Best way to link from press releases
-
I'm wondering what people recommend for linking from press releases; specifically, what kind of tracking parameters people add to their links, if any.
My first thought is to add UTM tracking parameters for Google Analytics, but I have a few concerns:
- bloggers that copy our link from the release include the tracking parameters in the links from their site, which would only identify the traffic as coming from the release and not the specific sites
- UTM parameters in the link may make it look less natural to Google
Also, I've considered using shortened URL's without parameters in the release that get 301 redirected to the relevant pages, which I thought might have a few benefits:
- the links look more natural (no tracking parameters)
- UTM parameters could be added as part of the redirect after the fact
- if the release attracted links from spammy sources for some reason I could kill the redirect, which I'm hoping would effectively kill the link
My company doesn't rely on press releases for link building, which we understand to have been ineffective for a long time, but we do send them out occasionally and want the most effective links for tracking and SEO.
I'd love to hear if anyone has thoughts on these assumptions, or if anyone has different linking strategies that they have found strike the right balance of SEO and tracking considerations. Thanks!
-
I think UTM is one of the best methods to track all of your Marketing Campaigns. It has helped me a lot in reducing the complexity of securing a network.
You can find the below link helpful to you.
https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Google-Analytics-Reports/UTM-tracking-Removal/td-p/1276751
-
I found some tools online that address some of my concerns about using UTM codes that I think will help a lot.
First, this poster developed a script that removes UTM codes from the URL in the address bar of a user's browser so they are gone when a user copy and pastes the link from there. Doesn't help if people copy the link directly out of the press release but my feeling is that more people get it from the address bar anyway. That should go a long way to make sure there aren't links out in the wild with inappropriate UTM codes attached.
https://websiteadvantage.com.au/Google-Analytics-UTM-RemovalSecond, this poster created a script that dynamically replaces the utm_source code with the name of the referring site any time it processes a link where the utm_source code is set to the word "dynamic". That means any traffic that comes from sites that have UTM codes on the links will still have their source tracked properly.
https://www.bounteous.com/insights/2014/06/11/campaign-tracking-dynamic-source/Now that I have these tools, I'm planning on including UTM tags in my press release links. To build links conservatively per the Whiteboard Friday I mentioned earlier, I'm going to point the links at canonical versions of my pages or at URL's that are 301 redirected to the relevant pages. Still not sure if this is a great strategy so I'd love to hear people's thoughts, but I will try it out and see how it goes in the meantime.
-
Thanks John. That post does include a good tip about keeping UTM tags SEO-friendly, although it doesn't address whether or not UTM codes are good way to track press release traffic. The issue with UTM codes that concerns me the most is that anyone that copies and pastes links with the UTM codes elsewhere on the web does not have their traffic source tracked properly.
-
Hey Kyle! Roman had a great answer to this when he answered a previous question - https://mza.bundledseo.com/community/q/do-long-utm-codes-hurt-seo - take a peek.
-
Yes we moved to https in the last year and I just confirmed that all properties and views are set to https. Good thought, though!
-
Hey Kyle,
Another side question before I answer (sorry for the delay). Have you moved your site to https and have you changed the admin parameters to https in property settings and view settings?
Most change the former but some miss the view settings. We saw similar things with organic traffic over this year and the issue was that the view was not set to https.
Let me know and I'll give you feedback on the link question after.
Thanks!
John
-
Hi John,
I feel like over the years more and more of my traffic is incorrectly showing up in Google Analytics with a "direct" source and have confirmed that is the case with some of my referral traffic, so I've been using UTM codes more often to correctly credit referrers in my reports.
Ideally the only UTM parameter I'd use would be the "Campaign" parameter so I could easily see aggregate statistics about traffic generated by the press release in GA regardless of source. However, I believe you're required to include source and medium parameters when using UTM codes, which is what makes all traffic look like it's coming from the same place when the link is copied to other sites. If I could just set a campaign parameter and let Google fill in the blanks for source and medium that would be great. Does anyone know if that works?
Alternatively I'm considering creating new pages on my site that are duplicates of existing pages with appropriate canonical links and linking to the new pages in my release. I was inspired by the concept of "canonical burn pages" that I first heard in this Whiteboard Friday.
https://mza.bundledseo.com/blog/risk-averse-link-building-whiteboard-fridayThis method would address quite a few of my concerns:
- links look natural
- traffic from any source that ends up using this unique URL will be inherently aggregated when viewing reports for that URL
- Google should report accurate "source" data
- can kill the page if I end up with a lot of spammy inbound links
The only downside I can see is that we'll have to maintain duplicate pages, but I suppose we could put a 301 redirect on the URL at some point down the road and abandon the duplicate.
This strategy is still a work in progress so I'd still love to hear anyone else's thoughts about the best ways to link from press releases.
