I just wondered if Mozcon 2012 will be available as a video bundle at some point (for us that couldn't make it!)? If so, any ideas when

No worries!

I am pretty sure that plugin is the one which allows the WP admin to select JUST posts, and leave out pages... but I am not 100%.

The reason I recommended that particular plugin though, is that from experience, many of the other Google news sitemap plugins seem to cause some sort of XML error when submitting the sitemap to Google news, but this one doesn't, so using it should save a few headaches, and having to 'shop around', so to speak!

Another thing to bear in mind, is that if you have 1 section of your site (say, domain.com/news) and you have an RSS feed on there, showing a feed of a different section of your website (say, domain.com/self-promotional-company-blog), and the second blog for any reason ends up with 3 unique digital in the URL of a post, then Google news can find the link in the RSS feed of your news section, and index the page on the (self promotional blog) in error -

Sounds harmless, but if the news team then decided that you were actually TRYING to get self promotional stuff (even company news) into Google news, you could loose your news approved status... short solution is just to be careful when putting any RSS feeds (of other parts of your site/domain) on your news section!!! (Hope that makes sense?!) - I learned this the hard way (didn't get dropped or anything, as I acted swiftly to sort the issue!).

Hope that helps!

Mike.

In addition to the excellent response by Robert Fisher, below, you do not actually NEED to do this, but you CAN do it automatically if you choose to.

Google News needs...

EITHER a unique 3 digit code in the URL...

OR

A Google news specific sitemap.

So, your options are to either change your WP (I checked, your site is Wordpress based, yes?) Permalinks settings, to include post id, OR use a google news sitemap plugin.

You can always put a number in front of the post id, so use something like:

/%postname%/1%post_id%

So, adding a numerical '1' befor %post_id% in your permalinks.

If you are worried about lots of 404 errors due to changing your URL structure, then how about using deans permalinks migration (install it BEFORE changing your permalink settings!) - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/permalinks-migration-plugin-for-wordpress/

As for a Google News sitemap... For wordpress, I recommend this one: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/gn-xml-sitemap/

If you go down the sitemap route, do be sure that ONLY news posts are included... E.G. NOT your static, non-news content pages!

IN TERMS OF SEO -

I don't feel it will effect things too much, so long as everything else is good as regards your on-page SEO etc.

Hope that helps!

No probs, glad to help!

Hope you Friday doesn't drag too long due to all this!!!

Daniel, I gave you a thumbs up, as I think that is a good point

It could help if you submit an image sitemap once the renaming has been done, or even impliment 301 redirects from the old image URL to the new ones, but unless you have an automated way of doing the redirects, it could be quite a long process to do them  manually!!!

Benjamin pretty much covered it I feel!

Remember, Googlebot is, well, a bot! To help Googlebot, and it's associated algorithms figure out what your images are about, you should ensure certain 'triggers' are well taken care of.

Filename is one such trigger, as is alt text (both mentioned by Benjamin already).

Additionally I would consider adding title tags to the images, and at times that you link to any of the images, use relevant anchor text too, as this can help.

Also consider using tags, for example, Paella Recipe as this can give an extra bit of help in regards to Google & other engines understanding what the image is all about.

Then if you are really wanting to go the extra mile;

Image sitemap submission to Google, to try to make sure big G finds all of your images! (see here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=178636 ) Note the tags that you can use, specifically the caption and title should be quite useful for image SEO etc

Hope that helps!

Hey Damon,

I sent you an email with a couple of suggestions for your site, things I think may have possible slipped through the net during your redesign, I hope that helped!

Also, re: press releases, as someone that owns a Google news approved PR site, I can give you another angle on this if you like?

I agree with what everyone here has said about quality for a start! One of the more traditional uses of a press releases is obviosuly to get the word out... these days some folks try to submit crappy spun articles as press releases. A visit for somewhere like the warrior forums will show you people using, and selling, that tactic.

As a PR site owner that just means more work on our part, declining trash releases, and banning IP's from our system! Not everyone does this though, obviously the big sites do (prweb etc) but some of the smaller, free PR sites don't have much of an approval process.

What that can mean for you, is that you may end up with your news release on a site promoting questionable products and linking to questionable sites. Whilst I doubt this would be bad enough to cause you much harm, it may not be the panacea that you could be hoping for!

If you go down the PR site route on a regular basis, try to opt for sites that have some level of quality control, look for ones that are Google news approved, and also ones that will show your full contact details, ideally including a link back to your site.

Write decent releases, and when you write an especially good one, take it offline too! Send it to your local papers and press.

Regarding the local papers and press, if you want a higher success rate, pick up the phone, call the papers, and ask them who deals with small business news. Explain you have an interesting press release you would like to send them, and ask who the best person to send it to is.

Doing the above can help your success rate pretty massively, as instead of going to a generic, contact@blah type email, then having to be sent around the block, you should go straight to the eyes of someone that is most likely to be interested.

This is only worth doing if you have something to shout about. A relaunch MAY do it, winning some local award, or sponsoring a local charity or something almost certainly should! Look for local charity events to throw a few $ towards for sponsorship, offer a training day to local school kids, anything like that should be good enough to get the attention of the local press. If a reporter does interview you, explain that you would love a nice, clean SEO friendly link from the body of anything they publish online Give them lots of coffee, to keep em happy!

The effect on your local rankings, if you manage to get a clean link from a quality local paper and some follow up news coverage, may well help you to get above the spammy sounding guys above you.

Follow that up with some LOCAL (real local, not spammy ones) directory submissions, some 'social love' and some online press releases, and you may well secure a decent position in time.

Anyway that was a bit of a long un, but I wanted to give you an idea of how you  could, pretty ethically, out do the guys above you, and also use online and offline PR the right way

Obviously online PR gets used in all sorts of ways, and at the end of the day so long as what you submit is unqiue, well written and interesting, it should probably get approved, what I describe above is something that can give a nice bonus in addition, to help with your results (especially local ones), when you have a news worthy event to shout about.