Guest Blogging and Press Releases as Tactics to Increase Traffic.

Do you know who has some of the best content out there on the affairs of society? You do!

Guest blogging and press releases can help drive more traffic as well as increase rankings on search engines, as long as you do it the right way. What is right way? Having quality and original information.

As part of operating your business, you have access to unique information about the sectors you service and the challenges your constituents face. This quality and original content is perfect to package into a short article to appear on blogs or on a press release.

The internet, last I checked, is still made up of people – and we appreciate content that is informative. Good content will be read, linked (which helps in SEO), clicked on (traffic) and serve a branding affect (authoritative).

As you put together your content, make sure you don’t get “spammy” with it. People don’t like it, and search engines like Google certainly don’t either. So no excessive links in your articles or press releases, and while tooting your own horn is OK, don’t get too excessive with it either where the content is overwhelmed by self-congratulations. Also, be careful about “over optimizing” your articles or press releases by trying to stick a bunch of keywords in there – Google especially seems to frown up on it. And by frown, I mean that they will severely penalize you for it.

OK, so you have content and it’s not spammy, now you want to know where you can share this wonderful content. Here are a couple links that go more in depth with best practices as well as places where you can start:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/guest-blogging-strategies-whiteboard-friday - in depth guest blogging strategies.

http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com/2011/05/12/tips-press-release-seo/ - tips on Press Releases

Paid Search – Not Just for Donations

I understand the pressures of allocating dollars to marketing. You need to gain a return on your investment quickly. The most effective online channel, of course, is your internal email list because you have a list of people who are already familiar with your brand and were interested enough to learn more.

Marketing to your in-house list is a great first step, but I’m sure you want to grow the list or start one if you don’t already have a list – this is where paid search can help.

Paid search, as mentioned in the last post, delivers strong ROI because you can target your message to people who are interested in your type of cause through what is called “keywords” (I will talk about this in another post). However, just as important, you can direct people to any page on your site. This means you don’t have to send them to your home page – and you shouldn’t. Send them to custom pages where users can learn more about your cause, but also commit to action very easily, whether that’s donations, or email signups.

The screenshot above is from “Children International” – I’ve used them as an example before of how to run a great online marketing campaign. This page is what users land on when they click on their paid search listing. This is NOT their homepage, it’s a custom page made to convert users to their desired actions – signing up for an information kit or donating for a specific child.

Do the same, make custom pages and send traffic it to it. Make it easy for them to donate or give them the option of signing up for your newsletter. If you get users to donate, you will get an instant ROI, however, even if users only commit to signing up for the newsletter, you know the long term value of a that user, they may actually donate more in the long run.