Or at least, they think that if they are to get there the only way will be by advertising or paying shed loads of cash to some pricey SEO firm that speaks in a language they don’t understand.

Thing is, there are lots of dodgy SEO firms out there and at the same time Google ads can cost an arm and a leg. As a result not a lot tends to be done: things go on the back burner.

In reality, you can blog your way onto Page 1 of Google yourself. And what’s more you can do it quicker than you’d ever imagine.

For some reason, though, this is something that is still to get through to many SMEs. They’re missing out on huge amounts of traffic, and potential clients, as a result.

Page 1 of Google? Be realistic!

But you need to be clever when blogging. Whatever you do, don’t set yourself ridiculous targets.

Instead, start by focusing on less competitive, ‘long tail‘ keyphrases, and getting to the top of the search results for those.

Long tail keywords may not get the traffic of their more competitive counterparts but the traffic they do get is much more likely to convert. It’s better quality traffic.

And that’s really important.

Liberty SIPP target the long tail

We recently started blogging on behalf of the best SIPP provider out there (we reckon anyway): Liberty SIPP (SIPP stands for self invested personal pension).

We only started doing this a month ago and already they’re on page 1 of Googley Woogley for a number of keyphrases.

One of their primary keyphrases, unsurprisingly, is ‘best SIPP providers‘.

Simply by targeting this long tail keyphrase in two optimised blog posts, a week or so apart, we got them straight onto the front page of Google in less than a fortnight (see screen grab below).

OK, they’re not at the top of Page 1 YET but we’ll get them in the top 3 in the weeks ahead for sure.

Make sure you’re targeting the right page 1 of Google. ‘Long tail’ keywords can be far more beneficial to you.

Why long tail keywords?

Why are long tail keywords so powerful? Let’s stick with the ‘best SIPP providers’ example….

We know that when someone taps in ‘best SIPP providers’ there is a degree of (buying) intent there.

While someone tapping in ‘SIPPs’ may be doing so for any number of reasons, someone googling ‘best SIPP providers’  is much more likely to be considering taking out a SIPP, or moving SIPP.

In other words, the person tapping those keywords into Google is a much higher quality ‘searcher’.

So while this term will deliver less traffic than the much more commonly searched for ‘SIPPs’ keyphrase, it will be much more likely to convert a visitor to Liberty’s site into a client.

And that’s all you can ask for.

Don’t set the bar too high

The moral of this particular tale is simple: when you start blogging, focus on easier long tail keyphrases.

Not only will they deliver you results much more quickly, they will also add real momentum to your blog for when it comes to getting onto Page 1 of Google for the more competitive keyphrases.

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

The post Getting a client onto page 1 of Google appeared first on Just In Time PR.

Our no-coverage, no-fee PR model is unique, gets silly amounts of coverage for our clients and is unlike anything else you’ll find in the UK.

(He says modestly).

Mind-boggling media coverage

But we also offer another way for you to get ludicrous, mind-boggling amounts of media coverage.

Our clients can choose to buy 3 media ‘credits’ up-front for £500. If they do, we guarantee to secure at least £1k of media coverage on their behalf under the no-coverage, no-fee model.

Our regular clients have taken to this new payment model like a duck to water, appreciating the huge value it offers.

Retail Vision Romps Home

Last month, for example, one of our regulars, Retail Vision, secured over 80 pieces of media coverage with their three credits, which shows the impact.

John Ibbotson, the owner, is in his late fifties but still manages to do a dolphin dive when the coverage pours in.

So if you’d like to snap up ridiculous amounts of media coverage for £500, email us today.

Remember: we guarantee you £1k of coverage so you’ll not be disappointed.

#democratisethemedia

The post Buy 3 media credits for £1k of media coverage appeared first on Just In Time PR.

At 7am in the morning, while the rest of the PR world was still dreaming of that first skinny latte, we were manoeuvring our big artillery into position for yet another media barrage.

We had 16 inch shells in our hands, and a serious look on our face.

Donner und blitzen!

Why were we up so early? Well, at 7am today both Mothercare and M&S published their trading updates for the fourth quarter.

We worked with long-time Just In Time PR client, the retail consultants Retail Remedy, to analyse both sets of results and issue two statements to the media.

And what a day it was.

The Just In Time PR howitzers fired long and true. And they were deadly accurate.

Hell, this wasn’t PR, it was a modern-day Dresden.

James McGregor, Dominic Hiatt preparing the PR howitzers for battle earlier today. Minutes later, the media were reduced to rubble.

Media rubble

The thoughts of James McGregor, the 50% of Retail Remedy that has hair, appeared left, right and centre. Everywhere. The media were reduced to rubble.

James’ thoughts on Mothercare and M&S appeared, among other places:

• on the Guardian
• on Reuters
• in the Daily Mail
• on the Daily Telegraph
• behind The Times paywall (subscription needed)
• in the Scotsman
• on Sky News
• in the Evening Standard

God, I’m getting bored. You get the point.

And the cost for all this coverage? It would be rude to give an exact figure but let’s say it was roughly the price of six Montecristo No.2′s.

