Run this audit on your website to see if your company is ready for journalists.

Hello and welcome to this episode of The Unnoticed Show. My name's Jim James, and I'm here just to share some thoughts and some tools and tips for you to get your business noticed. So I want to just talk with you today about how easy it is for a journalist to even reach out and find you and contact you. Now, it seems like an obvious thing to say, but if you just have a quick look at your website and do an audit, Do you have a few of the following items on your website or not? Because if you don't, doesn't matter how much the media want to find you, they're gonna find it difficult to get hold of you. So I've done this, this week for a client, an audit really of how approachable they are to the media. And this is what I wanna share with you so you can do this on your own website and on your own social media as well. So first of all, on your website, the first question is, do you have a media center? Do you have a place where the media can contact you? Now, you may or may not have press releases, and you may have just a contact form on your website at the minute, which is a simple contact us, but the journalist is probably not going to want to just fill out a form. They're too busy, and it's going to go into your sales pipeline, probably. So first thing to think about is, do you have a dedicated press contact on your website. Doesn't matter how big or small you are, as we're seeing these days through, for example, the Help a Reporter Out or the Journal Requests website. Companies big and small are being asked to contribute to articles, and it's very, very easy for you to get that kind of coverage if you're looking for it. But if people come looking for you, how will they find you? So if you have a website and you don't have a press contact, I really suggest that you put that on there. You can have an alias like PR@ and your company name and have that go to you or whoever else, or maybe 2 people that are managing that. So first of all, do you have a press contact on your website? Secondly, do you have a press room on your website? Now, some companies will embed some of the larger platforms like Cision, which can have a pro— a hosted press center. You may or may not want to go through the expense of that, but even if you've just got a WordPress site, you could at least put your press releases up online. Doesn't take much to do to have one page which is all dedicated to your press releases and to your news. And these are different and separate to your blog. The blog can be an industry piece, an article, but your press releases should be on your website. And it can be as simple as the appointment of a new person. It can be about a new customer win. It can be about a new factory or a new product. These are pieces of news that you have that you'd like to share, but which really are company-specific versus a blog, for example, which is probably going to be a thought leadership piece. So if you don't have a press room, doesn't have to be too fancy, but to have press releases on your website, ideally one a month, doesn't have to be very long. Can even just be 500 to 800 words. So half a page to a full page in length. And that will then also help you with your SEO. Also on your website can be a media images. Database. So upload the logo, the photographs, for example, of the key spokespeople, a fact sheet, and also then links that you might have to any of your social media. So every website that wants to have correspondence with the media should have those very simple media contacts, an archive of press releases, And a directory that people can download. So you can add them as vector files and you can add them as JPEGs, have them in color and black and white. So all the assets that you would like the journalists to be able to use so they can drag and drop for a story. The other thing you want to put in there, for example, is going to be your company fact sheet, which has got the history of the company, the names of the founders, for example. So that's the beginning there that we want to get that on your website. Now, the next thing to do is to look at how easy it is for people to find you. Now, there are news websites like PR Newswire, for example. If you send out a press release using PR Newswire, then it will be listed on some of these websites. And some of these websites like PR Newswire go directly to the big feeds, like for Reuters, for example. And they also get hosted on some websites like zoominfo.com. And ZoomInfo is a website that collates information and collates competitor information. So it could be very useful for journalists and also analysts, for example, that might be looking to file a story and they want to find a company and they'll find all the other companies that are related to that particular industry or topic. And zoominfo.com will be one of the sources that they'll go to, to aggregate which companies they might want to talk to. And you can get on those by having an account and filling them in with your updated details. But also the services like PR Newswire are directly picked up by ZoomInfo. And so the press release that's on your website would then get picked up by ZoomInfo. Now, the next thing you want to think about is the keywords on your website. Are they being picked up by your industry websites? So if you have some SEO work done on your website, you'll have some keywords, some key terms. Those should then be words that are in all of your press releases, and those should then be sent to all of those different trade press websites. Now, you can use a API Newswire. You can also use some of the smaller e-releases, for example, like Mickey Kennedy that came on the show. There are now a large number of, if you like, boutique press release distribution services that are as low as £50 to