The Buyer Group PR + SEO News

Deerfield Beach, FL – July 21, 2008 – The Buyer Group asks: What does online PR mean to a business? Answer? More than just an optimized press release. Can Google index your site? Is your online news optimized for today’s journalists and bloggers?  Does your Web site have good and useful content that is relevant to a user’s search?

In a continuing effort to better serve new and existing clients, The Buyer Group introduces SEO/PR reviews to help clients benchmark their search engine visibility and online public relations rankings.

“The relationship between public relations and search engine strategies is a close one,” said Lisa Buyer, president of The Buyer Group, a leading interactive PR and branding agency offering SEO/PR services. “Every page added to your Web site is a PR opportunity for the search engines. Companies looking to refine or define their position on the Internet should first do an analysis of the quality of online visibility and online public relations exposure.”

The Buyer Group’s SEO/PR reviews consist of six major components and clients are given a score out of 100 possible points. Sections such as “Meta Tag Review” and “Architectural Review” help clients see where they can improve on Web site elements such as site indexing and page labels, which will increase the odds of search engine retrieval. Page content is also reviewed, with an emphasis on key word placement.

“The integration of Search Engine Optimization and online PR efforts is an exciting and important evolution in our industry,” said Joe Laratro, SEO expert and President of the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association (SFIMA). “When agencies can combine services with the proper expertise the resulting product has to be successful.”

The SEO/PR report considers linking strategies and online PR elements such as newsroom organization, blogs, and social networks that impact online branding and reputation management. The report offers a quality score and recommendations on how to improve the score within a 60 to 90 day period.

“The Buyer Group’s SEO/PR Review Process was incredibly enlightening to us as a sales and marketing team. They showed us many fast, cost efficient opportunities to increase our website traffic. Their suggestions made sense, were able to be quickly implemented and created remarkable efficiencies in our digital marketing program. We’re so grateful to The Buyer Group for being a strategic partner on our development projects,” said Gretchen Howell, Vice President of Marketing and Analysis of GamePlan Resort Solutions.

The Buyer Group is a member of Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), SFIMA, Agency Management Roundtable (AMR), and is recognized as a Google Advertising Professional Company.  For more information about The Buyer Group and its interactive public relations and branding services visit http://www.thebuyergroup.com or call Lisa Buyer at 954.354.1411.

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By Lisa Buyer

The best way to foster a bad reputation is avoid confrontation, give no explanation and…oh… let’s not forget don’t pay your bills.

A good example of this is a story covered in a Virginia daily newspaper about the“prominent” real estate developer, Sandler at Greater Marathon Bay, LLC who hired The Buyer Group to handle the public relations for Marlin Bay Yacht Club. This March, the “reputable” real estate developer decided that real estate was no longer a good market and Steve Sandler of L.M. Sandler & Sons Inc shut down the project.  This decision - part of the lesson in Bad PR 101 - left contractors and subcontractors with unpaid bills for completed work totaling over $3.6 million.  According to court documents, Sandler at Greater Marathon Bay racked up 35 liens filed against them since March 2008.

Business 101: Companies should not spend when they can’t afford to lose.

PR 101: Negative online reputations spreads quickly.

By Sarah Van Elzen

The thought of branding and formatting a creative HTML email or electronic newsletter with links and graphics can be overwhelming. However, knowing the importance of frequent, branded email communication kept me front row at the latest Constant Contact seminar.

After all, direct mail is becoming a thing of the past.

As industry trend watchers and online gurus, The Buyer Group team has found the next best thing: do-it-yourself email marketing.

After only a few minutes of the Constant Contact meeting, I questioned the performance and delivery of pre-tech-age corporate communication – not to mention its efficiency.

Constant Contact is a powerful, cost effective email marketing solution that allows you to send content-specific, customer oriented emails to your entire database in a matter of seconds. Options such as double opt-in forms, customizable sign up pages, spam filers, and most importantly reporting functions allow even the most novice user to find their way around the program easily.

The reporting function is the most beneficial of the program.  It delivers the following information:

•    How many emails were sent and delivered
•    What percentage of your contacts opened the message
•    The click through rate percentage
•    Which links had the most click-throughs and by what percentage
•    How many contacts opted-in or opted-out
•    How many contacts forwarded email messages to a friend
•    Identify emails that “bounced back” and why
•    Compare results from your three most recent email marketing campaigns

In addition to reporting, using Constant Contact makes it easy to build and customize your email messages with an email wizard that walks you through the templates step-by-step. You even have the option to customize each template to complement the look and feel of your business.

For more information on The Buyer Group’s Interactive PR email marketing programs email Lisa Buyer: lbuyer@thebuyergroup.com