Prominent newspaper covered my content but did not link
-
Hi,
I've seen this question asked and answered by SEO's somewhere in the past but can't seem to find it.
A press release we created was covered in a nice article by a very prominent newspaper, with a mention of us but no link.
The paper is so prominent that you hesitate for a second to write them and ask for the link, but of course, it doesn't hurt to ask.
One mistake I made was issuing the release but not really pointing it at a piece of relevant content besides our company web site. This is not part of the question but is a good tip fo' learning and growing - the information we released was highly compelling but we should have taken the time to create a beautiful, linkable asset on our site.
Anybody with advice on the best way to ask for a link? Is it asking the author? I assume I am not going to get this.
I think this article will be syndicated -- if it gets picked up elsewhere, do you think it's worth the time to ask those papers?
-
Then as Tom said, this would help you branding with google and also helps make you backlink profile look more natural, as you would expect big brands to get mentions a lot more than links. I think you will get a hidden boost from this, but I understand nothing beats the instant gratification of a back link
-
Thanks very much for this reply. I'm not disheartened at all, positive media mentions are good no matter what. But, I approach campaigns with goals in mind, backlinks were one of the goals of this.
I like to get the site on people's browsers most of all, though, traffic-bearing links are like child-bearing hips for me.
That iacquire link was really interesting! Thanks again.
-
Much mentioning, no link.
-
Did they mention you companies name or website , just didn't link to it or did not reference you at all?
I'm not sure, but if your website name (not link, or anything, just the brand) is written on a high profile site you will get a something (little) from it as in google seeing/knowing your brand name, but I could be wrong about that.
edit: Tom beat me to the post
-
Regarding the syndicated content, not only do I think response would be even lower for those editors, but I don't think a link from a non-original, syndicated source would offer much SEO value.
I would approach the editor or author via social media initially, thanking them for the mention. If you strike up a conversation, you can ask to contact them regarding a change in the article - which can then be the time to ask for a link.
That's one route to go down, but I don't think you'd have much success. The outreach is rather forced/artificial, which usually results in poor response. Get to know the editor/author over a series of communications, however, and opportunities may open up. Then the next time they tweet for a few sources on your topic, hey presto - you've got content for them and a legitimate request to ask for a link if used.
It's worth noting as well that many newspaper editors I've spoken with have a simple directive not to link to external websites on their articles full-stop.
Furthermore, I don't think you should be too disheartened at all by the lack of a link. The branding and PR effect of the mention will be very strong and you can also throw in a co-citation and lexical co-occurrence element into the mix.
There is a school of thought that Google is getting much better at making the connection between your brand and keywords should they be mentioned together on high authority sites - regardless if a link is present or not. Should this prove to be more of a factor over the year(s), this mention will be very handy.
Here's some further viewing and reading on the theories, courtesy of (beardless) Rand and IAcquire:
http://www.iacquire.com/blog/its-not-co-citation-but-its-still-awesome/
Hope this helps.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Hosted content vs Dedicated website (for large piece of content)
There is one question that keep bugging us and for which we are looking for a logical answer – to put it short, in which context(s) is it preferable to publish original content on a company website vs on a dedicated external platform with its own URL? To give a little more details: we an education company that provides languages course abroad and that functions like a specialised travel agency. Each trip is very specific – it depends on people's language level, objectives, budget, etc. – so we provide tailor-made advice for each of our students. Our site is not an e-commerce site, and a typical call-to-action is a request for a 1-to-1 interview with one of our agents, or a quote request for a language trip project. The top conversion for us is an enrolment for a language course abroad. We have a corporate websites structure where we have 1 website per locale where we operate, which means 14 websites in 7 different languages. We produce smaller pieces of content for these websites in a dedicated section – the rest of the website being mostly a presentation of our products, services and destinations – but here we intend to create a very large Quiz which will be based on multiple audio files. The content will be translated into multiple languages (likely 10 different languages) and will require some rather heavy development. We intend to add sections for scoreboards, stats, a log-in section (probably Facebook), etc. This sounds to us like something we should host on a specific URL, but then how can we make the most of the SEO benefits that we will (hopefully) get with such content? We plan to have an about section where we explain a little bit who we are, where we will probably link back to our corporate websites, but of course we want our project to live for itself and to be as far from commercial as possible – while still making the most of the SEO benefits. How can we do this in the most subtle / logical way? Would it be better to host our Quiz on our corporate domains? Thanks in advance for your advice. Maëlle
Branding | | ESL_Education0 -
Press Mention with No Link
Hey guys, I have a client who got a nice little mention recently in her local news online, but the news site (like many I notice) does not link any content in their articles. Anyone have a creative idea for leveraging this type of mention? She is an attorney and the article mentioned her as the defense attorney on the case. Any ideas would be much appreciated!
