Targeting Your Press Release With Google Trends
For any smart internet marketing company using PRWeb to get visibility for your web sites, I have some great tips for you. I have figured out a simple yet clever strategy to make sure that your press releases are seen by cities and regions that are looking for your specific keywords.
The next time you get to the MSA field when submitting your press release and it says “Your release is currently targeting All Regions/International and the following Cities / MSAs:” take your top keyword or keyword term and use Google trends to see where in the US or worldwide you can add to your targeted region.
Say you own a web site dedicated to selling after market Jeep car parts, for example, and you are about to send out a press release about a new product line your will be carrying. Before you send out the press release go to Google Trends and search “Jeep“.
Now it is essential to refine your search. Make sure to select your region and time scale. I always try to select “Last 30 days” so I get the most relevant results.
After narrowing down the search it will shoot out the top searched cities for your keyword of “Jeep”. If your keyword or terms comes back with no results, try to simplify them until you get results.
As you can see Denver, CO and Phoenix, AZ are the top results. To find out more about how Google calculates the top results, read this excerpt from Google Trends FAQ:
For counting and ranking cities, Google Trends first looks at a sample of all Google searches to determine the cities from which we received the most searches for your first term. Then, for those top cities, Google Trends calculates the ratio of searches for your term coming from each city divided by total Google searches coming from the same city. The city ranking you see on the page and the bar charts alongside each city name both represent this ratio. When cities’ ratios are fairly close together, the corresponding bar graphs will be roughly the same length, and the exact ranking between these cities is less meaningful.
So, I should include them in the MSA field when submitting the press release.
After you have filled out everything else correctly, submit the press release and watch the targeting work its magic.
Hopefully, this will help you target your press releases to cities and regions that are looking for your specific keywords or phrase.
This post was written by Mike Cheslar and edited by Stephen Peron.
Check out this post, if you are looking for other ideas on how to write a Press Release?
November 13th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Nice idea, definitely thinking outside of the box
Cheers,
Glen
November 13th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
What a fantastic tip! I’ll certainly put this one to good use!
November 13th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
This is a great application of Google trends to optimize your release. Thanks for sharing.
November 14th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Great job, Stephen! Google Trends is a great tool and your technique makes it even more valuable. Thanks
November 14th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Nice idea - I hope more agencies consider that.
November 14th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Only problem with this is that PRWEB checks your release to make sure the cities are relevant to the release. If you do not mention these cities or surrounding areas in the release - you will be put on editorial hold…
November 14th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
@ Shara Van Elzen,
Thanks for your feedback, fortunately I have never personally run into any issues with this. Most websites are looking to be distributed nation wide so choosing a city that is geo targeting a key word would be relevant to the release.
Regards,
Mike
November 15th, 2007 at 3:21 am
Interesting idea; however, if a person has selected All Regions/ MSA, wouldn’t the release get distrbuted in that specific region anyway? Or am I missing something?
Thanks,
Manoj
November 15th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
[…] use Google trends to see where in the US or worldwide you can add to your targeted region.” Click here to read the rest of this great […]
November 15th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Hi all. I’m ringing in here to answer Manoj’s question and clarify Sarah’s point.
When selecting specific Regions/MSAs (metropolitan statistical area) you are engaging additional ‘pushed’ delivery of your release to an audience (media, analysts, bloggers, consumers, etc.) who has specifically requested to receive releases about those MSAs. It doesn’t limit your distribution but actually increases it with this emphasis.
It is in everyone’s best interests that Region/MSA selections be relevant to the content or organization(s) behind the release. Although PRWeb editors do vet each release, the selection of Regions/MSAs is not something that we can restrict based on the release content. There are many reasons outside the content that the company making the release may have for selecting the Regions/MSAs that they do (e.g. branch office locations). So, no, PRWeb editors do not typically place releases on editorial hold based on regional/MSA selections.
The suggestion laid out in this post is a very smart one. Well done, Mike.
November 16th, 2007 at 1:29 am
[…] Mike Cheslar has written an absolutely out-of-the-box post on how to use Google Trends to target your press releases. Check this out:) […]
November 16th, 2007 at 7:18 am
[…] Cheslar of eVisibility Insider has figured out a simple yet clever strategy to make sure that your press releases are seen by […]
November 16th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Great post and good feedback too from the others. I’ve linked back to your post. Thanks!
November 16th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
[…] The eVisibility blog gives some great tips on targeting press releases. […]
November 16th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
nice
November 19th, 2007 at 3:14 am
People working on SEM can really benefit from it.
November 20th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
that’s good, but it was the first idea i had when i started optimising PR for Search… I’m curious to understand how those of you who never came up with this idea where doing to optimise PR content and make it relevant to your target, without looking at their search behaviour…
November 21st, 2007 at 7:47 pm
[…] 11. Make use of Google Trends to determine applicable metropolitan magnatism around your keywords. This is covered in wonderful detail by eVisibility on their blog. […]