• Why SEO is Important to Public Relations (SEO for PR)

    Why SEO is Important to Public Relations (SEO for PR)

    SEO has been a well-established practice for many years, yet it remains a mystery even to those thoroughly steeped in the art and science of promotion. This is a problem because the absence of SEO can negatively impact otherwise well-thought-out sales strategies, marketing campaigns, and even brand positioning. With every day that passes, it becomes more and more important for public relations pros to understand the significance SEO carries in crafting a smart strategy.

    First, some basics.

    What is SEO?

    SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the practice of increasing content’s visibility with search engines (e.g. Google and Bing) through efforts like incorporating relevant keywords into content, writing descriptive metadata, tagging images, and much more.

    Why should marketers and PR pros care?

    Optimizing content for search engines increases visibility, thus increasing the number of people exposed to your messages – i.e. the most important thing we do.

    “Content”, by the way, is anything you’ve designed to be seen by your target audiences. Your website, your whitepapers, your press releases, your social media channels, your thought leadership articles, your webinars – everything that requires a description, be it a handful of tags or a boatload of text, will benefit from being optimized for search.

    If what you’re saying now is “But what does that actually get me in the end?”, consider key learnings like:

    When a question or need arises, our phones are far and away our most trusted resource, with 96% of people using a smartphone to get things done.

    To meet these needs, people are at least twice as likely to use search than other online or offline sources such as store visits or social media. Not only is search the most used resource, it’s the resource 87% of people turn to first. 

    think with Google, September 2016

    And if what you’re saying now is…

    “But I’m not an SEO expert. How am I supposed to help with any of this?”

    Here’s your answer:

    • Bulleted text. Breaking up text into bullets and numbers makes it easier to read. The longer your audience spends on your content (i.e. the better the user experience), the better it will rank in search results.
    • Keywords/keyphrases. At the start of any PR program, you should decide on the keywords, keyphrases and topics that are most relevant to your brand. Their relevancy is determined partly by how you want to describe your brand, partly by how your direct competitors describe themselves, and partly by the specific terms your target audiences are using when they search for the products and services you provide. Make sure your content thoroughly (but not obnoxiously) incorporates the terms you’ve deemed important to your positioning.
    • Links/backlinks. Search engines decide content’s value by the number of outside sites linking to it. If you want your content to perform better in search, make sure your various online properties, social channels and media friendlies link to it as much as possible.
    • Descriptive anchor text. Search engines pay attention to the specific text you use when you hyperlink to outside content. As always, they’re looking for keywords, so be descriptive. “Click here” is wrong. “Read our latest eBook, Why SEO is Important to PR, by Matter Communications” is right.
    • Image titles. Surprise! The file names of the images you use are important to SEO. Just like with anchor text, make sure the file names of the images you use online are descriptive and use hyphens, not underscores. “Why_SEO_is_Important_to_PR.jpg” is wrong, and for that matter, so is “pic for blog thing.jpg”. “Why-SEO-is-Important-to-PR.jpg” is right.
    • Social Media channels. Remember the rule about how everything that requires a description will benefit from SEO? Social profiles are no exception. Make sure they feature keywords and appropriate links, and keep your activity up so the channels steadily grow over time. Engagement, however, is absolutely paramount. The more people you have engaging with your content – liking, sharing, commenting – the farther your content spreads, and the more links you have telling search engines that your content is valuable.

    As you can see, there are a lot of little things we can all do to positively influence the visibility of the content we write, place and promote. You may now go forth, and optimize.

    If your curiosity is decidedly piqued, however, remember that some very knowledgeable, very talkative PR and SEO people are just an email away.

    How do PR and SEO work together?

    PR and SEO work together by creating high-quality, newsworthy content that naturally attracts backlinks from authoritative media outlets and industry publications, which signals credibility to search engines and improves organic rankings. PR efforts amplify content visibility through media placements, social engagement, and brand mentions, while SEO ensures that content is optimized with relevant keywords and technical elements so it can be easily discovered by target audiences searching for related topics.

    How can PR and SEO teams integrate for maximum impact?

    PR and SEO teams can integrate by using keyword research from the SEO team to inform media pitches and thought leadership content. PR teams should target topics that audiences are actively searching for while securing high-authority backlinks from media placements that boost search rankings. Additionally, PR amplifies SEO-optimized content through earned media coverage, social engagement, and brand mentions, creating a unified strategy where PR drives awareness and credibility while SEO capitalizes on that interest through organic search visibility.

    What’s a common misconception about SEO that PR teams often (incorrectly) assume?

