content in these destinations, organizations can cast a much wider net with their message and maybe
even spark that ever-illusive dialogue with their key audiences.Jerri: What aspects of SEO should small and medium-sized businesses focus on most closely
at this time?Dyer:First things first — small companies need to be strategic about the keywords they go after.
With SEO and online advertising budgets creeping ever higher, few small companies have the
resources to compete for keywords that have monthly search volume in the millions. Instead,
small companies should focus their efforts on a few highly specific search terms for which users
will definitely be interested in their company’s content. At that point, organic SEO for these key
terms becomes critical, and SEO releases are a great first line of attack. SEO releases have been
available for several years now, but still remain one of the strongest ways for small companies to
receive valuable and highly ranked links from pages on which they control the content.Jerri: What upcoming SEO technologies and strategies should these organizations begin to
focus on?Dyer:There are a number of up-and-coming technologies, but I will focus specifically on SEO
releases, as that is where my real expertise lies. A properly conceived SEO release can be a powerful
tool for driving traffic to your site and increasing your site’s search ranking. The best strategy is
to craft a release for every key term that is central to your business. This release should be written
specifically for that key term and include it in positions of prominence like the headline, meta tags,
and first paragraph. It should also use the term in a high keyword density — 2 percent or higher.
This term can then be hyperlinked to a key-term-specific landing page on the company’s web site.
For instance, linking Product A as a key term to the landing page for Product A. Doing this alone
will increase the backward links and the keyword relevance of your site for this term. To take the
campaign to the next level, companies can then distribute a second release that is targeted for the
very same key term. For this release, in addition to linking the term to a specific landing page, it
can also be linked to the original press release at the distributor’s web site (on Marketwire.com for
instance). Doing so will drive the original press release up the search rankings for that term as well
as your company site and allow you to hold down more than one position in the search engines.Jerri: What’s the most frequently missed aspect of SEO for social media?Dyer:The most frequently missed aspect is strategy. Many companies are dipping their toe into
the social-media pool, but few are doing so strategically. Instead, companies are doing what I like
to call “Throwing Hail Mary’s.” They are posting videos into YouTube, building MySpace pages,
uploading image galleries to Flickr, and getting involved in the blogosphere, but they are doing so
blindly and without any continuity. Success in social media and the way to achieve strong search
results comes through regularly updating content and creating a web of information. If you have
keyword-rich content in social sites, you will achieve strong search results by networking (link-
ing) that content together. There has to be a strategic and continuous connection between all of
your company’s social efforts.304
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