Ah yes, the press release – champion of the PR world, king of information for journalists. Maybe, but today, the press release takes on even greater importance – SEO tool.
Today’s press releases not only carry traditional news elements, but, with online press release distribution, they carry the ability to help you gain more search engine visibility and higher ranking.
As more bloggers and journalists use the internet to search for news and story ideas, writing optimized press releases takes on even greater importance. Yes, your press release must contain relevant news about your company, but it goes beyond that. When you submit your press release to online distribution portals, your release becomes a web page. And since many press release distribution sites allow you to have at least one live link in your release, you have the ability to create backlinks from your press release page to your site with every release you distribute. And link building is an important part of your SEO strategy. Or, it should be, if it isn’t already.
If your release is optimized with the right content, it may even get picked up by Google News. Rare, but certainly possible.
Another benefit of submitting press releases optimized with your keywords involves pushing your competition out of page one ranking. It’s possible that your press release could rank in the top pages of Google for its keyword(s) or phrase(s). For example, I have a release that takes up three places in page one of Google for one of my keywords. That’s three places that my competition won’t have unless they come up with some equally as optimized releases.
Could this be of use to you? Could a planned press release campaign give you the search engine results you want?
The releases themselves aren’t that difficult to write. It’s the optimization and distribution that causes most people to balk at the idea. But with the right combination of news, SEO writer and distribution sites, you could see the benefits within a matter of days.
Here’s a short list of other things to keep in mind when it comes to optimized press releases and distribution:
- When you link back to your site, do it from a keyword.
- Some sites use nofollow tags on your links, don’t let this stop you from submitting your release to these sites. Search engine spiders will still see the release and rank the page if it’s worthy.
- Make sure you have news to announce. While there are hundreds of reasons to put out a release, there are thousands of reasons not to.
- Post a copy of the release on your site. If you have a social media news room, or just a traditional online press room, your release needs to be there.
- Assume a journalist will want more information. Even if your purpose isn’t to attract the media’s attention, a journalist or blogger could still find your release and want to incorporate it into their story. Give contact info and the name of a person who can speak for your company.
Lastly, the only way to get the SEO benefits of press release distribution is to do it. I get calls on a regular basis from people who want to put out a release, but don’t end up hiring me because the benefits aren’t tangible enough for them. To them I always say that they’ll see the benefits when their ranking, traffic, and conversion increases – usually in that order.
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