Hiring a UK PR agency?

The moral of this short, and slightly deranged tale?

If you’re thinking of hiring a UK pr agency, or are considering ditching your current lot because they’re poo, give Just In Time PR a call today, or complete the short form (above right).

The best bit of all is that we’ll never charge you a penny unless you get results.

It’s an absolute no brainer!

The post UK PR agency, Just In Time PR, blitzes the media appeared first on Just In Time PR.

At 13:30 BST, the latest non-farm payrolls data was published in the US (08:30 ET).

This is a very big monthly jobs announcement stateside that acts as a health check on the world’s biggest economy.

The data was appalling, with the US economy putting on just 88k jobs in March, way below the expected 200k.

“Ouch, that hurt.” The US economy had a pretty awful March, putting on hardly any jobs.

But in the messed up world of the media, bad news, as you know, makes better news than good news. As a result, the story got a stack of pick-up.

About 20 minutes after the data emerged, we issued a statement to the media on the jobs data on behalf of our client, MB Capital.

MB Capital is a London-based stockbroker run by the fabulously-named Marcus Bullus.

Pr results to the nth power

About 15 minutes or so after we’d sent the media statement, Marcus’s thoughts started appearing left, right and centre. In fact, pretty much everywhere.

Here are just some of the hits he got:

BBC

CityAM

Reuters

Daily Mail

Thisismoney

Interactive Investor

The Independent 

The media especially liked his ‘speed bump’ line: “The US economy has just hit a major speed bump.”

In total, and because the Reuters hit got syndicated to hell and back, MB Capital got over 60 hits globally.

Marcus even made the Daily Mail newspaper on Saturday.

Not bad at all.

Sign up today!

If you’d like this kind of coverage for your company or organisation, then just sign up using the form, above right.

The moment a story breaks that requires your expertise, we’ll be in touch and do our best to get your views into the news.

The best bit of all is this: if you don’t get any coverage, you won’t pay a penny.

With Just In Time PR, there’s no PR puffery and zero idle promises, just PR results.

There’s nothing to lose!

The post PR results: MB Capital Scores a Home Run appeared first on Just In Time PR.

Ashley Brown of UK mortgage broker, Moneysprite, kicked the week off with a truckload of coverage around the British Bankers’ Association latest mortgage stats.

He got a stack of trade coverage, made personal finance website, Myfinances, but probably his best hit was this puppy on the BBC.

Well done, big man.

Even more PR results!

On Thursday, meanwhile, top bridging lender, Dragonfly, hit the jackpot when it commented on the Nationwide March house price index.

Dragonfly made the Evening Standard (print as well as online) not to mention the Daily Telegraph, where Jon, the CEO, is quoted at length.

Kerpow!

It’s Good Friday today so you’ll have to excuse the brevity of this post. I am going to take the dog walkies.

More PR results next week!

The post PR Results: w/c 25/03/13 appeared first on Just In Time PR.

Whatever “compelling digital products” The Daily Telegraph says it will offer behind the paywall, the writing is on the wall.

Traditional media will never again be the force they were.

This is just the latest step along that road.

The Daily Telegraph will, of course, take loyal readers with it but over time these will die out, the young won’t come, and people will find content elsewhere.

Not that they’ll need to find it, because content, dirty, stupid content, is all around us, smashing up against us all, all the time.

And the thing is, it’s not even dirty, it’s beautiful.

The problem for the media is that everyone, now, is the media.

And that kind of f***s your model (for want of a better phrase).

Every desk is a news desk, every hand on a keyboard is a voice.

The media landscape is becoming increasingly fragmented, schizophrenic, rhizomatic, to use the language of Deleuze.

The arborescence of the traditional media (“This is the news.”) is being strangled by the rhizome, which says only: ”Here is some news.”

The media have been deterritorialised by the body without organs that is online.

In a body without organs, every single atom is as important and as meaningless as all the others.

The news is only news if you care, not because you’re told.

From now on, the news is yours.

The post Daily Telegraph paywall and the Body Without Organs appeared first on Just In Time PR.

Speaking on BBC Radio Solent’s popular Drive Time show, Hiatt said:

“One minute I was on the loo at home in West Sussex reading Roger’s Profanisaurus, the next minute I had astral projected into the headquarters of the CIPR, which is the industry body for PR professionals.

“I knew instantly that I had astral projected, but what I was also pretty sure of was that I had gone back in time. Why else would the experienced PR practitioners in the boardroom of the CIPR be talking about the importance of key messages?

“In fact, when I looked at the big clock on the wall, the date read 14 March 2013.”

Hiatt said the PR professionals in the building reacted angrily to his presence, although couldn’t eject him from the building as he was a floating apparition above a tray of mini-patisseries, albeit one with its trousers still round its ankles.

What’s more, by some mad coincidence that only a God could explain, Hiatt’s three-year old Jack Russell bitch, Daisy, had also astral projected into the CIPR boardroom at the exact same time.

The former Just In Time PR senior account manager was hovering above the whiteboard in the corner none the wiser, seemingly oblivious to her passage through not only space but time, too.