    A common misconception PR teams often (incorrectly) assume is that acquiring a high quantity of backlinks from any source will automatically and instantly boost SEO rankings. You have to focus on those tier 1 (Forbes, FastCompany, Fortune) and tier 2 (niche publications- think like https://www.printweek.com/ for printing companies) to boost rankings, visibility, and domain authority. In addition PR links, natural links like directories, partner businesses, and blogs from other websites should be monitored and pursued (when appropriate) by your search team.

    Vanessa Boynton

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  • DIY SEO – Four Easy Steps you can take to improve your Search Engine Visibility

    DIY SEO – Four Easy Steps you can take to improve your Search Engine Visibility

    Search Engine Optimization [SEO], is one of the best free marketing channels for any small or medium-sized business. If you’re anything like 89% of typical consumers, chances are that your buyer journey begins with a search, whether that be on Google, Amazon, or any other site that features a search engine. 

    Here at Matter, we provide enterprise-level search engine optimization and search engine marketing [SEM] (paid ads) to a variety of large and medium-sized businesses. That being said, we realize that there are plenty of small businesses and mom-and-pop operations that are just looking to do the legwork themselves. 

    DIY SEO is the process of improving your site’s organic search visibility without paying an agency or expensive SEO tools to do the job for you. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing SEO in-house, but it’s important to understand the basics so you’re making the most of your time and getting the results you’re looking for. As your marketing partner, we’ve provided you with a step-by-step guide to DIY SEO!

    Step 1: Keyword Research

    The first step of DIY SEO is determining what keyword you need to rank for. If your brand isn’t well known, you’ll have to rank for non-branded keywords, which are common tongue words and phrases that either describe what you do or how you do it. This should always start with a google search. 

    To find the best search terms, ask yourself a simple question: “If I were looking for this product or service, how would I search for it?” Search engines like Google and Yahoo have been widely utilized for over 20 years now, and most of us know exactly how to find a product especially if we’re knowledgeable about the subject. Trust that you know 

    You’ll notice that when you start to search for a term, your search term is appended with several variations. If you’re trying to rank for GRC, which stands for “Governance, Risk, and Compliance,” you won’t want to target that term directly. Instead play around with the search bar to find longer phrases since those are usually far easier to rank for. 

    Another useful way to find keywords is leveraging AI tools like Chat GPT and Google Gemini, with some prodding you can typically get some good ideas around more general subjects. In this instance we’ve asked Gemini “If you were looking for forensic engineering, what would you google search?” The original response was too broad, so we then asked it to be more specific. The results gave us some great ideas around some specific sub-services related to the parent topic:

    Step 2: On-Page and Off-Page SEO

    Once you’ve determined your subject and created your webpage, you’ll need to optimize it. Most Content Management Systems [CMS] like WordPress and Wix have SEO plugins that you can download for free, but it’s still good to know some basic best practices. 

    On-page SEO involves marking up the visible part of the webpage (the one you’re looking at now) to make sure that all of your target keywords are in the body text and you’re including them within your header tags. In this instance the, “Step 2: On-Page and Off-Page SEO” is one of our header tags because we believe that it’s one of the most important parts of DIY SEO- that’s the same type of process you should be thinking about when laying out pages. 

    Other on-page SEO best practices include:

    • Include your target keyword in the title 
    • Putting keyword related to your parent topics in the headers of your page
    • Using bulleted lists to make information more readable
    • Adding images and video content to make content more dynamic

    Off-page SEO deals directly with non-visible elements of the page. Within your page builder, you’ll typically see blank areas that talk about meta fields, local schema, social markup, etc… The most important thing to denote on these pages are the meta title (usually the same text as your regular title) and your meta description (a brief description of what a user can expect to find on the page if they’re looking at search results. Populating these fields with keywords is another great way to improve the rankings of your webpages. 

    The most important part of on-page SEO is content quality. Make sure, as you write the document, that the information you’re providing is helpful and digestible to a normal user. Google values websites that create helpful, reliable, people-first content, and automatically assigns higher rankings to sites that do so on a regular and consistent basis. 

    Other off-page SEO best practices include: 

    • Setting alt attributes to images to rank in Google image results
    • Setting schema (or structured data) on local, about, and other niche page types
    • Ensuring that your URL contains the keyword you want to rank for
    • Ensuring that meta data and URLs aren’t overly long and accurately convey what’s on the page

    Step 3: Local SEO

    If you’re a local business, you realize the importance of getting in front of the people in your area. One of the most effective tools to get in front of local audiences is through your Google Business Profile. 