send them to, for example, a set of trade press for you. The reason for using those newswires is because those have feeds that are often aggregated and published almost verbatim by many of the trade show websites and the trade portals that are just looking to aggregate large volumes of content. These websites will have articles, they'll have interviews, they also take this content because it's really low-hanging fruit for them. And frankly, it helps them with the SEO and it gives them real estate for their banner exchange and for advertising. Now, one thing to also look at is whether the name on your website is the name in your press releases. It's very easy to have a full company name on your website, for example, and then use it as a shortening in your press releases. But that may affect whether it shows up on the search functions on these trade portals and trade websites and other, for example, news websites. So make sure that the words and the names that you use, the naming convention that you have on your home website, in your press releases, and your directory submissions are all the same. Seems obvious, but actually it's very easy for the brand to get diluted if you don't do that. Now, the next thing to think about is, do you have any awards or patents, for example? Now, The Boost Awards have got a global list of awards that you can enter, everything from the Queen's Award for Export in the UK, for example. I found Fast Company in America has got awards. Manufacturing Asia from Chart Media Group has got a Manufacturing Made in Singapore Award, for example. There are awards all over the world run by governments, by associations, by publications. If you haven't entered any, then I encourage you to do so. I've just in fact entered the Thinkfest Book of the Year Award with my Unnoticed Volume 1. So even I'm entering the awards business. It's cost me 4 books, £75, and you know, nothing ventured, nothing gained. But enter the awards because those awards can go onto your website. The other place that you want to try and get your company into is some research reports. I did a podcast on analysts just a few episodes ago, and if you are not currently talking to analysts, this is really one area that you want to address because those analysts produce reports and those reports appear on their websites like Gartner and Forrester and Ovum, for example, and that can then track back to you. So here are a number of places that you should be thinking about building signposts and content for journalists, for analysts to come and find you. The other is social media. Now, what about LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook? You want to have all of these platforms owned with your own branding, your own name. Even if you're not tending them religiously yourself, you can automate the distribution to them. So you should have your LinkedIn and your Twitter and your Instagram, maybe Pinterest if you're in the consumer space. TikTok, there's some argue— arguments there about the demographic of who you're selling to. But if you're a B2B, LinkedIn and Twitter, absolutely. If you're a consumer, an Instagram, Pinterest. YouTube, for example. All these channels need to have your content on them because that's where the journalists are going to find out about you as they're doing their research. And if you're not on those channels, you're going to undermine the sense of credibility that they have about you, because these days your presence to some degree translates into the impression of the reputation of your business. And that's why some big old sluggish companies are not getting the kind of media coverage that some of the new upstarts are, just because the journalists are living in these places like social media, especially Twitter. And if you're not on those, then you're not part of their current conversation and looking for the kind of stories that they're publishing. So very easy. All of these platforms are free to own. To have your own space. I've talked before about automation platforms like Buffer, Zoho, Ask Edgar, like Hootsuite, for example. There are plenty of them, so use them. So just in summary, a quick audit. How available, how accessible, how findable are you for the media? Because you might think you're doing a great job on your website, but it may be really focused on sales. And that community that you also want to talk to are the journalists. I just encourage you to have a quick look. Worst case, it's just an email saying media inquiries are welcome and an alias, you know, media@ and your company name. If you could put some press releases up on there, and I've talked before about some products like, um, eWriter, for example, an AI writer that are out there to help you to write those articles. But if you at least have your media contacts and a phone number, ideally, because most journalists are operating on a deadline, then it gives you a much better chance of getting your story into the media. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Unnoticed Show. I hope that these short snippets, these little pieces of experience that I have sharing with you, will add value. and will help you to get noticed for what you do. Because we're so focused as an entrepreneur on the sales and the cash flow and the compliance and so on, that sometimes we let the opportunities to get noticed pass us by just for the sake of a small tip or tool. And that's what I'm hoping to share with you on this show. Thank you so much for listening. If you've enjoyed it, do subscribe. If you can see in the show notes, there's a place to even Rate the podcast. That really, really helps for Apple and for Spotify to know that this is a show that's adding value. So thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur, and until we meet again, I wish you all the best and that you keep on communicating.