Can anyone provide any useful insights on how they use latest news items to help with SEO?

[Wallander]

Hello,

I have heard about SEO's and PR types riding off the back of latest news items that can be tied to the products or services they are trying to promote.

Recently I read about how an SEO had distastefully written an article using the name of a famous singer who had sadly passed away and used this event as an opportunity to write about a small business models

Can anyone provide any useful AND ethical insights on how they use latest news items to help with SEO?

[Wallander]

Thanks very much for taking the time to explain all this..appreciated!

[Mark_Jay_Apsey_Jr.]

I will give you two examples:

One is when brad pitt and angelina jolie recently came out and said that they enjoy salsa omelets. We were able to mention that on one of our clients restaurants that serves breakfast in hollywood. ....In the process, we mentioned the salsa omelets at this restaurant. The implication was that they ate salsa omelets at this restaurant.... This was posted on the webiste, our blog and social networks. it got picked up by a number of blogs and was mentioned by a number of people, and we received some SEO and PR value for the client.

The same is true for "re-spins" of newsworthy articles that are released that are generating substantial interest. We have another client that sells ERP software. Their major competitors are SAP and Oracle and there are literally millions of people in the US that belong to a variety of ERP user groups, blogs, forums and social networks that are focused on key terms like SAP, oracle, Larry Ellison or ERP. If breaking news comes out about a big aquisition for SAP or Oracle, if we release the news in several of our PR channels and blogs and forums, we will get a fair amount of PR and SEO value because not everyone will have picked up the story yet. After a day or two, there will be no additional value because the story will be out there already.

In giving you two examples I would have to tell you that these are not the foundations for a solid SEO program. These are ancillary activities that you can use to help you generate some additional value, on top of a solid SEO on page and off page optimization campaign. They don't fit in every situation but can be effective.

Hope this helps.