PDA

View Full Version : Need article/press release written but terms are confusing



grasshopper
06-08-2012, 09:21 PM
I'm heavily confused about the following issues and hoping somebody can shed light on it.

We need an article written to help sell our product in local print media. However it seems our definition of the word 'article' and that which is held by writers I'm trying to hire is different.

We want an article describing magnetic field deficiency syndrome (our product cures this) and we were going to put an ad for our company on the facing page. But according to the people I'm trying to hire, an "Article" should not have any information about your product and is used for Search Engine Optimization...huh?
How does it sell our product if people don't know what the article is talking about?

Also, some writers are telling us we need a press release. But in looking at press releases it seems it's very product oriented but would not talk about MFDS. Confusing.

We feel we need a hybrid cross between an article (describing MFDS) and a press release (describing our product and sending people to our URL)...does this exist? What are the facts here?

What is an "article" online if it does not talk about the product? How does this get people to our site? What use is an article submitted to various print media if it does not mention our product and site (press release type) ??? confusing.

Thank You.

vangogh
06-11-2012, 11:35 AM
I'm a little confused. If you're hiring someone to write a print article then seo shouldn't enter the conversation at all. Is this going to be offline or online? Do you mind providing more details about what you were asking from the writers you talked to?

An article is the same thing it's always been and I don't know that there's only one kind of article. Article's come in many forms. Since I don't specifically know the conversation you had with the writer's you tried to hire I'm going to have to guess a little. I think what they might have been trying to tell you is that if you write an article about your product then it's unlikely people online will want to link to it or share it with friends via social media. People tend to share and link to content that's more informational in nature.

What many sites do is write an article specifically meant to get traffic. That kind of an article is long on information that's useful, interesting and entertaining and short of mentioning products. That article or the information around the article then directs people to something more product focused. Maybe that's where the confusion is coming from. Not that you have different ideas of what an article is, but that you're each thinking something different will ultimately be most successful in acheiving your goals.


What is an "article" online if it does not talk about the product?

An article could talk about a product, but it's hardly a requirement of an article. The majority of articles written both online and offline aren't about products. Some are (product reviews for example, but most aren't. When I open a magazine and see an ad for a product on one page and on the other page is a lot of text that mentions the product, I would think the article is just an ad and turn the page without reading.

KristineS
06-11-2012, 12:37 PM
One of the common practices for SEO is writing keyword articles that focus on some specific keyword for which you want your website to place favorably. The theory is that writing a series of these sorts of pages and having them on our website as information pages will help your site rank better for the desired terms. This is still practice in many places, but Google has gotten wise to this strategy and I don't believe it holds as much value as it used to do, although I may be wrong about that. My guess is that is what the writers with whom you are speaking are thinking you want.

The reason why the writers you're speaking with mention press releases is that this method is generally how a new product or service is introduced to print media. Most magazines and newspapers print press releases as filler or in a "What's New" or "Industry Happenings" column. Press releases, are, as you indicated, generally a vehicle for introducing a new product or service, or for announcing changes in a company, like promotions, moving to a new location, etc. Press releases are generally a couple of paragraphs at most, and are loaded with the most important information at the top, as many press release are generally cut for space reasons.

It sounds like what you're really looking for is an completed article about a particular issue that you can give to magazines or newspaper in hopes that they will publish it. The problem with this theory is that most newspapers or magazines will not publish articles they did not assign, and most likely will not take an article that is really solely written so you can advertise next to it. Some magazines do offer things like "advertorials" which would do what you're describing, but the cost for those sorts of special sections is generally rather expensive. They also tend to be done more in industry magazines or magazines with large circulation. I'm not sure local print media would have this option.