| Press Releases 2.0 |
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When you want information, where do you go? If you answered, the Internet, you are in good company. Most people now get their news online. Yahoo! News and Google News - known as News Engines - have a larger audience than CNN or the BBC. Placing your optimized press release into these News Engines reaches a huge online audience. News engines are becoming a strategic component of an Internet marketing strategy and an “optimized” release can actually perform double duty as an effective communication tool with journalists as well as search engines. This has led to the online distribution of releases and press release optimization. Press release optimization is similar to keyword optimization for web sites. The Successful press release There are many ingredients to a good press release. It should be written well, communicate a clear message, and be newsworthy so that journalists and your target audience will be interested in your news. Ten years ago, before the growth of the web, a press release was primarily used as a public relations tool to get news published. Today, it has developed into a way to dramatically increase online market share, press coverage, leads, and sales revenues for your business. The Optimized press release Search Engine Press Release Optimization incorporates basic search engine marketing practices such as keyword research and web page optimization with the latest online press release distribution methods (news wires) such as PRWeb, PRNewswire and BusinessWire. Online news wires have become a direct source for content, and act as press release search engines that may require some amount of optimization in order to be found. If you don't currently optimize your releases, consider this: 128 million American adults go online -88% use a search engine to find information -70% get news 54% of American adults go online daily -31% use search engines -26% get news 98% of journalists go online daily -92% for article research -81% to do searching -76% to find sources/experts -73% to find press releases Increase the Chance of Press Coverage When Robert Scheer, the reporter for the Los Angeles Times who first broke the Enron story was asked how he did it, he replied, "Google." Ten tips to Press Release Optimization: 1) In the title headline, always include popular keywords and keyword phrases that correspond with the major theme of the release. Of all on-page attributes, the title is the single heaviest weighted aspect in the way that engines determine search ranking. Press releases are no different. Choose your keywords carefully, because in most cases a release will not rank for a competitive keyword or phrase unless it is emphasized in the title. When you optimize your press releases for search engines, you need to find a maximum of three keywords or phrases that people are most likely to use to find information on the topic. What's the right number of times to repeat the keywords? Probably about 2% of your content should be keywords. So if your press release is 300 words, six words can be keywords. Therefore, you can repeat your keyword or phrase up to three times. 2) Include popular keyword and keyword phrases in the release summary, or the secondary release heading. The secondary heading summary can also be a place to incorporate other valuable ancillary keywords and phrases that support your overall theme. 3) Reinforce the major keyword theme in the body of the release. Once again, what works for optimizing Web pages goes for releases as well. Include your title keyword theme in the first paragraph to reinforce the overall theme of the release. 4) Include the company URL in the first paragraph, after the company name. The search engines put more emphasis on a link in the first paragraph or sentence of a page, so I highly recommend that you include the URL in that spot in each release. Also, make sure to include the full path URL (including http://) so that all news-based content management systems will activate the link (some will not activate the link in their CMS if only "www.url.com" is used). 5) Use relevant keywords to describe the company at the end of the press release. Adding your generic keyword phrase or category to describe the nature of your business not only serves to describe and introduce what your company does, but it also gives the search engines a little bit of keyword context to go by. Ensure that a generic and relevant description of your business is in the boilerplate ("Company manufactures widgets"). 6) Publish releases frequently. Make an effort to publish relevant press releases often to be recognized as news source for Yahoo news and Google news. Add news weekly to be crawled frequently by Google. 7) Use keyword research to reach your target. Once again, just as search engine marketers regularly research keywords and phrases for SEM campaigns, understanding how your press or target market thinks at the query level can put your release directly in their inboxes, without having to make an additional phone call or send an email. Utilizing the terminology that searchers use to find information will increase your chances of your release being found. To find popular keywords visit here. 8) Educate your PR team on press release optimization. If you're not the person who is responsible for writing your company's press releases, talk to your team. Using best practices for writing releases to attract journalists' attention generally also helps with optimization. 9) Create an online media kit. Make an online media kit for your website. Make sure to include the latest news distribution tools such as RSS feeds. This will lead interested readers to subscribe your latest updates and news. Still sending releases by mail or fax? Stop—no one is reading them. Overwhelmingly, news people prefer electronic methods such as email, RSS, or using search engines. 10) The Associated Press and Reuters are no longer the only news services in town. Targeting a press release for a publication like bizjournals.com can result in pickup in multiple local markets. Make sure to also post your release on your website, on its own page, in addition to sending it out over wire services and other distribution methods. Last thoughts... For more information about getting press coverage or optimizing press releases, give us a call at 888-215-0820 or click here. |
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