How to Make Your Company Website PR-Friendly

How to Make Your Company Website PR-Friendly

A Web site can be a great way to get your message out to reporters and editors in both the broadcast and print media. That is, if you have developed a carefully articulated message with information that can be easily obtained.

Journalists should be counted among your customers and prospects.

A mention of your company or product in one publication or on a TV or radio program is the equivalent to a customer telling thousands of friends.

If you view journalists as customers, you must treat them as such.

Most journalists are working on deadlines. Often, they’ll be thrown into a story at the last minute and are calling for information out of desperation. You can either be their hero and save the story — and reap the rewards — or the bystander who watches helplessly as they sink and miss out on a valuable chance for free publicity.

The Internet has been a godsend for reporters.

Logging on to a company’s Web site is a way for a reporter to obtain information after business hours or bypass a switchboard. But a poorly organized Web site that is difficult to navigate can turn it into a computer version of “voice mail hell.”

If you want your Web site to act as an information center for journalists (and the general public), make it so.

Remember, posting relevant content that is easily accessible is the key.

7 Ways to Make your Website a Resource for Journalists

Well, here are 7 tips you can use to get yourself closer to journalist through your website.

1. Establish a Section for Media

Some organizations have buttons called “Press Room” or “Media Center” that provide the latest press releases, quick facts about the organization, new products or information about the industry as a whole.

2. Run A Blog

Running a blog may be not a good idea when first see, but you can reap the result later. If you are creating a industry-proven and research-backed content, it will surely gets noticed by online media houses.

Hence, result will be more traffic, more mentions and backlinks.

3. Update Continuously

A reporter who clicks on a site and finds that “Fresh News” means, in reality, a 1997 press release or that a “Hot Product” is a 1998 item won’t stick around.

And he or she has no reason to come back.

4. Provide a Contact

A Press Room may not answer all of the questions.

There should be the name of a person who can provide further information or clarification complete with a direct phone number and e-mail address.

5. Create Links

Providing a journalist with a way to obtain more information about your industry by linking to another Web site can only create goodwill.

Just don’t make the mistake of including the Web site of a competitor. Of course, before a journalist can navigate your Web site, he or she must find it.

6. Develop a Mailing List of Journalists

Developing a mailing list of journalists and alerting them to your site isn’t difficult. Send a note or brochure that includes your Web site address to reporters who cover issues related to your industry or business.

If your Website is presented as a useful tool and not a piece of public relations fluff, chances are the journalists will file it away for future use.

But even the most useful card or information sheet gets lost; don’t be shy about sending it again after a few months.

7. Include your Web Address on Mailings

Don’t let a single piece of paper leave your office without your Web address attached to it. If you have a newsletter, feature your Web site in each issue with the latest information that is available online.

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