ASAP Sports, CoSIDA's Official Instant Transcripts Provider, offers this timely discussion of the value of using a transcript service and how instant transcripts can play a big role in the search for relevant content on your website - and help people doing a web search find your website and click
to it.
The ASAP
FastScripts® provides a unique and invaluable service to the media and professional sports organizations worldwide. Within minutes of the completion of a player interview or press conference, ASAP Sports' professionals produce a complete, word-for-word FastScript® of the press conference and will instantly deliver in hard copy and electronic form to media and websites, and will produce broadcast-quality audio sound bites.
A previous post on CoSIDA.com - the
“Cost/Value of Content” - outlined the value proposition of creating content with transcripts. This post outlines the specific advantages of using transcripts as content to increase your website visibility. The goal of all public relations and marketing is to get people to notice and connect to your message. The public is searching for information and you want to help them get fast, efficient access to your relevant content.
The search for relevant content is an everyday process for all of us in sports communication.
Media, fans and alumni have similar yet unique individual interests.
The blogger who is writing about a team, coach or player has slightly different and broader information needs than a fan whose interests may be very specific and narrow.
In today’s world, the air of the internet is so ubiquitous it seems odd to even mention the primary access points of “information discovery” are searches using Google, Yahoo, Bing and others. Though many people bookmark favorite sites and use RSS feeds to push relevant information, in many cases, especially with infrequent users, they start with a “search” to find their desired information.
A lack of “stickiness” and loyalty to a specific website points to a reality communication directors need to take into consideration.
If you do not have enough content regarding your program on your website, search engines may rate you lower and people will click elsewhere to get what they want. Add the seemingly random nature of social media to information discovery and you quickly realize there are more places other than your website to find the information people seek.
The more diverse and unique content you have, the more likely people will find and go to your website. And once someone is on your website, their presence provides additional opportunities for a person to engage and discover other parts of your program’s message.
Importance of Relevant Original Content (ROC)
As you increase the amount of unique content on your website a “search engine” will increase the site’s relevance and ratings. Essentially, the more information you provide, the more discoverable your website will become.
For example, people shop at large warehouse stores because they can find almost everything they need, from soup to nails and nuts to books. Search engines act similarly to a person shopping in that they head to the places that have more potential to find what they seek. The formulas search engines use tend to look first in places where there already exist large volumes of information.
This is why so-called information aggregators or “content farms” have become so popular since they collect and warehouse lots of diverse information to drive users to their sites. Aggregators rank high on search engines but typically do not help move users to your website. And aggregators, like warehouse stores, can leave the shopper underwhelmed by the lack of choice and depth. Though broad in scope, an aggregator cannot provide the level of detail you and your website can deliver about your team and program.
In response to the warehouse aggregator sites, search methods are gradually changing. Recently Google began to adjust its core ranking algorithms to reduce the relevance of these “content farms”. Though the changes are not so significant to alter results overnight, the direction is clear:
Google and other search engines want to provide higher quality search results based on original unique content. The more original, relevant information you post on your website, the more visible you are to searchers.
This article from
Wired Magazine details the efforts of Google:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/02/google-clamp-down-content-factories/
Transcripts are Relevant Original Content (ROC)
When you hold a press conference with your coaches, players or administrators, you have the opportunity to create a large amount of original unique content for your website. If you have an instant transcript produced and posted on your website, searches of your coach, team, and school will become available to search engines almost instantly and perpetuate a cascade of possible hits.
When a fan or member of the media initiates a search with your school or coach’s name, or types in a recently overheard quote on ESPN, it is more likely the person will find the recent relevant content plus be exposed to all the associated information on your website.
The amount of information provided by a complete transcript of an event is markedly greater than a few quotes from excerpts. In addition, many in the media believe providing "quotes only" often reflects a scrubbed version of an event that does not provide total context. A complete transcript provides a high level of transparent communication. The importance of authenticity and transparency are often discussed topics in PR departments and a topic of a future post.
Instant is the Latest and Greatest
People love the latest and greatest of nearly everything. Search engines provide options to narrow a search to the most recently posted information. Consider when a user narrows the time frame of a search to: “the latest” (which is essentially instant) or “within last 24 hours”, the fresh and new transcript content becomes visible and is even more likely to create a click-through event to bring a user to your website.
With an instant complete transcript, internal staff time can be used to quickly seed social media outlets with relevant content rather than spend time on transcript production. A significant amount of social media activity demonstrates a premium is placed on new information, so the faster you deliver content from an event, the more likely you are noticed.
More Unique, More Visible
The bottom line is: the more unique content you produce the more likely your program is seen. Transcripts alone provide a rich source of relevant information as fast, cost-effective content. Plus, when you consider the derivative works from media, bloggers and fans, who use transcripts as a source, the reach of the transcript content grows considerably.
A transcript is like a seed that grows and branches out further than its original source. And the more seeds you plant, the greater your potential crop and return.