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Chocolate purses? Did I read that correctly? Back alley bags? Terrorism funding with fake couture? Designer purse riots? They can't be true! But wait, the news is true, it absolutely is! And what is this? A diamond thief snatches a designer handbag from a sexy starlet! And then comes a story about designer cell phones to carry in that fashionable handbag! This is what I love about web marketing and my work as a search engine optimization specialist - the fun and novelty of research.
Let's take a step back here and clarify. Why would a web site owner seeking increased search engine visibility care about news related to their products? In a word, CONTENT. I always recommend to new clients that they start a blog discussing their industry and their products and post to it several times a week. Post what? Anything and everything about their product or service belongs in their blog. Content is king and blogs are a great place to routinely add relevant, interesting, search engine friendly content.
But my clients wonder where I come up with this stuff - It's in the news.
The day I signed on to increase the search visibility of an online retailer of designer handbags and fashion accessories, I went to Google news http://news.google.com and typed "Designer Handbags" into the search box. As I scrolled down the page of resulting stories, I saw a link to a press release discussing the new pink Juicy Couture Sidekick phone and PDA from T-Mobile. Bingo! First blog entry at the client blog http://Valuebags.com (recommended to the client that day) where I recapped the story and posted a photo.
Then I scrolled to the bottom of that Google News page to look for the link that says, "New! Track new stories about designer handbags & create an email alert" I clicked the link under "create an email alert" and entered my email address for this "Designer Handbags" news search, just like I do with each new client and their product. Every day I receive a list of news stories that turned up in a news search for "Designer Handbags" to discuss on the client blog.
Within a few days I got my daily email alert from Google News that talked about, I kid you not, Chocolate Designer Handbags! So I clicked the link in the email to land on a news story about a high end chocolatier that makes tiny little replicas of designer purses in rich, flavored chocolate, complete with tiny bows and straps! There's the next post to the client designer handbag blog. What fun! But this can't go on, really - how much news can there be about trendy, high priced purses?
Next comes an email news alert about sexy starlet Tara Reid, who was robbed in a Spain airport of her Balenciaga designer handbag filled with over $180,000 in jewels! The news seems filled with stories about haute couture bags, but really, can this continue at this rate? Yes, indeed it can. Next day brings news of a shop proprietor on the lamb after he is caught running a fake designer handbag boutique in Brownsville, Texas. He disappeared after his wife died, on the run to avoid prison time.
Just incredible, there really can't be more, can there? Yes, it seemingly never ends, as I got a news alert in the email the next morning about a RIOT by ravenous customers hungry for limited numbers of designer handbags on steep discount at a Maryland boutique! Police had to stop as many as 1000 women fighting over the bags when the boutique owner couldn't stop them from wrecking the store.
There's more! Here's a story about the size of the fake couture market, currently estimated to be approximately $450 BILLION yearly! That is some sizable change carried by a lot of fake purses. It is estimated that in New York alone, losses run $500 million a year to designer knockoffs. This booty attracts organized crime and it is suspected that substantial terrorism funding is raised by designer handbag counterfeiting.
Clearly I've made my point here. If you seek higher search engine ranking for your products and services and are willing to post some comments regularly to your company blog on news in your industry, there are no shortage of topics to discuss. A headline like "$1.4 Million Designer Handbag Counterfeit Scam - Four Arrested" doesn't appear every single day does it? That one ran recently at Boston.com and was in an email alert.
But what if it's a slow news day and there are no headlines on your product today to discuss on your blog? OK, it does happen, especially if you are in the software industry or industrial supply or if you deal in some other esoteric minutia. Then what to blog about? Your clients, vendors, suppliers or customers make for excellent content and in some cases may happily provide you with their latest news release to post on your blog. You can detail business or sales trips, discuss jobs in your industry, or even put up copies of your own latest email promotions, press releases, or even your office decorating plans.
Sale promotions, coupon codes, and specials for blog readers only - all contribute to a popular and visible blog in your industry. If you post often, use keyword phrases liberally in your text and hyperlink that keyword text to relevant information or sales pages of your products from the blog, you will increase the search engine ranking of your main site over time.
As a male with little interest in designer purses and handbags, I knew I could effectively market this client simply by signing up for "Designer Handbags" Google News alerts and gathering those news headlines and commenting on the client blog. I never thought that Gucci, Prada, Hermes, Vuitton, Furla, Fendi and Ferragamo handbags would become an item of interest to me - and they're still not - so Google News alerts comes to the rescue.
Clients however, often find that they become extremely interested in those news alerts, have no trouble commenting about them on their blog, and soon come to enjoy the process and happily take it on as a regular task in their web marketing. They are already experts on their product and hearing more about their industry in daily news stories and commenting about it in their blog becomes a pleasant daily task.
Did you know you could buy designer handbags at Walmart's Sam's Club stores? "Regional Manager Matt Lindsey said "They don't come into Sam's Club looking for affordable luxuries, but once they see it and they can afford it, they're happy with it." Coach, Prada, Kate Spade, and Fendi handbags are available in (Sam's Club) stores."
From Rochester, NY TV news station WHAM channel 13 web site. Truth is stranger than fiction. You couldn't make this stuff up!
Copyright Mike Banks Valentine © December 2005
Mike Banks Valentine is a search engine optimization specialist increasing the visibility of http://www.efashionhouse.com through article marketing, press releases, and blogging. He also runs http://WebSite101.com Small Business Ecommerece Tutorial - Contact Mike at http://www.seoptimism.com/SEO_Contact.htm
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