The Fuel Team's Blog

posted by Karen on October 6, 2008

“Is your website adequate in this age of “now” information?”

Learn the Five things that the Media, Your Supporters and Google are all grading you on.

Wondering why the media never seems to cover you, your supporters don’t frequent your site and you never show up in site searches unless you actually type in your organization’s name? Don’t miss this opportunity to gain a basic understanding of how to give journalists what they want, supporters a reason to come back and the search engines the means to rank your site well.

Micha Hansen – Director of Optimization
Karen Meyer – Managing Partner

Thanks to all who attended the Colorado Nonprofit Association Fall Conference - and our presentation on Search Engine Optimization. 

If you'd like to to be alerted about our next SEO Training Series, please complete our "Contact Us" form on our website.

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posted by Dee on September 29, 2008

Independent Research Firm Generates First Statistically Valid Report on Industry Following Three-Month Analysis of News Stories Resulting From Press Releases

Press releases distributed by PR Newswire get used by media more often than copy from competing services and generate more clips when they are picked up, according to a landmark study of commercial newswires.

The comprehensive study was conducted by the market research and intelligence firm Diagnostics Plus. Other third party data from web analytics providers shows PR Newswire outperforms its peers in web traffic rank and reach and in blog links, as well.

"Our entire team is gratified that an impartial review of our industry has verified that there is a significant difference in newswire services," said Dave Armon, president of PR Newswire. "In our estimation, this study verifies a long-held belief within PR Newswire that successful news dissemination is more than simply putting a release over a wire. Consistent and impactful coverage requires a combination of state-of-the-art technology, the ability to simultaneously issue news on a global scale and in an extremely targeted manner, and a deep understanding of the media industry, in all its forms. To this point, we have always treated the news media as if they were our clients. This dedication, we believe, has endowed PR Newswire with a high level of credibility and trust that pays off in better results for issuers."

THE STUDY

To objectively gauge media pick-up of press releases distributed by PR Newswire and its competitors - Business Wire, Marketwire and Nasdaq-owned PrimeNewswire, which has since been re-branded as GlobeNewswire - PR Newswire engaged Diagnostics Plus, an independent market research company located in State College, Pa. On each business day from April 1 to June 30, 20 press releases - five per wire service - were randomly selected and tracked using the online content libraries LexisNexis and Factiva for media pickup over a two-week period. A pick-up was defined as any reference to the release subject matter in media published after the date and time of the release. Republication of the release without alteration was not counted as pick-up.

"The release selection process was designed to minimize bias and produce a truly random sampling," said Jim Fong, president of Diagnostics Plus and head of the five-person team that conducted the study. "The goal of the study was to measure the frequency with which media outlets pick up press releases from each of the major newswire services and the volume of coverage that those announcements received."

PR Newswire beat its competitors across all categories measured, according to the study.

Press releases transmitted by PR Newswire were used 55% of the time, versus Marketwire's 43% pickup rate, Business Wire's rate of 38% and a rate of 37% by PrimeNewswire, according to the study. The difference between PR Newswire's rate of pickup in comparison to the other wire services produced a statistically significant p-value of 0.0003. A p-value of 0.05 is the generally accepted mark of significance in scientific research. 0.01 indicates extreme significance.

Of those releases attracting attention by the media, the volume of coverage was highest with PR Newswire, followed by Business Wire, PrimeNewswire and Marketwire. PR Newswire has nearly twice the pick-up frequency as PrimeNewswire and more than twice that of Marketwire. Pick-up frequency, the number of times a single press release was reported in the media, was also significant between PR Newswire and the combined average of other services, producing a p-value of 0.0298.

Ken Dowell, executive vice president of products for PR Newswire, commented, "The study affirms the quality of content that is delivered by PR Newswire as well as the effectiveness of our media relations, including our PR Newswire for Journalists web site that has registered 100,000 journalists since launching in 1998."

A variety of third party measures also indicate that PR Newswire leads its competitors in new media realms. For example, by two measures -- Quantcast and Compete.com - the daily average number of unique visitors to prnewswire.com was double that of businesswire.com in August.

"Our content has been referred to in more blog posts, Diggs and Delicious Links than any other commercial wire service," said Armon. "PR Newswire has the highest Google page rank in our industry, and has been referenced as a source on Wikipedia more than any other wire service as well. We believe this proves PR Newswire is the most trusted and credible source for news from the corporate and public policy sectors."

About PR Newswire

PR Newswire Association LLC (http://www.prnewswire.com/) provides electronic distribution, targeting, measurement and broadcast services on behalf of tens of thousands of corporate, government, association, labor, non-profit, and other customers worldwide. Using PR Newswire, these organizations reach a variety of critical audiences including the news media, the investment community, government decision-makers, and the general public with their up-to-the-minute, full-text news developments.

