SEO Tips for Press Releases

Lately I’ve heard people say “the press release is dead” (verbally or in writing) and it just isn’t true. The “social web” has invigorated the press release, exposing it to new audiences, making it more interactive and interesting, and giving it a prime role in driving traffic to a specific website.

That’s according to Cision, the leading provider of software, services, and tools to the public relations and marketing communications industry. In short, it is still a powerful tool.

SEO important factor
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the most important factor behind this resurgence, particularly as it relates to the new “Social Media Release”, according to Cision.

These days, press releases aren’t just for the “press” – they’re for anyone interested in your topic, company, product or industry (i.e. journalists and analysts, consumers, channel partners, competitors, and potential employees. They’re concise, reader-friendly, and easy to share and tweet. Embedded links offer exactly the right level of background information to every reader.”

Tips to ensure optimization
While good writing is always important, writing an effective press release in the era of SEO and social media requires a few changes to ensure optimization. Following are ten tips from Cision to help you write a press release that will gain more visibility, web traffic and success.

1. Research keywords first to determine what people are searching on and how often by using tools like Google AdWords and Google Suggest, KeywordDiscovery.com, Wordtracker, and Yahoo Search Assist. The best keywords rank high, but aren’t overused by your competition.

2. Use keywords that your target audiences are using and avoid buzzwords and jargon.

3. Write clearly and be concise and credible. Use only three to five keywords in a 400-word press release.

4. Write headlines and subheads that are descriptive and to the point. Use the top one or two keywords in the first 65 – 100 characters of the headline and in the first two paragraphs for maximum impact.

5. Write in bite-sized chunks (about 140 characters), which can be more easily “retweeted”. The more inbound links it gets from readers, the higher it will rank with search engines.

6. Weave in hyperlinked keywords to take readers to web pages where they can get more information.

7. Use restraint and don’t overuse keywords. Offer only two to three hyperlinks per a 400-word press release to make sure each link has the most impact.

8. Include links to different pages on your website that will be useful (only once to home page).

9. Add multimedia content (i.e. video, photography, graphics, podcasts) to your press release, which will result in more clicks and search traffic.

10. Post to an SEO website like CisionWire. This will boost the SEO performance of your release and drive more visitors to your website because it gets higher page-rankings than almost every corporate site.

In addition, consider distributing your news release via a news release distribution service like BusinessWire, PR Newswire or PRWeb. You can also share your news through social media tools like Facebook, Twiiter, Digg and Delicious. And last but not least, post your press release to the “newsroom” section of your website.

Image credit: graur razvan ionut