“The first thing that struck me as I hovered above that tray of pastries was that, even on the astral plane, dogs don’t know what the f**k is going on. To Daisy, floating above that whiteboard in an alternative reality, it was just another day at the office.”

After five minutes of hovering in some kind of ethereal hyper-stasis, an awkward situation for all the communications professionals in the room, Hiatt and the Jack Russell started to fade, like a face drawn in sand at the edge of the sea.

“The next thing I knew, Daisy and I were back in West Sussex on walkies in the field next to the house. She was chasing the farmer’s sheep as if nothing had happened. She’s very clever and always finds the one with the crook leg, which is easier to bring down.”

The Chartered Institute of Public Relations declined to comment.

The post Public relations guy astral projects into CIPR headquarters appeared first on Just In Time PR.

You know what I mean by PR guff: pretty little powerpoint presentations, a spread of Pret sandwiches (that you’re paying for, of course) and someone who bangs on about key messages when no journalist gives a damn about key messages!

If you’re after PR results rather than PR poppycock, Just In Time PR might be for you. Here’s another example of how it works, from today no less.

Retail Extravaganza

At 7:30am today, when most of the PR world was asleep, Just In Time PR regulars Retail Remedy and Retail Vision issued their thoughts on the Morrisons and Ocado results respectively, which emerged at 7am.

Lordy lord, it was a media pincer movement that would have made George S. Patton proud.

Even General George S. Patton would have been proud of today’s media pincer movement.

By lunchtime, Britain’s hardest (and baldest) man, Phil Dorrell, of retail consultants, Retail Remedy, had landed a heap of coverage, including:

• Daily Mail
• Reuters
• Brand Republic
• Marketing Magazine

Meanwhile, John Ibbotson of retail consultants, Retail Vision (who spends most of his time out in the Ukraine hanging around with oligarchs), bagged a truckload of hits, too, including:

• Daily Telegraph
• Daily Mail
• Retail Gazette
• Money Observer

There was lots more but I’ve got to go and take the dog for a walk. But you get the idea anyway. The coverage howitzers were pounding the hun.

Want PR results?

The message of this story? If you want PR results like this, with no risk (as we only ever charge you IF you get coverage), fill in the form, above right, and we’ll make it happen.

We love nothing more than putting new and fresh voices into the media: so if you know your stuff and want to get your firm some great publicity, come on down!

The post Want PR results? Run your eyeballs over this, butty! appeared first on Just In Time PR.

OK, I will if I have to.

• Is the Queen about to go over the big ridge?
• Is ma’am about to go into the fertiliser business?

Personally, I hope and think not, as I quite like the Queen. And in any case: these royals are made of iron.

I’m just getting tickled by all the news stories covering Her Majesty’s gastroenteritis where the journalist is clearly aching to ask whether Queenie will soon be singing in the choir invisible.

But can’t. 

Check out this latest update on Her Majesty’s constitution by the BBC. The last sentence of the article is a sober reminder to the reader of just how serious this is, you know:

But earlier in the day, the Queen was forced to pull out of the annual Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey, for only the second time since becoming monarch.

The media love excitement, love the ‘big stories’, and there’s nothing more exciting for news desks than when a monarch joins the great majority.

However much they’ll deny it.

The post Is the Queen about to enter the fertiliser business? appeared first on Just In Time PR.

Well, how powerful blogging is if it’s done properly.

PR Results: 1 post, position 3

Search for ‘PR results’ carried out in the Incognito mode of Google Chrome

I know I bang on about this a bit but if you’re a smaller business and want to hoover up a lot more relevant traffic then you don’t need to hire an expensive SEO or social media agency.

You just need to write.

OK, you need to write half decent stuff, you need to write fairly regularly (three times a week at the least) and you need to optimise the hell out of the content you produce.

But doing this isn’t as hard as everyone makes out. How can it be? You can hear the sea when you stand next to me and I can do it.

If you’d like to know how to optimise your blog content, I’ve covered it before so maybe check out this post on getting to page 1 of Google.

Blog posts cling on

One other thing. Whatever SEO firms say about blog content, specifically that it’s short-term stuff and will rapidly slip off page 1 of Google, it’s nonsense.

‘Query deserves freshness‘, a ranking factor within Google’s algorithm, is a short-cut to the top of search: that much seems clear. But equally clear is that fresh content can hang around for quite some time.

For example, below is a search for ‘cheap pr agencies’ carried out earlier. A post I wrote on 28 January is right at the top. Nearly six weeks on and it’s still doing the business.

Search for ‘cheap pr agencies’ carried out today in the Incognito mode of Google chrome.

Conclusion: if you write, you can make it to the top of Google quickly because very few other companies are writing.

All in all, well-optimised blog posts, written regularly, and which get a few social shares, can do very well indeed on Google.

Content strategy

To make it easier for yourself, create a basic content strategy.

This can be as simple as a load of ideas written down somewhere that you can write about. Centre these ideas around your keyphrases, of course.

It just means you don’t need to spend an hour thinking about what to write before you do the actual writing.

Now write.

The post Quick post on PR results shows power of blogging appeared first on Just In Time PR.