    After following the instructions given via Google about how to claim your business, you’re ready to start optimizing. In this context more information is better; making sure your address is correct, business hours are updated, your asking your clients for reviews, and you accurately designating your service areas are all best practices. 

    Step 4: Technical SEO + Tracking

    Typically, Tech SEO issues only plague large sites, but it’s good to keep a pulse on both site performance and organic performance. We recommend Google Search Console as it only gives organic data rather than GA4’s all encompassing site traffic information. 

    Speaking about technical SEO specifically, the most important thing to keep an eye on are you core web vitals, which use a variety of different measurements to determine whether your URLs are good, need improvement, or are poor in terms of page performance. Normally, page-speed or page responsiveness will bring these KPI’s down and should be fixed by either minimizing large image files, and ensuring that your plugins are updated or you’re deleting the ones that aren’t currently used. 

    SEO is an ongoing process, but with these four key tips you’ll be ranking and generating traffic in no-time. If you need help with SEO or you’re looking to run some paid Google Ads, visit our SEO and SEM services page and take a look at our client success stories.

    Ethan Lyons

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  • Top 10 Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Best Practices to Elevate Your Marketing Strategy

    Top 10 Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Best Practices to Elevate Your Marketing Strategy

    In today’s digital landscape, the belief that marketing programs can always be refined is fundamental. Capturing, synthesizing and understanding all available data is crucial for identifying areas of improvement whether you are targeting consumers directly or influencing the C-suite buying committee. Marketing performance typically lags in three key areas: brand strategy, awareness and the marketing funnel.

    Why Every Marketing Program Needs Continuous Improvement

    No matter how advanced your marketing strategy is, there’s always room for improvement. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is the key to analyzing the performance of your marketing tactics across the conversion funnel, helping you identify steps to boost the percentage of site visitors converting on landing pages or from one stage of the funnel to the next. By leveraging a set of tools and harnessing the vast campaign data they are already generating, marketers can significantly enhance their marketing programs’ performance.

    Before diving into your optimization efforts, it’s essential to conduct a thorough marketing strategy audit. This will help you pinpoint any gaps in your marketing programs and identify key areas for improvement. Once you’ve identified these areas, it’s time to start optimizing your marketing performance. Here are 10 conversion rate optimization best practices MatterMKTG prioritizes for clients:

    Brand Strategy: Setting the Foundation for Success

    1. Evaluate Your Competition

    To ensure your brand stands out, regularly assess your competition. Are you differentiating your message effectively? By identifying the core messaging of your competitors, you should see how you can make your messaging unique and stand out in a crowded marketplace. 

    2. Re-evaluate Your Audience

    Knowing your audience is key. Are you addressing their needs and concerns? If you aren’t speaking directly to your buyer’s most critical pain points, no mix of media and content will help improve conversions. Re-evaluate your messaging and buyer personas to ensure it resonates with what they care about. Once you are confident you know your audience and what your competition is doing, bring these insights together to develop new brand messaging that is meaningful (important to the audience) and unique (stands out from your competitors).

    3. Test Your Messaging

    Experiment with different messages to see what resonates best with your audience. This could involve split testing headlines, value propositions, or CTA buttons either on your website or through user testing tools. The audience must be intrigued by your messaging to want to learn more and be provided with enough information to know what you do and how you can help them.

    Brand Awareness: Maximizing Your Reach

    4. Media Mix Analysis

    Examine your media mix to spot weaknesses. Are you leveraging SEO, social media, PR and paid advertising effectively? Each channel plays a critical role in driving brand awareness. If you aren’t getting the impressions or website traffic you expect, you may need to rethink your media strategy.

    5. SEO Strategy

    Revisit your content and keyword strategy. Are you optimizing your product pages and campaign landing pages? Consider using SEO tools like SEMrush or Moz to identify opportunities for improvement.

    6. Paid Media Campaigns

    Many brands make the mistake of thinking their organic channels can drive new leads alone. Paid campaigns play a critical role in reaching the desired audiences directly and more frequently. Even a small paid media campaign can drive significant traffic to key landing pages. Invest strategically to boost visibility where it matters most.

    Marketing Funnel and Conversions: Driving Results

    7. Conduct a Closed-Won Audit

    Analyze your successful deals to identify which industries, job titles or media channels are driving the most business. Understanding the factors behind these wins can inform your CRO strategy. Go a step further and analyze what drives conversions in each step of your funnel. This process will uncover patterns, such as a certain piece of content that consistently converts with certain job titles or industries.