Established in 1954, PR Newswire has offices in 14 countries and routinely sends its customers' news to outlets in more than 170 countries and in more than 40 languages. Utilizing the latest in communications technology, PR Newswire content is considered a mainstay among news reporters, investors and individuals who seek breaking news from the source. PR Newswire's leading services include ProfNet(SM), eWatch™, MEDIAtlas™, Search Engine Optimization, MediaRoom, MediaSense™, MultiVu™, U.S. Newswire, the preeminent policy newswire in the industry, Vintage Filings, the fastest growing Edgar filing company, and Hispanic PR Wire, LatinClips and Hispanic Digital Network, the foremost Hispanic communications services. PR Newswire is a subsidiary of United Business Media Limited of London.

About Diagnostics Plus

Diagnostics Plus has been serving clients for over two decades. The company specializes in providing market and media research for clients in a variety of sectors. Diagnostics Plus has worked with more than 700 organizations in 18 countries and is a member of several major research organizations including the Council for Marketing and Opinion Research (CMOR), Market Research Association (MRA) and the Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO).

click here to view the MultiMedia News Release

posted by Karen on July 21, 2008

The Fuel Team is offering a four part course designed to describe the basic concepts and practices of Search Engine Optimization - from discovery of the key terms and phrases that will generate website traffic, to making your site search engine friendly, to building the links and marketing traffic that will create unique value of your website.   Interested in joining this class or a future class.  

Please register your interest for the next SEO webinar.

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posted by Karen on June 1, 2008

The Fuel Team is an expert in supporting child based nonprofits.   Check out a few of our client examples: 

Blue Sky Bridge, Colorado Children's Alliance, Colorado Children's Chorale,  Colorado Children'sImmunization Coalition, Escuela de Guadalupe,  Kempe, Rocky Mountain Youth, SungateKids

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posted by Karen on May 15, 2008

The Fuel Team was nominated to the 2008 CSIA Apex Awards, the year’s premier event for recognizing outstanding accomplishments and leadership by Colorado’s advanced technology companies and people.

 

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posted by Dee on April 28th

We will shortly be releasing a whitepaper written by several experts in the field of Search Engine Optimization. It will demonstrate how an online mediaroom can boost search engine performance significantly.

The facts are clear to this point. A simple 5-step strategy by PR professionals can greatly enhance the overall search engine performance of their company.

1. Do keyword research for your organization. Find out by what terms and phrases a searcher might find you

2. Optimize your press releases with these words and phrases appropriately

3. Send your news releases out over a wire service. Your content is picked up by hundreds of news sites

4. Have your news releases post automatically to your mediaroom, generating an html page that can be indexed independently

5. Have RSS feeds associated with these news releases that will "signal" the search engines of new content

And then of course, track...track...track your results using a web tracking service. The whitepaper will go into much more detail and will be available here on this blog as free content.

 

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The Daniels Compass

Posted on April 21, 2008 by Karen

The Daniels College of Business is offering a new Compass Course this year that is challenging their MBA students to consider eithics and values-based leadership along with technical business knowledge when building a successful career.   

Karen Meyer, Managing Partner at The Fuel Team was a guest lecturer for the program on April 21, 2008 and spoke on how The Fuel Team is providing a workplace and client offerings with strong ethical standards along with a commitment to our community.   

The Fuel Team, has been committed to "sparking meaningful change" in every aspect of our business since the company was founded.   We understand that success is measured in more than company profits.   We agree with the Daniels Sustainability Strategy Model:   "Making a living and making a difference have become inseparable."

Interested in advancing your career through an innovative and practical MBA program?   Consider the Daniels MBA Program.  

 

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	The Daniels Compass Course Description (408 KB)

Posted on January 20, 2008 by Karen

The Fuel Team is committed to making a difference in our community as well as in the world - - and we proved it in 2007 when our growing agency stimulated more than $100,000 in nonprofit discounts, donations and programming. 

At The Fuel Team, we encourage our employees to volunteer;  we match our employee giving; and we make corporate donations to a limited number of nonprofits selected by our employees.    We also discount the pricing on our software provided to the nonprofit community.

In addition, we've found a creative way to support a larger base of nonprofits and to encourage giving by our for-profit clients through our "Fuel A Cause" promotion. 

Our "Fuel A Cause" program allows us to empower our for-profit's web strategy with our award-winning software -  and then we discount our activation fees for every dollar they donate  to their favorite nonprofit.    It's a triple win and feels great! 

Interested in learning more?   Please introduce yourself.
 

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Posted on Dec 5th, 2007 by Kelly

We have rolled out a new feature called RSS Featured Content.  This allows a Site Manager Administrator to create a Featured Content box that displays Headlines from any RSS Feed.  A cool use of this feature would be to display your latest Press Releases from your MediaRoom on the Homepage of your website. 

RSS Featured Content is available as an Add-On to your existing product(s).  Click to order the RSS Featured Content Add-On.

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Google Mini

Posted on Dec 4th 2007 by Kelly

We have recently purchased a Google Mini Search Appliance to power the "Search" feature on all of our Products including CauseRoom, BizRoom and more.  Web Traffic Reports have demonstrated high use of the "Search" feature across the board.  With the Google Mini, the Search Results your visitors see will be in the familiar Google search results layout and will be more relevant than ever before.