Newspage Geosearch Goes Live

22 May 2023

In case you haven’t noticed, the internet is local.

The web and the metaverse were supposed to kill off the local media. That was utter bulls*it, because local is making a comeback.

The majority of business generated from publicity for Newspagers comes from being featured in the local media, not the national media.

Sure, it’s great to be featured in the like of the BBC, Times, and FT, but if you want to generate money for your business nothing beats being featured locally.

Local media coverage is the quickest, easiest and longest-lasting SEO hack your business can get.

Search engines prioritise your location and credible sites. Local media hits both those like a one-two combo from Muhammad Ali.

Want your business to get oodles of organic search traffic? Get featured in the local media and the job’s done.

This is why local news has been a focus for us at Newspage UK since the beginning, but with thousands of businesses and journalists located across the UK our challenge has been bringing them together easily and quickly.

So we tasked our clever CTO Peter Vidlicka and his team to come up with a solution.

Peter’s come up with the goods and I’m delighted to announce that we have now launched Newspage Geosearch.

Newspage Geosearch enables local and regional journalists to effortlessly connect with businesses and charities in their towns and cities to source new stories and secure expert comment for the stories they’re working on.

So if you’re business is not on Newspage yet, get yourself signed up now (Free or Premium) and we can get you that all-important local coverage.

As for you existing Newspagers, make sure you’re address is added to your profile otherwise you’ll be missing out on LOTS of local media opportunities.

Big shout out to Peter Vidlicka for bringing Newspage Geosearch live.

Geosearch was only one of the reasons I was in London last week to meet with Dominic Hiatt and Jonny Stevens. We also made progress on our upcoming mobile app and our pet project, NIBs (news in brief), which will deliver a knock-out punch to the press release, making it possible for you to pitch stories to the media in a matter of seconds. But more about that later…

Jay Vaananen, CEO, Newspage

Bin the Backlinks Question

9 March 2023

Stop doing this, it doesn’t help you.

The question I get asked the most when we get a Newspager coverage in the media is: “Could you ask the publication to put a backlink to our business website?”

No, I most certainly won’t because, just like your mum, I care about you and have your best interests at heart.

I get why you ask and it comes from a good place – you want your business to rank high on Google. It’s one of the big benefits of being featured in the media. You have it on good authority as well, that lad in your tech team who lives off of Red Bull and wears Metallica t-shirts told you that backlinks are the Holy Grail of search engine optimisation – nothing else matters.

He’s not wrong. Metallica is a great band.

Whether a publication gives you a backlink or not is a question of editorial styles. In plain English that means some will, some won’t. Most often they won’t. A normal news article will quote several people and littering the article with links isn’t visually appealing.

Just read any article from the publication, if there’s a link to the firm of someone they’ve quoted, then they use backlinks. Simples.Now you know.

To a journalist, being asked if you can have a backlink is like a parent hearing “are we there yet?” from the back seat for the fourth time, seven minutes into an eight hour drive.

It grinds a journalist’s gears and is a guaranteed way to get you put on the naughty step. So don’t do it.

You still get plenty of Google juice from being quoted and name checked in a publication, even without a backlink. News sites have high domain authority and anyone googling you or your business will come across those articles, making you appear like the credible expert you are.

Being featured in the media helps your business to “own” the first pages of any google search. When you’ve been quoted in the media regularly, it’s your business website followed by those publications that you’ve featured in that pop up first. That’s web dominance right there and it’s easy to obtain.

Yes, backlinks are the best, no doubt about it, they do all the things Metallica t-shirt SEO boy wonder told you. But please, take any backlinks you get as a bonus.

So stop worrying and stop asking for backlinks. Instead, sign up to Newspage and get your business featured in the media today.

Jay Vaananen, CEO, Newspage

How to get your blog featured in the media

20 February 2023

If you publish a blog, you’re doing it wrong.

I see this with new Newspagers. They sign up, I have a look at their website, see they have a blog, then I groan in despair.

I mean proper groan. I look to the ceiling, spread my hands out and shout “Oh give me strength!”

Blogs are great for converting clients. If someone is reading your blog, they’re primed to buy. Right then they’re choosing your article over cat memes or Netflix. Influential stuff, your blog is crushing it.

So yes, do take the time to write and publish blogs regularly, even if you only get seven readers a month.

Why do I groan in despair at the sight of a blog?

