Gannett Company Inc. is a Fortune 500 media company, founded in 1923. With an annual revenue of 5 billion dollars, the company is currently one of the largest US newspaper publishers. One of the household names in their portfolio that you will undoubtedly recognize is USA Today.
Since 2006, they have also targeted the online market with Gannett Digital. With Gannett Digital, they help generate more exposure for the websites of local vendors and entrepreneurs, this ensures that these websites are easier to find on the internet.
The Marketing Campaign
The Gannett Digital marketing division asked us for help in order to set up a local optimization strategy for their customers. Now this was a challenge that we could sink our teeth into! The reason that this is so challenging is the diverse customer group that Gannett Digital has.
One aspect in generating more exposure for local businesses is building citations. Citations are mentions of a business name on other pages. This does not have to include a link to your page, it simply mentions the business. One of the more famous examples of a citation is the online Yellow Pages – even though your business is listed (cited) there is no actual direct link.
After several Skype conversations (late in the evening for us in the Netherlands) and e-mail exchanges, our plan was forged. Invalley’s job was to generate Company Pages on sites like Yelp.com. We ensured that the correct data and keywords were used to improve search engine listings. This is a service that we still happily provide today: http://invalley.com/services/monthly-mix/
For six months, we worked on optimizing 157 local websites with a team of seven professionals. Thanks to the great communication from Gannett Digital, the collaboration proceeded smoothly:
The motivation to expand the Invalley platform into what it is today is partly attributed to this project. Invalley wants to make it even easier for digital agencies to outsource their marketing campaigns: in a scalable way, with a reliable partner, where you always get the desired outcome for your clients.
