The 2016 Businesswire Media Survey revealed this nugget of information: Journalists looking for information on a company first do a Google search, then visit the company website and go to their newsroom.
So if you want to be media ready – and every company ought to strive for that – here’s the plan:
- Google: Take a hard look at the Google search results for your company or brand name. This is the first port-of-call for most people, not just journalists. If there are any negative, or even not so good, listings make every effort to clean that up. There are ten possible listings on page one and you should be proud to see every single one of them there. The first page of a Google search tells your story and should give the perfect picture of your brand. Massage every headline and descripiton that you have access to. We’re way past the time when brands had to feel they were at the mercy of Google. Reputation Management is a mature and sophisticated industry now. It is possible to present your very best face to the world on Google. But you have to make it happen. If you don’t know how to do that, find a Reputation Management expert who can help you.
- Website: Make your website the perfect vehicle for every visitor. Find a developer/designer who knows about user-experience and can create a website that works for all visitors. Put in the work and find out what your various visitors are looking for. Use your current analytics to see the paths visitors take through your site. Find out what works and what doesn’t work – and fix it.
- Content: Add quality, original content that will attract the right visitors and give them what they need. Make sure that the content on every page (text and images) is optimized for search. This ties back to step 1, so that when your site shows up in a Google search the parts you would like a journalist or prospective customer to see get listed.
- Newsroom: 75% of journalists visit a brand’s newsroom. So make sure that yours is not just bland page with text links to press releases in PDFs! Create a visual online newsroom that is optimized for search and will be listed high on the page of a Google search for your brand. And include all the features journalists and bloggers are looking for:
- Media contacts
- Experts with video interviews
- Images
- Videos
- Press Releases
- Blog posts
- Industry News/Commentary