Lost opportunities, that’s the problem. I just looked at a new Newspager’s blog, with an article explaining six steps every homeowner should take when their mortgage comes up for renewal.

It was brilliant. Sure, it was all about them and how they are super duper brilliant, but that’s precisely what your website is supposed to say. However, with a little bit of editing, your blog article can be turned into a brilliant educational piece that a big media outlet would love to publish.

When you get your article into a major publication it will drive traffic to your website because compared to your blog the national media is an aircraft carrier and your blog is a butter knife. And when the media feature you, that’s automatic credibility, it elevates you to an expert in your field. You know, the area that you make a living from. More traffic to your website means new customers and increased credibility means more closed deals.

It doesn’t end there

Blogs are the gift that keeps on giving.

News sites have stratospheric domain authority. Google loves them like like a darts player loves hitting a triple twenty, meaning your article will make your firm pop up in organic search not just when it is published, but from now until Google goes bankrupt.

And there’s more

(I told you it was the gift that keeps on giving)

You should then post the article all over social media. Now, it’s not you telling people “read our blog”, it’s you showing that the media recognises you as an expert. Showing is more powerful than telling.

Then here’s what you do: You go back to your original blog post and add “this article was featured in The Times” and add a link.

Everyone talks about backlinks, but few know that outbound links to high domain authority sites also boost your SEO and domain authority.

One single blog post read by a handful of people has now:

– Been seen by thousands of people
– Made you a national leading expert in your area
– Directs more customers to your website
– Boosts your website’s domain authority for years to come

So, if you have a blog, upload it to your Newspage, we’ll take a look at it and if it’s got legs, we’ll turn it into a media sexy article and you’ll get all of the above. If you’re not already on Newspage, then you can sign up by clicking here.

Jay Vaananen, CEO, Newspage

How to write a media pitch

6 February 2023

Here’s a top tip if you want to pitch something to the press. No, scratch that, this isn’t a top tip, calling it a top tip downplays it.

This is the mother of all pitches, the Holy Grail of pitches, the creme de la creme of pitches, the tippety toppety grand prize of the pitchery lottery.

Best thing about it is you can do it with just a couple of sentences. You don’t have to write a white paper or even a press release.

And I’m about to show you how one Newspager did it.

Robert Bolohan of Lotuly® (Human Translation) achieved this zenith of media tartery last week with his pitch to a journalist (no, the Newspage crew had nothing to do with this one, Robert achieved it all on his lonesome). His pitch was this:

“My wife and I bought a minivan and converted it into a fully electric self sufficient and off grid campervan. We’d love to talk about how we save money every month.”

There. That’s it. Two sentences.

What’s so special about those two sentences? That’s what you’re thinking, right? Well allow me to open the door for you and let you into the room marked “Dark Arts of Media Mastery”

The perfect pitch has to contain three things. If it contains these three things, you’re guaranteed to have a line of journalists outside your door, a few climbing in through the windows and at least one stuck in the chimney.

The three things are:

💡Touch on a megatrend

💡Have a unique angle

💡Be current

Let’s look at Robert’s pitch again.

Sustainability and the environment are megatrends. “A fully electric self sufficient and off grid campervan” is all about being environmentally friendly. Boom! Point 1 taken care of.

The campervan is a unique angle in the context of what the journalist was looking for. In this case an article about solar panels for the home. A campervan is not what you first think of when you hear home, but it could be a home, hence a unique angle. Boom! Point 2 taken care of.

We are in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis and people are struggling to pay their electricity bills. “We’d love to talk about how we save money every month” hits our current circumstances right on the button. Boom! Point 3 taken care of.

Okay, so most people are unlikely to go out and buy a minivan and turn it into a Tesla but an article about it hits the megatrend, has a unique angle and is timely.

What’s more, the thought of living off the grid, cruising along the highway with the summer breeze flowing through the windows while you sing carpool karaoke to “Me and Bobby Mcgee” sure sounds like an enticing dream. Especially if you just opened your electricity bill.

So next time you want to pitch an idea to a journalist, make sure it hits a megatrend, has a unique angle and is current.

Now sing with me:

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose, nothing don’t mean nothing honey if it ain’t free, now, now.”

Financial journalism at its worst

17 January 2023

When well-known financial journalist and BBC Money Box presenter, Paul Lewis, advised those seeking a mortgage to not “find a mortgage broker over the local cab shop in the high street”, he was effectively insulting millions of small and micro businesses around the UK. The implication of his comments is that small businesses on the UK’s high streets are grubby and untrustworthy.

