Web Marketing Therapy

Top 10 Must Haves for Your Website’s News Room: Boost Your Online PR to Attract the Media, Consumers and Search Engines

September 29th, 2009
by treatmentspecialist

Showcase your news to help attract journalists as well as consumers to your website.

As David Meerman Scott has pointed out in the The New Rules of Marketing and PR, press releases aren’t just solely intended for reporters anymore. We’ve blogged about how you can write your own news, build your own social media news release, and use local PR to increase your traffic. In addition to creating great PR content, we also highly recommend pimping out your online news room to help attract journalists as well as consumers to your website.

An online news room can do so much more than just house your news releases – it can also help drive traffic and boost your natural search visibility while enhancing your credibility and exposure!

Thanks to David Meerman Scott for this great resource: Online Media Room Best Practices.

Here are the top 10 must haves for your website’s news room:

1. Provide resources in an online press kit that make it easy for reporters to cover you.

2. Offer online content for all stages of the media consideration cycle (including basic and extensive information).

3. Encourage browsing by making it easy for readers to navigate.

4. Highlight your media inquiry contact info in a prominent place above the fold.

5. Make logos, images, charts, etc. available for download in different resolutions and download sizes.

6. Showcase both your press releases and your media plugs.

7. List all appropriate public speaking appearances and conference participation.

8. Integrate social media tools to make it easy for users to share your content.

9. Add an RSS feed so media professionals can sign up for news alerts.

10. Implement page-specific meta-data for SEO to help search engines and users find your news.

An online news room helps journalists, reporters and bloggers who are looking for a story (your story!) while providing additional information to serve the needs of prospective clients and investors who are looking for your product or service.