-
Hey Kyle,
This is also a good question. I'm curious as to why you would want to add the UTM parameters as you could just look at the referring source of traffic and attribute it to the specific site that the e-release is on. I'm looking forward to the discussion as I know some others will provide good feedback.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
2 tier links campaign
I want to launch a 2 tier campaign, I have been building high-quality backlinks to my site, that means sites relevant to my niche, quality content ( more than 700 words), high domain authority and so on. But making an in deep research I realized the half of my backlinks are almost invisible to Google and the other ones have just a few links and traffic. So I decided to take some actions Build 2 tiers links to my backlinks in order to make them visible Boots their social signals with the same goal in mind ( social shares, likes, comments and so on) So my questions are Does anyone have experience with that? What kind of results did you get in the past? Is this useful? Thanks and regards
Social Media | | Roman-Delcarmen0 -
Best reports for competitive social engagement insights? (Moz or not)
My client, in a large industrial sector, is trying to find or purchase good data for their industry as far as benchmarks for social engagement. While the DIY tools have social trackers, many require you to connect to the account you want to measure - so competitive research is a non-starter. What would you use to build a spreadsheet of social engagement metrics from a set of, say, 10 competitors in a niche vertical (e.g. industrial robotics?)
Social Media | | scottclark1 -
Best way to research the social potential of content (NOT just search potential).
I'm wondering if anyone in the community has found a good method for researching the social potential for content. I'll break down what I'm asking exactly so it makes more sense. In order for a page to get ranked highly on Google for a keyword it needs authority (usually). With social media having an ever increasing impact on the authority of content, creating content that has social value (shared, liked, talked about, etc) can really help increase the authority of that page in Google's eyes. In saying this if content is created that people search AND talk a lot about, it's authority will rise quickly, thus getting traffic through that keyword is easier and faster (not to mention your link building happens for you organically). I've formulated a pretty good keyword research process to find the search potential of creating content around that keyword; however I am looking at how to research the potential social value of content. I'm thinking the best way would be to crawl the social platforms and find trends in what people are talking about for the last x amount of time. Must be some patterns to look for in things like hashtags. At the end of the day I'd like to have content created based on both search keyword and social research. I'm looking for advice from people who have found a good way to do this social research on what they look for / what tools they use.
Social Media | | reidsteven750 -
Facebooking and Liking - Whis is best SEO practice for Rankings
Hi everyone! , i am a rookie with SEO. I have a very specific question for which i would love to hear your opinions on this. I have a facebook fan page about my company. We try to post quality stuff in regard to the industry we are in. However, we are social people, and i have seen improvements whenever we post more "social" topics such as TGIF, Photos, DIY themes. My question is (Actually two questions) : Is there a direct correlation or metric between rankings and "likes", the size of your facebook community ? If so, which has more power or effect on rankings. Facebook Likes generated from your website , or General Likes of posts within your existing community. Hope to hear from ya! Every advice is good advice. Regards Jesus D Aceromart
Social Media | | JesusD0 -
How does Google handle URL shortening, do they pass link juice?
When I'm Social Book marking my websites I use a url shortening service such as bitly.com or onlywire.com. Do these services transfer link juice in the same ways as a direct link would do?
Social Media | | iansellman0 -
Community site for link building?
I'm considering the following in order to get users to stay on my site and make it more useful to visitors. At the minute we list live bands for hire and have a blog - that's it. I'm looking to build a sense of community where users can build a profile, chat, list their gigs, upload demos and chat in forums. Firstly I want improve the user experience and gain dedicated members but my second reason for doing so it to gain backlinks. My theory is that if the site is more useful it will gain more links. Does anyone have any info on how implementing 'community' features on a website helps with backlinks and whether this strategy works? These changes would mean my site has evolved considerably but i don't see that as a problem. My long term aim is to monetise the site through classifed ads and spot ads. Would anyone advise against adding advertising to a site and if so why?
Social Media | | SamCUK0 -
Need people's opinion on if this is good advice for link building
What google wants is authority, relevancy, quality and engagement. If you have an authority in your niche and place relevant content on your website plus grammar free, unique and a lot of words, and social influence via Twitter, Facebook, Google +... You shouldn't be worried about the speed of building back links. I checked your website and it seems like an authority site. PR5, 18K backlinks plus $38K SE free traffic (according to SEMrush)... You just need a social influence to boost your authority. Create Twitter, Facebook, Google+ accounts for this website and also Facebook and Google+ pages. Then Create 30 web 2.0 accounts and on each one post three articles. Two of them are an account activation (this is what I call it), which can be just grabbed from ezinearticles and spun. Keep the links to the articles at the bottom of the pages. Once your web 2.0 sites are indexed by Google publish 800+ words quality relevant content with two links to your website. One to your root domain and one to the most relevant page your website (I mean relevant to the 800+ words article). Do this on each of those 30 web 2.0 sites. After this blast all of the 800+ articles with all kind of backlinks. Forum profiles, blog comments, article directories... Just use Senuke and other software. And don't forget to create a facebook fan page for each of the web 2.0 sites. In one month, you'll see a heck of a move in rankings. Where does the bookmarking part go? You need to bookmark every single URL you want Google to see. And if you want to outsource it, I highly recommend you to get a full time VA who would do this for you. Hope it helps. And your answer to your question about speed, if your site is older than 3 months don't care about the speed. Care about the quality.
Social Media | | newcitymoving0 -
Which tool you best recommend for Social Media management, engagement, and monitoring. reputeme.com - trackur.com - viralheat.com - sproutsocial.com?
Please consider the pricing, ease of use, and accuracy, also, perhaps the social networks being monitored( as far as I am concern it's only trackur that monitors google+) Also if you have other recommendation, that would be awesome too. Thank you. PS: I love seomoz Social Media reporting, I just have other requirements too. Thanks.
Social Media | | TofSalcedo841