    8. Heat Mapping and Website Flow

    Utilize heat mapping tools to understand user behavior and how site visitors interact with your website. Heatmapping can reveal deeper user insights, like what information a visitor is spending time reading or which CTAs they click. This data can highlight areas for improvement helping you enhance user experience and improve conversions.

    9. A/B Testing Lower Funnel Offers

    Split testing is crucial for optimizing conversion points. Experiment with different offers and CTAs in the lower funnel, limiting your variables to one focus area at a time to see what drives higher conversion rates.

     10. Implementing CRO Best Practices

    Effective CRO requires a strategic approach, focusing on continuous testing and optimization efforts. By regularly evaluating your brand strategy, enhancing brand awareness, and fine-tuning your marketing funnel, you can achieve higher conversion rates and overall marketing success.

    Remember, every element of your marketing strategy can be optimized. By leveraging data, testing different approaches, and refining your tactics, you can elevate your brand and achieve better results. Start your CRO journey today and see the difference it can make for your website visitors and long-term growth.

    Wyatt Craig

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  • Why Every Marketing Strategy Should Start with an Audit

    Why Every Marketing Strategy Should Start with an Audit

    Before you go to the grocery store, you check your fridge to make sure you don’t wind up with four cartons of eggs – again. When you build a marketing plan for your brand, you’re going to want to conduct an audit. Brand audits are the fridge-checks of marketing. 

    In marketing, audits reveal areas of opportunity, trends in the market, background on an industry, target audience information and unique brand features. The details and insights your brand may uncover during an audit are extremely valuable when it comes to developing your brand and marketing strategy. Similar to taking fridge inventory before shopping, you may review your brand’s Instagram posts to get a sense of the messages, images and brand info that’s been shared to determine if it’s resonating with your target audience, if it’s following best practices and if it’s driving results for KPIs.

    Ultimately, the goal of a brand audit is to provide a holistic view of your marketing operation, analyze your competition and inform a brand and marketing strategy that positions you to reach your goals. 

    Main types of marketing audits:

    An audit can include many things, and the type of audits you execute may vary depending on your brand’s needs or project goals. When beginning any form of an audit, it’s important to conduct one-on-one interviews, focus groups or research studies with both internal subject matter experts at your organization and with your customers. You should ask them questions about your brand and products or services, and try to learn more about their experiences. Additionally, ask them about their pain points, goals and values. Gathering information directly from your customers can help you build buyer persons, plan for messaging and more.  

    Next, you’ll want to conduct various audits of your existing marketing. For our fully integrated clients, we recommend the following types of audits:  

    1. Messaging Audit: Analyze the messages and sentiments in the marketplace about your brand and your products or services. Understanding how your brand is being portrayed will help to identify areas of opportunity, as well as highlight what’s being done successfully. ​ 
    2. Content Audit: Review the content assets being used to drive your marketing objectives. Whether it’s to educate prospects on your solutions or drive leads to convert, this is a crucial step in understanding how to best leverage your current content, and how you can improve new content. All these details will inform your content marketing strategy.
    3. SEO/SEM Audit​: Assess your website’s organic and paid search rank in a search engine to provide insights and optimizations that will improve how your prospects find your brand. Additionally, you’ll be able to understand where you rank for the keywords that are relevant to your industry. An SEO/SEM audit can also provide insights into what your audience is searching for.  
    4. Social Media Audit​: A brand’s social media presence often influences a prospect’s first impression of the brand, meaning it can provide key insights for important optimizations. The audit should include both paid and organic social media to provide a holistic view of how the brand comes across to your customers.  
    5. Email/Marketing Automation Audit​: A lead-nurturing program using email is one of the best tactics to include in your overall marketing strategy to reach your goals. Review your current CRM/MAP to look for areas of opportunity to optimize emails, workflows, lists and your overall marketing automation system that fits in with the larger lead nurture strategy, content promotion plan or customer engagement efforts. 
    6. Website Audit​: This can encompass a variety of exercises, from audits of a website’s messaging and content, to branding and design, to UX and technical audits. This in-depth exercise provides a 360-degree view of how your brand comes to life on one of the most important owned channels: your website.  
    7. Competitive Audit: After you’ve conducted the above audits for your brand, it’s important to  take an in-depth look at your competitors so you know where you stand against them — and how you can stand out in the market. Look at their website, messaging, positioning in the market, content and media channels (organic and paid search and social) to provide insights into how you can improve your presence and representation in each area. This can be as intricate as necessary and should focus on providing insights for the main goals for your marketing strategy.

