normal, and temporary.

Monitor reports, but understand the data is incomplete. Unless your site has been penalized, and you have violated Google’s guidelines, wait until the dust settles before making any changes to your website – even if you experience a sudden loss in traffic. If you’re doing the right things, there’s a good chance you’ll end up rewarded for it. If you overreact by making drastic changes to your site, you may do more harm than good.

With that said, here are 5 tips on how to make Google happy:

• Create unique, quality content – Google’s goal is to provide users with USEFUL, relevant results. According to Google, useful content and information includes original “research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”
• Work with an experienced SEO strategist – There is a ton of SEO misinformation on the Internet, and following it is one of the biggest reasons sites fall victim to search engine penalties. Search engine optimization is complicated, and requires deep insight and knowledge of everything from code to keyword selection and placement, and everything in between. You’re playing Russian roulette with your search engine rankings unless you work with an SEO consultant with a proven track record.
• Stay white hat – There is nothing wrong with optimizing your website for the search engines. Just don’t use black hat techniques to game the system. If you don’t what that means, click the contact button on your right, and hire me.
• Continuous improvement – Google’s always improving itself, and it thinks you should, too. The search engine favors fresh content, and will reward you for improvements like faster page load times, clean code and proper redirects.
• Please your audience first – Don’t get too hung up on making Google happy. Sure, they are the 1000 pound Gorilla right now. But if you provide a product or service that people just can’t live without, you’ll get plenty of visitors — and Google, and the rest of the search engines, will be right behind them.

Finally, monitor your progress on a regular basis. If you aren’t reviewing your web analytics and search engine rankings on a monthly basis, how will you know if your investment is paying off? How will you identify and evaluate opportunities for improvement? And worse, how will you know if anything you’ve done has resulted in a Google penalty or drop in rankings? (If you need a monthly ranking report, or other business intelligence, you can get it at 3iCreative.)

Ultimately, while these tips will keep Google happy, they will make you even happier, because following them will result in more qualified visitors to your website.

Would you choose a new doctor to perform a major surgery, if he’s never operated before?

Read an interesting new article on SERoundtable today on how SEO developed in the early 90s, and how newbies lack the perspective necessary to discern good versus bad advice. I would say this is also true in Web development/Internet Marketing in general.

I’ve been engaged in SEO/Internet Marketing/Web dev for over a decade, and although I have been fortunate to work with some of the *best* people in the industry (literally), there are still plenty of things I don’t know, or could know better. And like most of the pros I know, I have a wide knowledge base and special areas of expertise. That seems to be the case in our industry. We all have talents… Some of us are coders, some of us are designers, some of us are “writers,” and some of us are the “glue” that bring the elements together (I could go on…). That’s alot of expertise and specialties for one website, but like a good recipie, you need all the right ingredients to pull off a truly successful project.

So, just because your nephew Marvin “launched” a blog or two, it doesn’t mean he understands the finer points necessary to put together a creative, usable website, including the technical elements, that will lead to rankings and conversions. In other words, a good website. Unless he is hooked into a community of REAL experts who can provide guidance, and understands how all the elements interact together, both of you will probably learn the hard way what is good or bad advice. Long-term, it will cost you much more money in re-development and lost opportunity.

The results of SEO & Web development efforts can be measured. So before you decide to go the “cheap” route and pass off SEO & web development efforts to a newbie, think again. Learn the right questions to ask a Web developer or SEO, and then ask them, before you hire them. Better yet, ask to see their “results.” And once you hire them, let them be the experts. Just like you would not trust a serious surgery to a brand new doctor (learning in his basement) who’s never completed an operation, it’s not wise to put a serious project in the hands of a SEO/Web dev newbie – and especially one that is learning based on the information posted in forums and on blogs.

Most experts are happy to share information with others truly interested in learning. However, misinformation disseminated by newbies is problematic. Even worse, in addition to leading people astray and getting poor results, newbies posing as experts can end up shooting themselves in the foot by alienating the very community they aspire to belong to.

We’ve all had a client who thinks they know better. How can we help them better understand the importance of all the *little* things we do and add to a project to make it a success? And what questions do you think are most important to ask before hiring a Web developer/SEO? What is your opinion on taking the “short-cuts” clients often want?