The growth of 'news search' has only come about in the last few years with the establishment of search engines that specifically index news stories and press releases.
So what is news search? People go online and search sites like Yahoo News and Google News by keyword. If your news article is timely and well optimized for these news search engines, you can reach these people directly - no need to go through an editor at a mainstream news outlet anymore.
According to the Nielsen/Net ratings, in June 2004 CNN.com was still the #1 online news source with Yahoo not too far behind. By January 2005 Yahoo rose to #1 with 23 million readers a month. By June 2005 they were pulling out in front and with 29 million readers a month they dominated the ratings.
Recent studies show that 77% of all Internet users get their news online now. It's the number one choice for news in the 18 - 54 year-old age group. The LA Times recently reported on this trend, saying that veteran journalists are looking to the PR field for work, now that so many readers are reading their news online.
Yahoo News now indexes blog posts in their news, to respond to the clear trend of early adopters looking to blogs for news. Google has a news search section, as does AOL, MSN and Alta Vista. Sites like Topix are drawing viewers looking for great local news.
News search is playing a bigger and bigger role in online marketing. So much so that when there is a relevant and timely article in Google News, Google will serve you up that news item above the #1 position when you do a web search on a keyword or phrase.
Optimizing press releases and news articles is no longer a 'nice-to-do one day' idea or 'something we should try'.
Getting your message out in the news search has emerged as an essential part of your search engine optimization and marketing strategy.
Need we say more? You should be all over it right now.
Optimize your articles and put them into an RSS feed - you'll start to show up in the most unexpected places...
