Best of 2007: Interactive PR

Wikipedia defines interactive PR as "the practice of using Internet tools and technologies such as search engines, Web 2.0 social bookmarking, new media relations and blogging...to build awareness of and credibility for (a) message without relying solely on mainstream publications."

More directly, the techniques of interactive PR transform press releases from bland, internally-focused documents clogging up the inboxes of editors and staff writers into keyword-rich, user-oriented prose that is found by search engines, picked up by bloggers, tagged by readers, and creates a dialog with the market though comments on social media sites.

David Meerman Scott's The New Rules of Marketing & PR provides an excellent primer on the subject. Expanding beyond the scope of his book, here are some of the best articles and blog posts of 2007 on maximizing the impact of public relations activities through interactive PR.

Proof You Can Gain Additional Rankings And Build Relevant Links With Google News by 97th Floor

Blogger Matt Siltala shows how to use Google News search to increase the exposure and SEO value of a press release.

Pitching Bloggers by PR Meets Marketing

PR expert Cece Salomon-Lee provides an outstanding summary of the most useful "postings by bloggers about how to pitch bloggers" to maximize exposure for PR efforts. Her links are summarized and updated on a periodic basis.

Fresh Link Building Tips: New Search Filters = Easy Link Research by SEO Book

Techniques for building links through blogs, online forums, social networking sites, and blog comments. "Polishing your story, aggregating data in a pretty format, citing sources, and stroking egos are crucial to helping your story spread...If you leave insightful comments without looking like a link spammer you are more likely to get links from your comments."

Newsforce Press Release SEO Tools

Newsforce offers a suite of fee-based tools to identify and insert SEO keywords in press releases then track the results after distribution. All of this can be done manually, and Newsforce would likely increase its uptake by offering a free trial. Nevertheless, worth checking out.

Press Release SEO Tips by TopRank Online Marketing Blog

Noting that "one channel of promotion that has steadily evolved is the practice of optimizing press releases for search engines," Lee Odden shares advice from PR pros at PR Newswire, PRWeb, Business Wire and Marketwire, as well as links to a few of his favorite blog posts on search optimizing press releases.

Search and Find - SEO Your Press Release by PR Meets Marketing

Another post from Cece Salomon-Lee, this one on how to search optimize press releases using title tags and keywords in the header, subhead and first paragraph.

Previous articles in this series:

Best of 2007: SEO Analysis Tools
Best of 2007: SEO Keyword Research Tools
Best of 2007: News Articles on Social Media Marketing
Best of 2007: Blog Posts on Social Media Marketing
Best of 2007: Articles and Blog Posts on SEM
Best of 2007: Articles and Blog Posts on Google AdWords
Best of 2007: Articles and Blog Posts on SEO (Part 1)
Best of 2007: Articles and Blog Posts on SEO (Part 2)
Best of 2007: Website Design
Best of 2007: Blogging for Business
Best of 2007: Marketing Research

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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

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