Instead of doing the right thing and apologising, he doubled down on Twitter by throwing kebab shops into the mix, too. So now it’s taxi ranks, mortgage brokers and kebab shops he has managed to disparage, as well as every other small business to boot.

Paul has a large platform, both on social media and in the mainstream media, and people listen to his advice. It is deeply damaging for him to attack small businesses at a time when hundreds of thousands of them are at breaking point as a result of soaring energy prices, rising interest rates and high inflation.

If we follow Paul’s logic, then none of us should buy our groceries from a small local firm but should head off to Tesco instead. Equally, we shouldn’t go to our local high streets to buy a gift from a small independent but should line the pockets of Jeff Bezos and Amazon. And don’t, whatever you do, use a local broker who may have countless 5-star reviews and be the bee’s knees, because if they’re based next to a chippy, they must be rubbish.

Instead, go to a big national corporate broker, and help buy some fat cat CEO running a mortgage sausage factory the latest Range Rover instead.

Paul seems committed to supporting the big corporates and their bottom line rather than the everyday business doing its best to stay afloat. Man of the people? Servant of the conglomerates more like. This truly is (financial) journalism at its worst.

How to get your content seen and read

16 January 2023

The one major thing companies big and small struggle with is producing good stories.

The problem is that so many of the ideas come from marketing people. You can’t blame them, their job is to sell you products, it’s how they came up in the business. And just like to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail; to a marketer with a thought, everything looks like a product.

But none of us like to have products pushed on us. If you really want to stand out, have people remember you and – to use some marketing parlance – be “top of mind” to your audience, then you need to tell them a story. A good one.

But it’s not easy, as the proliferation of worthless and banal content we scroll through on our feeds every day confirms.

But I can sort this problem out for you in 20 minutes

If you’re lost for ideas or think you have a story idea, you can book a 20-minute chat with an experienced journalist who will do two things:

1. Tell you if your story is a dud or a goer and help you to make it into something your website visitors will want to read and the media publish.

2. Come up with (in my experience) at least 3 great story ideas that the media and your readers will gobble up.

I’ve sat in on several of these conversations and they’re a real crash course in what the media looks for in a story. At the end of it, you’ll have several ideas that people will actually want to see and you’ll feel smarter after it to boot because you’ll be armed with the knowledge to create more story ideas yourself.

So what have we done with these 20-minute chats? Well, we’ve turned them into a blimin’ product haven’t we. Yes, yes, I hang my head in shame, but a man’s got to make a living. I have a mortgage to pay and the kids need new shoes, it’s cold outside.

Book now

So book yourself a News Chat now and be amazed. Who knows, you might even get to talk to Dominic Hiatt (explicit lyrics) or Jonny Stevens (less so).

A News Chat is cheap as chips at £89.99 and even cheaper at £69.99 for Premium Newspagers.

Newspagers, you can book a News Chat on your profile. The rest of you, sign up to Newspage or book a call on this link.

Top tip. Do not delay, dammit

13 January 2023

Your competitor Dave down the road is always in the local rag (that’s a newspaper to our American friends).

You want to get into said rag because everyone in the village reads and talks about it… in Dave’s flower shop, while you sit scrolling LinkedIn all day and watching your Dahlias droop.

Then, one day, from out of the blue, you get a direct message on LinkedIn, for once, it’s the real thing, not from some “strategic partnerships manager for bouquet excellence” trying to sell you some new flower arranging online course. It’s the journalist from the local rag asking for your opinion on the state of the village green.

Woohoo, exciting, finally it’s happened, your time to bloom (if you’ll pardon the pun). You have to get this just right, so you start typing the perfect reply, you have MS Word open, writing, re-writing, editing and deleting. Two hours later you’re done. It’s perfect.

You send it back. Next day, who’s featured in the local rag? Dave, that’s who.

Because Dave did not delay.

When a journalist asks you for a quote, speed comes first, eloquence comes second. Do not delay. Put together a quote and zip it out, the journalist will edit and correct the typos for you. It’s their job after all.

Better yet, pay for Newspage Premium and our professional journalists will make your prose sing quickety quick and the journalist will love you because they have less work to do.

#NewspageShoutOuts

11 September 2021

Meet Lewis Shaw, who runs Shaw Financial Services up in Mansfield. Just look at that beard. Smashing.

Lewis Shaw of Shaw Financial Services talks Newspage….

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