Fighting for SEO links in Press Releases: A Cautionary Tale

There are huge and indisputable reasons to put a few well-conceived links into your company's press releases. Why aren't more companies doing it? It may be as simple as this: the PR team doesn't know how.

I have been trying to diplomatically explain/entice/cajole one of my clients to begin adding links back to their site into all of their press releases. I'm not asking for the world here: just 3 or 4 hyperlinks from words already found in the press release. (Once we've got that working, the next step is to persuade them to use some specific keywords in the press releases, but that probably won't happen until 2012, at the rate we're going here...)

Our Search Marketing partners (Search Laboratory), provided me with ample ammo to make the case. As they pointed out, we were leaving a lot of Google Juice on the table by not taking advantage of press releases to get backlinks to the company website. They participated in a conference call with the head of PR to explain the issue and the easy solution.

First Response from head of PR: "No one is going to muck around with my press releases."

There was a surprising level of defensiveness from the head of PR when we first approached him on this subject. We were appropriately deferential -- couching it in terms of suggestions, best practices, the greater good, etc. (Search Lab is out of the UK, and that accent always sounds diplomatic...) It was a conference call, so I can't say for sure what his body language was, but his tone got snippy, his voice got louder, and he made it clear that this was his territory. In wolf language, he marked his corners most thoroughly.

We did a bit more ground-prep work -- socializing the idea with the heads of all the right departments, including the boss of our Wolf. We gathered data about a new press release that had been picked up and posted in its entirety, and would have delivered just under 500 quality links back to our site, had there been even one link in the press release.

PowerPoints flew around the company. The Wolf's boss declared himself in favor of adding SEO links. All seemed right with the world.

But the next press release that was sent was devoid of links. And so was the next.

Another diplomatic foray, this time with an organizational peer of the Wolf supporting us. This call yielded a lot less snippiness, and a more polished passive-aggressive response. It was agreed that the principle was sound, but unfortunately the wire service they were using just didn't permit the use of hyperlinks in the press releases. But a change was in the works -- and within a couple of quarters we'd be with a new wire service that did permit hyperlinks.

Time went by. Press releases continued to flow, all containing some of our most valuable keywords that would have made terrific links. We waited with the kind of nervous resignation with which one waits for an accident to be cleared away so we can drive at freeway speeds again.

Six months later, one of the EVPs of the company is cold-called by an SEO provider who educates him on the value of hyperlinks in press releases. He is convinced, and directs the Powers That Be to make sure we start doing it. The Wolf's boss gets the word loud and clear, requests that we add links to press releases starting right away, and there are rustlings of hope in my heart.

One month later, the company is preparing to make a major announcement. A massive press release is being reviewed at the highest levels of the company, and I fire off an email to the PR team requesting specific links be added. Assuming that they have gotten the direction to add these links and might appreciate some help, I offer to make the edits myself.

The answer flies back quickly. No way. No time. We had changed to a wire-service that would do it, but it was more expensive so we changed back to the old one, which can't support links. And even if they could, we'd need to train our team on how to do it. Blah blah blah.

The last fine mists of diplomacy evaporate on our end. There is too much at stake to pussy-foot around any more. A few calls to the wire service verified that we could indeed include hyperlinks in our press releases. (Always could, it turns out.) Since we weren't proposing to add any text, no review cycles were needed. The Wolf's boss sent us the final draft, we added the hyperlinks to the Word document, and sent it back to him in 9 minutes.

Basically: the PR team didn't know how to do it, so they didn't do it. And they didn't want to reveal they didn't know how, so they made up a cover story that just wasn't true. And, we believed them. (My bad.)

Lesson Learned: Don't give up, and don't assume anything. Check, double-check, verify statements. And in the end, go over or around the roadblocks any way you can.

Have you ever had to fight this kind of battle? Not just over SEO, but anything you believed in but had little control over? Post your comments below. Love to hear from you.