    To gather the details necessary for a holistic marketing strategy that will help you achieve your goals, consider tapping into third-party research tools. These tools can provide the data needed to fully round out your strategy and support the insights gathered for the internal and external interviews and other audit findings.  

    Once you complete your audit, you’ll have a holistic understanding of your position in the market, how best to highlight your unique value propositions to resonate with your buyer personas, clear direction on content and messaging, and so much more. 

    Brand audits are highly strategic and can be a cumbersome project for an in-house team to produce. Audits require a large time commitment, the right third-party tools and the brand strategy experts to conduct stakeholder interviews and research, analyze the marketing efforts, contextualize the data, and produce actionable insights that will help you develop a strong brand and marketing strategy. At Matter, our team of strategists help brands at all stages achieve their goals through these methods. Interested in learning more? Contact us today!  

    Sara Roberts

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  • Marketing Jump Start Part II: Optimizing Your Digital Ecosystem

    Marketing Jump Start Part II: Optimizing Your Digital Ecosystem

    While the digital landscape has changed over the past few months, businesses are still looking to accomplish the same goals: generate leads/sales, drive awareness and/or engagement, and sustain or grow their leadership position. To do so, it’s imperative to focus holistically on optimizing your digital ecosystem. A consistent focus on the following programs will help your business continue to succeed: 

    • Optimize your website/landing pages. 
    • Consistently evaluate your paid, owned and earned media strategies. 
    • Nurture leads with effective email marketing/marketing automation strategies.

    When your digital ecosystem is a well-oiled machine, your marketing efforts will drive brand awareness and preference, as well as increased engagement and higher quality leads. 

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    Step 1: Optimizing Your Website/Landing Pages 

    Your media programs, social media channels and email marketing campaigns may be in good working order, but if you’re website isn’t functional or on-brand, you simply won’t succeed. At the center of a healthy digital ecosystem is a well-crafted company website. Here’s what you should focus on to ensure your website is ready to support your digital efforts: 

    Branding and Messaging:

    • Make sure your branding and messaging make sense. What is your website about? Does the tone and manner of the content match your brand? Is the brand identity consistent throughout the website? Is the design visually appealing, clean and straight-forward? Your brand positioning should be clear and obvious on your home page and your content should be easy to scan.

    Navigation & UX:

    • Do you have goals to track performance? What is each page trying to achieve based on your UX strategy? 
    • Keep your site or landing page’s main navigation simple and intuitive. Don’t get too carried away with bloated “mega-menu” designs unless they are necessary. Prioritize “above the fold” content that intrigues users to scroll down and further engage with your site. 
    • Make sure to incorporate CTAs to show the next steps. You want to take the user down a path that helps them make an informed decision. Be sure to add a CTA enticing visitors to follow your social networks, and include follow and share icons in header and footer. 
    • Don’t set it and forget it. Continuously test your homepage and be sure it’s helping you reach your goals.

    Search Engine Optimization:

    • Every page of your website is a potential search engine entry point, so assign a primary keyword topic to each. Placing that keyword in areas of emphasis like the title tag, main heading and even the URL helps Google identify the main topic. 
    • Don’t skimp on copy, especially for your most important or competitive keywords. Google typically won’t rank pages with “thin” content (one or two sentences) very highly. Images and video can help boost your standing, too. 
    • Mobile friendliness and page speed have become big parts of search algorithms. No matter how great your content is, if your webpage loads slowly on mobile devices, chances are Google won’t serve it up to searchers. 
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    Step 2: Evaluate Your Paid Media Strategies to Drive Traffic and General Leads 

    Consumer habits, business drivers and competitive landscapes have changed in this new business environment, so now is the time to reset or re-evaluate your existing digital programs to ensure you’re continuing to drive maximum effectiveness. Start by defining goals and budgets through one of these methods: 

    • Top down: What is my budget? At a reasonable cost per lead or cost per sale, what results am I likely to generate? 
    • Bottom up: What are my sales goals? At a reasonable cost per lead or cost per sale, what budget do I need to secure to reach these goals?
      • Next, identify your target segments and understand their media consumption habits and purchase influences. Detailed personas and journey mapping are the best practice tools for this job. 
      • Re-assess objectives, current results and KPI’s of all existing programs – The most effective way to evaluate your paid media campaigns are through the objectives set from launch. 
    • Consider or re-evaluate all valuable media vehicles – Aside from the traditional banner ads and search results, adjust to focus on high converting channels within your industry trends. 
    • Ensure you have relatable content that drives engagement – Providing viewers with valuable content in exchange for their information is a great way to drive traffic to your website and helps to generate more qualified leads. 
    • Utilize a dashboard that offers real-time results for consistent assessment – The most successful campaigns are the ones with eyes constantly on them. Evaluate, optimize and re-strategize based on the real-time results provided from dashboards. 
    • Consistently track and optimize until performance is steady – Digital campaigns need attention throughout each program. Weekly and sometimes daily changes are necessary to increase performance and stay on track to meet the established KPIs. Once a test channel is proven out, it can “graduate” to a proven place in your plan. 
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    Step 3: Are You Nurturing Leads with Emailing Marketing or Marketing Automation? 

