@dvocable

I was researching for an article for Mashable (where I write) on sites that let you share documents online like Scribd, Docstoc, Yudu Freedom, Issuu, and Calameo, when I saw an interesting piece of information on Docstoc. It says the documents you upload on Docstoc gets indexed by search engines and business can use this to their advantages by uploading relevant content with links going to their sites.

Remember how Wikipedia was being used by every PR agency in the world to upload their clients information until the site said they no longer want PR agencies to contribute. Wikipedia was also a target for webmasters as they could upload their content free of cost to the site and run links to their sites. Now the site has ‘no follow’ tags to make this practice redundant.

So with Wikipedia gone, is it the turn for the document sharing sites to be the next target for PR professionals and webmasters in their attempt to gain more visibility about their clients, brands, and sites. Let’s wait and watch.

Can our documents on Docstoc and other document sharing sites really get indexed by search engines? If that be so, I see that Docstoc is already a Page Rank 6 site. Can we get some real good juice from that? I plan to do an experiment and find that out soon. Will keep everyone updated.

I have been having some interesting observations in the last few days working for a client’s online programme.

You might not be using Google Local (India) and perhaps your friends are not aware of what it is. But if you are planning to have your business seen prominently on Google Search and Google Maps, then Google Local could be the way in.

Have a look at the following picture. The screenshot is the result of the search query ‘diabetes treatment in India’. You can see the map of Diafree Treatment Center coming out on top. Now where is that map coming from? Google Local Business Listings.

This second screenshot displays the search results of the query ‘web designers Delhi’. You will see that before the organic search results come out, there are 10 links on top clubbed under the category, Local Business Results…’ Yup. From Google Local.

This third picture displays the result of the query ‘movie theatres delhi’ in Google Maps. You can notice the three markers on the map displaying Paras Theatre, Eastwood Enterprises, and Movie Times. Again from Google Local. Though out here, it might not be necessary that if you register in Google Local, your company name will come out on top on the left hand panel. Maybe this needs to be supplemented with good SEO ranking.

These are just my observations and might not be entirely correct. What do you say?

Getting links is one of the most important offsite optimisation methods to improve search engine rankings of any website. I was wondering if we can piggyback on our clients and their press releases to get some good quality links for our agency websites.

1. Getting links from clients’ websites

We can request our clients to provide us links to our sites from theirs whenever they upload their latest press release on their website media rooms. They can do this easily from the press releases where they mention our names at the ‘For media enquiries contact’ portion below our names and contact details.

For example,

For media enquiries contact:
Jess Sharma
Ph. +91-91xxxxxxxx
Email: jess.sharma@livepr.com
www.livepr.com

Most of our clients who are open to including PR agency contact details in press releases on their websites shouldn’t have much problem. Getting links from well-known client company websites, presumably enjoying good Google Page Ranks, would be good votes for our sites.

Now imagine that an agency has around fifty clients and each of these clients issue around two press releases every month. If it could persuade half of its clients to provide links from their press release pages, then the agency can still get fifty links in one month.

2. Getting links from press release distribution websites

Whenever we are submitting press releases of our clients to any free or paid press release distribution website, we can make it a point to give a link to our agency websites in a similar fashion like above.

Press releases on many such websites are picked up by news sites and also get indexed by news search engines like Google News. Links from such news sites could be quality votes for our sites.

This is similar to using press releases for getting links as written by Priya Shah of Marketing Slave. The only difference is that instead of using our own press releases, we use our clients’.

Suppose that we are using one press release distribution service for issuing any press release. If we issue 50 press releases in a month, we can get fifty links. Now suppose there are 10 websites that pick up press releases from the press release distribution website and all of them are linking to us, we get an additional 500 links in one month.

Adding the above two scenarios, we can get around 600 links in a month.

Now this seems like one freaky obsessive SEO thought and how practical it is, somebody needs to find out.