Dec 23 ' 21 - by Kevin Petersen - Tutorials - 0

Maximizing Traffic From Your Press Releases
So you've written and distributed an online press release. Woohoo! Now what? Ideally, your customers will read it and take some action like clicking the links and visiting your website. But is your site ready for them? 
While we have always recommended a mix of anchor text links in press releases that go to your homepage, relevant product/service pages, and supporting content, we haven't really talked strategy for converting the people coming from those links. "Converting" as in, buying something, downloading something, signing up for something, or otherwise taking some desired action. 

After all, isn't that the purpose of your website? To provide something valuable or helpful to visitors so that they will reward you with business? Even if that business isn't cash-money just yet, by signing up for your newsletters, reading your content, or downloading your handy guides, they are getting to know your company, building trust, and keeping you in mind for when they need your product or service.
So now let's get serious about those visitors who are coming to your site from your press releases. They just read something that interested them and they want to learn more - that's great! Instead of just dumping them on your homepage, use this opportunity to send them to a dedicated landing page or show them a specific pop-up offer that relates to your press release topic or call to action. 

Landing Pages

There's a misconception that a landing page is just any page on your website. A landing page is generally not part of your website navigation; a visitor can't come to your website and find a landing page. Instead, they land on these pages from other locations around the internet (i.e. ads, social media posts, press release links, etc.)
Landing pages are very specific. They expand on a single topic - for example, an SaaS company that is promoting discounted renewal pricing for the holidays might create a dedicated landing page that shows the discounts, highlights the benefits, and has an easy form for people to convert (sign up for the offer!). This promotion might not be on their website, but they may promote it as an exclusive offer from a press release or social media ad. Only people coming from those sources will land on the landing page and see this offer. 

Using Landing Pages From Your Press Release Links

Consider these best practices when creating landing pages for your PR links:

• When creating your anchor text links, direct one of them to a dedicated landing page related to your call to action (i.e. "exclusive holiday renewal pricing" that links to your landing page, https://example.com/holiday-software-renewal/).

• Use your landing page to go into more depth about the press release topic and/or call to action.

• Include a form to collect leads and signups. Just be sure to only ask for what you need to make it easy for customers. 

• Be sure the topic of the landing page actually relates to the press release topic and/or call to action. If a person clicks a link for "exclusive holiday renewal pricing" don't send them to a landing page to schedule a demo. 

UTMs And CRO, Oh My!

In our last post, we shared tips for using UTM tracking codes in your press release links to track engagement with those links. It's particularly helpful for creating targeted pop-ups on your website based on where the traffic is coming from (often called the "referring source"). 
To create pop-ups on your website, you'll need a conversion rate optimization platform. Don't let that sound intimidating. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is simply any strategy that increases the number of people, that do what you want them to do, on your website. Want more people to sign up for your newsletter? That's considered a conversion. So is renewing a software subscription under a holiday pricing plan. It's some action you want visitors to take that you can measure and track -- and that you can ultimately increase using CRO strategies, such as pop-ups. 

Targeted Pop-Ups

Once you've mastered using UTM codes in the links in your press releases, it's time to focus on what to do with that specific traffic once it hits your website. Enter: pop-ups, a pretty powerful CRO strategy!
Great pop-ups work not necessarily because they disrupt the visitor on your website, but because they are timely, relevant and valuable. A great pop-up shows the right offer, to the right, visitor, at the right time. This is why using a pop-up to capture traffic from your press release links with UTM codes is so effective. 

As a quick refresher, to create a UTM code in Google Analytics, go to the Campaign URL Builder. For our holiday software renewal, the UTM parameters could look something like this:
Website URL: https://example.com/holiday-software-renewal/

Campaign: "holiday-pricing"

Source: "news"

Medium: "press-release"

Content: "nov-19"

You'll get a custom URL that includes the tracking code. Use this URL in the keyword section when you upload your press release on Online PR Media:

Next, go to your pop-up software and create a new campaign to capture traffic from your press release link. When you get to targeting, you will see an option for "referring source" or "where visitor came from." Click through these options until you are able to paste in the UTM link to indicate that visitors coming from that source or domain should see your pop-up.
What should the actual pop-up contain? 

• A relevant offer. If you're capturing traffic from the "exclusive holiday renewal pricing" link, your offer should give them a way to secure the pricing.
• Clear and actionable language.  

• Attractive design that catches the eye while complementing your website's branding. 

• A follow-up. Whether you're downloading your leads manually or they are automatically being sent to your email platform, be sure to have an email ready to go to confirm whatever the customer signed up for. 