    Whether it’s Constant Contact, HubSpot, Pardot or another email marketing system, strategically tracking and segmenting your leads with a nurture strategy is a huge driver in building relationships with your prospects and moving leads down the funnel. Here are five steps to ensuring a successful start: 

    • Attract: Capture leads with a compelling and concise lead capture form that is personalized enough to sustain interest 
    • Personalize: Promote an offer or content that is attractive enough to motivate your customer segments. 
    • Engage: Create a workflow strategy for each segment that will nurture the relationship and drive prospects down the funnel. 
    • Create: Design and develop emails that are attractive and well-crafted, utilizing graphics and imagery where possible. 
    • Test: Once you’re up and running, continue to optimize your strategy! 

    Is your digital marketing ecosystem driving high quality leads? Fill out the form below and let’s talk about what optimizations you can make today.

    Jeff Tahnk

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  • Backlinking and SEO For Public Relations Professionals

    Backlinking and SEO For Public Relations Professionals

    In the world of SEO, backlinks have been the holy grail for ranking high in search results. The more quality backlinks a website has, the better that site will rank on Google. With the amount of content available today, quality backlinks can help to ensure a client breaks through the clutter and isn’t lost by the most popular search engines. In today’s world, it is important to give clients that page one spot because “less than 10% of people advance to Page 2.”

    Public relations professionals see the value in backlinking because most come from earned media. For example, if a publication interviews a client’s CEO for an online article, that’s great, but if they also add in a link to the CEO’s company or a blog post on the CEO’s company website, that’s even better.

    In the simplest of terms, a backlink is an incoming link from one website to another. If this link is a dofollow link from a reputable website, it may positively impact the search results positioning of the site being linked to on Google. If the link is a nofollow link, it may not have great SEO value, but it can still drive traffic to a website, social media page, or a piece of branded content. Both types have a way of positively influencing more people to visit a client’s site and, ultimately, can have a positive SEO effect as long as the link is from a legitimate, reputable website.

    So, as a public relations professional, when is it the right time to ask for a backlink from journalists or publications? The answer is, there is no right answer, but here are some tips to help:

    • Be Smart: The most important thing about backlinking in public relations is doing some research first. Explore the media outlet, ask questions within your agency, and find out if the outlet is accepting of a backlink in a byline. Some media outlets are becoming accepting of this and using it more often, while others would ignore it. You do not want to lose a placement altogether because you were trying to promote a click to a client’s homepage.
    • Balance: Decide if this backlink would add value or just be a selfish promotion. This is not a paid advertisement that can include a tagline and drive clicks of curiosity to your website. However, if it is a value adding link back to something meaningful then it can be very worthwhile.
    • Think in Links: Is there an infographic or statistic in a blog on your website that is being referenced? If so, this is the perfect opportunity for a backlink. Journalists and publications will use links in referencing and citing sources. If this link is to your client’s content, then you will benefit from it.

    At Matter, our public relations team is lucky enough to work alongside our search engine optimization team. To learn more about how our services could impact your page ranking or earned media efforts, contact us here.

    Nick Murray

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  • Matter Employee Spotlight: Wes Green, Search Marketing Strategist

    Matter Employee Spotlight: Wes Green, Search Marketing Strategist

    /></p> <p>As a veteran search marketer, Wes brings a decade of search engine marketing (SEM) skills and agency experience to Matter. He specializes in creating highly focused, efficient, and effective search strategies for clients of all categories and industries. We recently caught up with Wes to hear more about his passions, the future of search, and advice for new SEM professionals.</p> <p><b>Name:</b><span style= Wes Green
    Title: Search Marketing Strategist
    Years at Matter: 1

    What fuels your passion outside of work?

    Classic “awww” answer: my giant 110 pound puppy, Dutch. I think I work hard just to give that spoiled mutt a better life, I swear (small price to pay for unconditional love). I’m also really close with my family and friends; they inspire and motivate me every day to grow and succeed in work and in life.  


