Direct News (Adfero) describe themselves as a news agency, similar to FT.com or Reuters, but the difference being that the majority of their content unique - developed for clients who then publish through following a brief that fits their needs for SEO (which keyphrases target) and for their audience (which articles are of interest.

Their clients include Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, and significantly two of the most successful UK SEO companies - Bigmouthmedia and Spannerworks.

They have around 150 in-house journalists and additional freelancers who are trained in the principles of SEO and in particular on-page optimisation of copy.

How it works

This is based on an interview I completed with an Adfero Business Development Manager, so is their broad process.

1. Objectives for the project defined - in the example I am chosing is the London Stock Exchange investor resources centre - see the ticker - objectives include generating more visitors interested in different services - hence the categories below. The business model for the LSE includes display advertising, an affiliate partner arrangement with Barclays stockbrokers and a more general objective to increase the use of stocks and shares.

2. The client agrees the 'rules of content development' with a Direct News Account manager, including:

(a) Rules of content

Tone and style of voice of content to fit the brand.

(b) Categories of content

The LSE example on the right shows how content is assigned to categories such as stocks and shares, saving and borrowing. Articles are then developed within each category which has a home page with a general intro and then latest articles.

(c) Topics and keyphrases to be targeted

Each document has primary and secondary phrases targeted as described in my SEO Best Practice Guide to SEO.

3. Amount of documents to be written per month - with the fees per article this works out about 50 per month minimum. It is an annual agreement reviewed after 3 months. Please contact me if you want to know fees or to be put in contact with a business development manager (I am not affiliated to Direct News in any way, I just think it's a great concept).

4. Documents written by Direct News journalists, reviewed as appropriate by client contact and then published on the company site using an XML feed into a news section (I'd imagine this is the main technical problem with integration into a CMS). If this is a hurdle it may be more practical to create a news section on a subdomain as with this example: http://news.cheapflights.co.uk/flights/. This also gives the company a separate entry in the SERPS page.

5. Documents published as feeds on other sites to extend reach and provide inbound links. Google News is particularly important here as are potentially different press release directories. This example  (http://www.manches.com/news/news.php?id=175) is more akin to a traditional press releases with a partner in the law firm commenting on the issues raised by the Direct News journalist.

Benefits of paid content for SEO purposes

• SEO - New pages targeting specific keyphrases and exploiting the long tail
  
• SEO - Generate internal links between news pages and product pages
• SEO - Creates fresh content - 50 minimum pages per month
• SEO - Content can be syndicated to other sites to extend reach - Google News or Press Release feeds. Online PR technique.
  
• Brand - Provides useful content for existing audience and new audience attracted through search
  
• Brand - shows authority/expertise and up-to-date knowledge
  
• Brand - Can use as a research tool - find out which products / issues audience is interested in - results provided through intranet
• Costs - potentially more cost effective than PPC or use of internal content authors who may not have SEO skills. Low entry costs, so used by some smaller and medium-sized businesses.
  

On the downside, it may be difficult to prove ROI and there could be some confusion in user journeys if the provider is not a publisher, e.g. Kwik-Fit Insurance. Who is responsible for this activity - marketing team or PR team (both).