Here's an example: 

And remember, only the people who clicked on your UTM links from your press release will see this offer. Because they read the release and clicked the link, this pop-up will not only make perfect sense to them, but it will be exactly what they were looking for. It couldn't be more timely or relevant than that!

Want To Maximize Traffic From Your Press Releases?

When it comes to CRO platforms that perform, we recommend our partners over at Picreel. They offer a free 30-day trial - no credit card required. And for a limited time, they're even offering free setup services. Meaning, they will install Picreel on your website, create your first campaign, and launch it on your website. It really doesn't get any easier than that!

Nov 07 ' 21 - by Kevin Petersen - Tutorials - 0

Online PR Media offers customers an opportunity to insert anchor text links within your press release. These are underlined clickable words that link to a specific webpage. Online PR Media refers to this anchor text as “keywords,” and this is where you will enter your keyword text and associated web address (URL). 

When choosing which words will become your anchor text, it’s important to note that only UTMs linked to a page within your website will be trackable. For example, if one of your keywords links out to the website of a company that you are partnering with, you will not be able to track clicks on this link since the primary URL links to their website - not yours. 

Parts Of A UTM

Before we get into how to create a UTM code, it’s helpful to first understand the different parts of it. The four key components, or “parameters” of a UTM are:

• Campaign - there are several philosophies to naming campaigns, but most commonly, this should be the name of the piece of content you’re linking to. For example, if you’re linking to a blog about pollution, your campaign name could be something as simple as: pollution-blog. 
• Source - this shows where the traffic is coming from. This should be a fairly broad category. For example, for a UTM in a press release, you could choose “news” as a source. Other common options are paid, unpaid, organic, CPC, etc.
• Medium - this describes how the traffic got to you. This would be the subcategory of the Source. For a press release, the medium could be “press-release” or simply “pr”
• Content - this is not mandatory, but useful to differentiate between sources that are otherwise the same. For example, if your company publishes press releases frequently, you would want to choose a name for “Content” that differentiates it from other press releases. For example, if you publish one press release per quarter, Content may be named 2019-q4-pr

One important consideration before moving forward is that UTMs are an extraordinarily helpful tool - and once you see the value they bring, it’s hard to stop creating them! If you’re generating a decent amount of content, you should consult this article on UTM naming strategies that can help you develop a system that is organized, consistent, and works for you.

How To Generate A UTM

Google makes generating UTMs easy with their Campaign URL Builder. Using the naming strategy described above, we can fill in the parameters to create a UTM for this blog to be used in a November 2019 press release. It could look something like this:

This tool will then generate a UTM in the box below, which looks like this:

Congratulations! You’ve made your first UTM code.

Inserting A UTM Into Your Press Release

This is the easy part! Once you have identified the anchor text or keywords for your press release, you’ll scroll to the Keywords and Anchors section when uploading your release on Online PR Media. In the field labeled Keyword #1, you’ll type the word(s) being used as anchor text. In the corresponding cell to the right, Link #1, you’ll paste the UTM link in its entirety. Because UTMs are long, it may appear to be truncated even though a quick scroll to the right reveals that all the text is present. 

And that’s it! You can generate a separate UTM for up to three other pages you’d like to link to. 
Bear in mind that if you will be linking to the same Campaigns in other media (i.e. sharing the same pollution blog on your Twitter account, or as a guest post on a local conservation group's site), you will need to generate separate UTMs, where Source and Medium should change accordingly. In this way you’ll be able to not only identify which links perform best within your content, but also which form of media receives the most clicks to each of your campaigns.

Interpreting Results From Your UTM Codes
Here’s the fun part: using Google Analytics, you can watch the results come in.

In your Google Analytics Account in the left-hand side bar, click Acquisition → Campaigns → All Campaigns. 

Each of these rows represents a single campaign. This page shows a summary of how many “clicks” each campaign received (regardless of source or medium), as well as some other pertinent stats about user behavior while on your site. 

More information can be gathered about source and medium when an individual campaign is clicked on:

Here we can see that one campaign received 21 users, 19 of whom came from the signature line from company emails, and 21 of whom came from organic posts on Twitter. While further analysis would be required to draw conclusions (knowing how many times the link was posted on Twitter, how long the link appeared in email signature lines, etc.) you can see how these insights can really help shape your future marketing efforts! 
Now that you know how to track traffic from your press releases, we know you're anxious to get started! Stay tuned for our next post where we’ll discuss how to prep your website to maximize traffic from press releases. Think: collecting leads, growing your email lists, and ultimately boosting sales!