    What is your favorite part of working in PR?

    Being surrounded by truly smart and creative people elevates me in my career and in my personal life. A collaborative and light-hearted atmosphere is where I thrive, and that’s exactly what a PR agency like Matter is built on.

    What do you think SEM will look like in 5 years?

    I think the lines between SEM and Social are blurring daily. You need to have a background in SEM optimization, keyword research, and analytics to be successful in Paid Social, and you need to understand audiences, content creation and conversational tones to have a successful Paid SEM account. These two medias are becoming so complementary to each other that it’s hard to tell what is what. I think 5 years from now, the new “boilerplate” techniques will be a more holistic approach. We will be reaching an audience in every aspect of their life – complete emersion into our messaging, subconsciously advertising using a person’s daily routine.

    What is your key piece of advice for those that are new to the business?

    First, always ask questions and keep an open mind. While you are learning/training ask as many questions as it takes for you to fully understand what you are doing, even if you think you “sound dumb” or are “being annoying.” Your managers and peers are your greatest assets; use them and then pay it forward, when it’s your turn to teach. Second, don’t “pigeonhole” yourself with just one technique or service. “I only need to know Google Search to do my job, why do I need to learn paid social or SEO?” You don’t NEED to learn new medias to do your current job, but if you want to advance in your career, remember that those who can do more rise higher. Digital marketing is such a fluid type of business that you will be doing yourself a huge favor if you can answer “yeah I can do that” to an unusual client request, and mean it.

    Matter

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  • Does Print Media Matter?

    Earlier this week I grabbed a good ole’ hard copy of USA Today here in the Matter office, thumbed through the Money section and spotted this piece speculating on the future of two of the most esteemed national print newsweeklies, Time and Newsweek. Newsweek of course made its own headlines recently when it resumed publication of its print edition. Talk about “Back to the Future.”

    I am showing my age here a bit but I’m a PR professional who’s had countless conversations with journalists, who in self-deprecating fashion, refer to themselves as “ink-stained wretches.” I also have fond memories of a PR tradition of yesteryear – the Monday morning arrival of “The Weeklies.” For the unitiated, this feeding frenzy took place at our agency’s receptionist desk where our account teams would devour the print editions of Computerworld, InfoWorld, NetworkWorld, eWeek, InformationWeek and countless other now defunct trade publications.  We’d huddle and push and shove in an attempt to “scan for client coverage.”  Ahh the good old days, right?

    Reading Rem Rieder’s (is that a great name for a media columnist or what?) aforementioned USA Today piece got me thinking again about one of the great debates of the past decade or two in our industry: what’s more important? Print or Online.  Which can more effectively move the sales needle?  Which do clients value more?  Which is likely to prompts reader action? Which has more legs and enjoys a greater shelf life?

    Before you reply with a snarky “that ship has sailed” remark, consider the comments about – and from – Samir Husni, founder and director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi, who is quoted in Rieder’s piece.  Rieder notes that “Husni is serenely untroubled by the print-is-dead drumbeat we’ve all heard for years. Husni thinks this is a great time for journalism in general and magazines in particular. He loves the fact that a number of digital outlets, Politico among them, have started up print magazines.

    “The marketplace is sending the signal that there is value in print, that there is money in print,” he says.Rieder continues, “But, Husni cautions, the stakes have been raised dramatically. To win the hearts and minds — and pocketbooks — of readers in a bursting marketplace, and with everyone’s time at a premium, you’ve got to be really, really good.”

    Husni is of course, biased, but he makes some great points.  And if we, as PR professionals intend on cracking this rarified media real estate, we’d better be well, even better.

    The truth is most PR pros rarely if ever, strategize and then move to pitch/land a “print only” story.  The same goes for cover stories or the proverbial “page one” piece.  Those decisions – unfortunately – are out of our hands.   However, we’ve all had clients who covet the printed article; we’ve also worked with others who think just the opposite – “What do I care about print?  My customers and prospects, investors, partners and employees live online, on their iPads, their smartphones, etc. If I can’t share, I don’t care.”

    The truth (as we know) is that most any story appearing in a newspaper or magazine also lives online, often appearing there first and sometimes in longer form. For good quality journalism, print vs. online is really only a question of how the content is delivered, many of us believe.

    So here’s the potentially unanswerable question: what is more valuable? Print or online?

    I am old school. I like the feel of a paper or magazine in my hands with my morning coffee or evening beer. I like understanding where a particular piece ran, what space it shared editorially and how it was juxtaposed against ads. I am also in the minority, no doubt about it.

