Picture this.
You work for a public relations agency who has secured a new client. Your task, which you have no choice but to accept, is to provide a plan to enhance their online profile. For the sake of this blog post the client has not yet utilised social media platforms but has already got a website.
Before you can offer any tactics you must have a strategy.
Before you can offer a strategy you must research their current online presence.
These are 5 methods which can be used in a wider internet footprint investigation:
Google Search
Every digital public relations campaign starts with a Google search. Why? It is easy. If your client’s website cannot be found on Google then your client’s website does not exist. Without wanting to be patronising I will not instruct you how to do a Google search. What I will say is check the first 10 pages. Can’t find your client? Then you have a lot of work ahead of you!
Google+ has dramatically changed Google’s search algorithm. If you are already a Google+ user then you may find contacts of yours have already recommended your client’s website which will make it appear on the first page of results. The subject of social SEO is for another blog post.
Domain Registration Information
When it comes to websites it is traditional for the client to have absolutely no idea about registration information. It is here that the PR professional must take over. Visit Network Solutions and search for your client’s website domain name. I did this with my own domain below.
mikewhite.co.uk information
Careful attention must be averted to:
- The Registrant (Your client may not be the owner)
- Registrant’s Address (Is it visible?)
- The Registrar
- Registration Dates
- Name Servers (This is technical. Is the domain being redirected from another server company?)
Whilst you are on Network Solutions also check the ownership of similar domain names. For instance if I own mikewhite.co.uk who else owns:
- mikewhite.com
- mikewhite.org
- mikewhite.biz
The list of domains is endless and you must register any which are available. Keep control of your client’s brand.
Alexia Website Usage
Search for your client’s domain on Alexia to discover approximate statistics about their websites. In the spirit of this blog post and transparency I did a search for mikewhite.co.uk.
According to Alexia mikewhite.co.uk:
- Ranks 207,623 in GB
- Has a 2,152,529 global rank
- Has 88 sites linking in (which can be displayed)
Along with a variety of others stats…
Play around with Alexia.
Twitter Mentions
We have already established that for this example our new client has not got an official Twitter presence. Despite this you may be surprised about how many people are still mentioning the company despite their lack of presence. A Twitter strategy, in my view, is mostly about management of reputation. Individuals will tweet and a PR professional’s task is to provide direction, messages which will feed into online discussions. Don’t think an official account will provide you with control. An organisation’s presence on Twitter is just another voice which can easily be drowned out by hundreds of other mentions.
Twitter has a built in search function. Type in keywords. These keywords should be highly specific to the company. If we wanted to find the presence of Disney we could type in:
- ‘Disney’
- ‘Disney Channel’
- ‘Disney Games’
- ‘Disney Music’
Twitter strategies can be vast and the simplicity of a keyword search can also be utilised to find new business.
Blog Post Search
Websites and blogs are measured differently on the internet. Employ the same keyword strategy as above. Whilst you could use Google Blogs to search, Technorati is a much better resource.
It is imperative to evaluate a client’s mentions on blogs because:
- Blogs measure higher than traditional websites on Google
- Discover their sentiment levels; are posts largely positive, negative or promotional?
- Posts can play host to a variety of comments, what are other people saying?
- For any digital public relations campaigns it is useful to establish relationships with bloggers. You need to identify publishers.
Which other methods would you use for an online audit?
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