SEO and PR

[ocelot]

In the home improvement industry (windows, doors and conservatories) what is the best approach with regard to PR in order to build quality links.

It's a lot easier if  you are selling a computer, mirror, widget etc as you have an actual product that you can send magazines,bloggers, journalists to review/feature for inclusion in their publications.

It's a lot more difficult if you are a builder, double glazing installer etc to get this PR coverage as you have nothing to send them to review, feature etc.

What approach do the experts on the forum think that would work best in the double glazing industry to secure coverage across publications both online and offline?

[McTaggart]

Might be a challenge! I suppose you could identify any interesting/unique newsworthy attributes of your company / windows and send the information out to relevant media outlets. Do your windows have any stand-out energy efficiency / cleanability / design features which will be of interest to the media. Do you offer discounts to the elderly or sponsor any causes, is your fitting fleet running on biodiesel?

There may be sites doing 2X glazing price/quality comparisons as well, and of course partners / suppliers may offer you opps for links / case studies.

[KaneJamison]

So, here's a few ideas, focused on press opportunities specifically, but with some other link ideas tossed in as well.

1 - HARO

We've had a lot of success with HARO for clients. They won't have many opportunities specifically for window improvements, so you'll have to think broader - general construction, green/energy improvements, and general business ownership queries are all going to be relevant, especially if the business owner is fairly personable and willing to get involved. For our clients, we monitor the requests and forward the ones we feel are a good fit. If the client is willing to read 3 emails a day, they'll see a number of responses on their own that might be good as well.

2 - Case Studies

This is a longer term project. Have the contractor ask their clients for energy bills a year before and the year after a project. You might have to incentivize this somehow to get participation.  It's tricky to draw too many conclusions, but year-over-year energy savings on average across a wide range of clients would make a good study. There's a number of variables that might be hard to account for - weather and personal energy use being the primary ones - so there might be some kinks to work out in this concept, but I think those could be mitigated somehow.

Anyways, in regards to PR, a study like this could produce at least a handful of links, particularly from energy conservation and window-industry publications. Might not be a ton of results, but enough relevant industry publications could be a major boost for a contractor in a boring niche.

3 - Events

I've seen some other "boring" companies that put on local events with a charitable focus and managed to get a decent handful of links, including a few news organizations. At the risk of tooting my own horn, there's quite a few opportunities out there to build links with local events, and it's a very natural topic to get covered by local press if the event is interesting enough.

4 - Image Marketing with Conservatories, Window Boxes, etc.

While I'm sure many of their projects are pretty straightforward, I'm sure they also have some more elaborate designs and projects. Conservatories and bey windows are great examples of really attractive projects that people like to look at. Even if they're not the business's primary focus, you've got plenty of opportunities for visual marketing on social networks like Houzz, Pinterest, Facebook, and Flickr. It's a long shot that these will generate press, but they can certainly generate links and traffic, especially if you've got a really nice gallery/portfolio on the client's website.

Hope that gets you started!