    While most print circulations now trail their online brethren and print stories are arguably not as valuable from a Google Analytics, SEO, content sharing standpoint, there is something special about holding up the hard copy of a New York Times, USA Today or Economist story or handing it to a client. Sadly, that’s becoming rarer and rarer.

    What are your thoughts? Is it a demographic thing?  Do younger media pros look at print publications as the publishing industry equivalent of the Model A? Do you ever read the newspaper anymore? When is the last time you looked at FORTUNE, Forbes or BusinessWeek without the help of Chrome, Firefox or Safari?

     

    Matter

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  • A Manifesto for PR Agencies

    A Manifesto for PR Agencies

    I believe any PR agency in 2013 that is not obsessed with the inherent value of Search Engine Optimization should immediately sell to a conglomerate for pennies on the dollar or declare bankruptcy to protect what assets remain. You’re over.

    I believe that PR agencies who don’t understand how to actually engage with “influencers” ought to acknowledge this distressing fact candidly when pitching prospects, rather than raise false expectations and invariably besmirch the industry by clumsily spamming anyone with a high Klout score. You know what gives PR people a bad name? Bull-shitters like you.

    I believe that PR agencies who don’t have their own creative resources in-house will give up huge dollars to help outside vendors who don’t care to understand the client narrative. PR firms who pretend they “do all of that video and stuff” will not only lose money, but clients, and further besmirch an industry still trying to tamp down discussions about “bait and switch.”

    I believe PR firms who practice Bait and Switch – that is, trotting out principals and veeps for the big pitch, and then staffing the account with account coordinators and interns – should be publicly exposed and ridiculed by their upstanding peers. When we’re talking about monthly retainers from $10K to $50K per month, clients damn well better be getting senior counsel. If you’re a PR agency that relies entirely – not occasionally, not sometimes, but ENTIRELY – on junior staff, you’re a pox on the industry. Do the right thing and close your shop, since you obviously have zero business savvy.

    I believe that PR agencies which bill on a Time and Materials model are perhaps too business-savvy, since they sap a client of resources by performing “make work” and then cajole them into throwing more cash on the table for services they should reasonably expect as part of the initial agreement. I don’t begrudge anyone for making money. But I’m opposed to rigging a system that rewards PR people for draining budgets and essentially handcuffing a client until more green hits the table.

    I believe the three most important words a PR person can utter to a client are “I respectfully disagree” – not for the sake of being disagreeable, but rather as a barometer of trust. If a client puts forth a hair-brained idea, any credible PR pro should be empowered by his agency to have the moxie to say: “I respectfully disagree,” and then offer up a different solution based on years of in-the-trenches expertise.  Good ideas will win the day. Bad ideas, given a chance, destroy everything.

    I believe that a mountain of “hits” or “clips” or “impressions” amassed by a PR firm on behalf of a client are utterly worthless unless they drive revenue, increase brand awareness and help to create a halo effect for the client. They’re nice and important metrics, but I’ve never – not once – heard about a deal closing based on the number of click-throughs an article got or the “Share of Voice” in a particular piece. What do the client’s analytics say? Where is the traffic coming from, and from which source are the most deals coming from? If a PR agency isn’t asking these questions, they’re asking for it.

    I believe the PR industry is wasting its time trying to come up with “standardized measurement” or “universal metrics” upon with PR firms should be judged. That’s utter hogwash. I believe those who perpetuate this foolhardy exercise are simply looking for cover, to be “doing what everyone else is doing” as to dismiss concerns that they don’t know what metrics to capture. It’s pack mentality, and it’s wrong-headed. Explain to me how a Cloud Storage company and a Burger King and a digital photography client should be measuring the same outcomes. Please.

    I believe, because it’s essential to believe it, that a PR firm’s greatest assets are its people – not its clients. Clients will stay on board if an agency’s people consistently perform over the long-term. I believe a firm that puts its clients ahead of its people will quickly, and irreparably, find itself with fewer of both.

    That’s what I believe. What do you believe?

    Matter

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  • The Dramatic Impact of Social Video Recommendations on Brand Metrics – from REELSEO

    The Dramatic Impact of Social Video Recommendations on Brand Metrics – from REELSEO

    From REELSEO: According to new research, viewers are far more likely to recall a brand name and engage with an ad’s message if a branded video has been recommended to them by a peer. The survey, conducted by Decipher Research to measure the effectiveness of social video advertising, found that social video recommendations had a direct impact on traditional brand metrics and ad enjoyment. (more…)

    Tim Bradley

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