Branding | | RickyShockley0 -
Could product sample giveaways be seen as 'paying for links'?
One of our main methods of advertising for my startup business is by sending samples to bloggers for review. I've read a lot of good things about this method and many of my competitors use it very well - I've even seen it suggested on the Moz blog several times in the past. The one thing I do worry about is that Google may see this as a form of 'link purchasing', as I'm offering something in exchange for a link and some of the blog posts may reference that fact (or at least most likely use the word "Review" - Which could be some kind of footprint?).
Branding | | azu25
We don't intend to ask for anchor texts, so at the very least that should look natural. What are your opinions? Could this be seen as paid linkbuilding or is it regarded as a natural marketing method? [EDIT]:
One idea we had was to potentially offer bloggers the chance to earn a portion of their purchase back by writing a review on their blog. They'd buy from us and let us know they have a blog, then we'd reimburse them some credit towards their next order for every blog post they write about us. Does this sound like a good idea or is this potentially more dangerous than simply offering free samples?0 -
Our content has been stolen
We've a new intern who spent a good few hours writing this article http://appointedd.com/blog/nominees-for-the-british-hairdresser-of-the-year-2013-announced/ - quite a good we one feel. Our main competitor has taken almost the entire thing word for word and put in up on their blog http://www.inaa.com/apiblog/?p=821 While this is a foolish move on their part, we're still quite offended over the incident as this was the intern's forst article and she'll be looking to add it to her portfolio. I was wondering what the best practice is in this situation? Is simply writing to them enough if they've demonstrated they're underhanded? Should we call them out on it? I'm simply unsure as I want to protect no only the business but the intern also. thanks!
Branding | | LeahHutcheon0 -
Should we create content for a competitor?
We've got an opportunity to create video content for one of the highest authority news sites in our region. It's a great opportunity for links - PR8, DMR 7.84, DMT 8.86 and also to build our brand. However the site is also one of our main competitors in the SERPs, and we would be providing content to them that serves some of our most important seasonal and year-round keyphrase targets. So my dilemma is whether it is better to create the content and get the links, keep the content for ourselves and aim to make our site the authority for those keyphrases, or place the content with another (less authoritative) site that doesn't compete in our space?
Branding | | GBC0 -
Can creating a subfolder and seperate domain blog build external links?
So I am currently going through the creation of a blog with a client that has a company that sells tennis equipment. I have talked to their development team, who is a third-party ecommerce platform, and come up with an idea to create an sub-folder (domain.com/blog) with an article page using their existing framework that would feature full articles in a blog format. Then I would create multiple blogs for them using tumblr and wordpress with their company name and a few with unique names targeted to their niche. These would feature snippets of the content taken from their article page (domain.com/blog) with some responses or reviews on the full articles to further their outreach and then link to the main articles on their article page. These snippets would be divided up amongst the blogs and posted on different days of the week to divide the traffic. Each blog will feature fresh content and focus on a rotating schedule of the latest videos, re-blogs, memes, photos, highlights, scores, upcoming tournament reviews, etc. I will set each one up to rotate through these different topics on different days and times to create a steady stream of traffic. I want to make sure that I stress the fact that I wont be stuffing the unique blogs with links only to the clients company store, I will be making sure to keep it to an amount that isn't spam worthy. Now if these blogs feature rich content including the snippets of the articles from my sub-folder page (domain.com/blog) will these blogs pass link juice to the blog set up on my sub-folder? Also is this a good way to ensure brand awareness and create external links without damaging their reputation? Are there other risks that people have encountered by doing something similar? Please share your experiences so I can make an educated decision.
Branding | | cscoville0 -
Unique Content around GEO targets
Is there a way to produce SEO, google friendly Unique Content to ad to long tail pages, that will provide user value? Emample: 1800medigap.com we want to rank for keywords that are geo specific: Medicare Supplemant Insurance Balitmore Maryland Denver Colorado Medigap Insurance ......
Branding | | jdcline0 -
Link local online newspaper ad to newspaper's spash page or my site?
We just started advertising on the web version of our local newspaper. They suggest our ads go to a "splash page" they created for us on their site. The page haslinks , images and text taken from each of our main categories,. Plus links and feeds from our twitter and facebook pages. And a google map. This page shows a page authority 1 with 0 links. Is there any reason to link our ad to a page like this rather than going direct to our website page? Thank you Handcrafter
Branding | | stephenfishman0