Press releases are an important component of PR. Typically, I focus on writing the right headline to catch a reporter’s attention, while crafting intelligent quotes for my spokesperson. But sometimes, a catchy headline and eloquent phrasing may fall short of helping your client from a marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) perspective.I was reminded of this recently when reviewing my company’s site ranking for various terms. I realized that my company’s press releases was an ideal opportunity for SEO. MarketingSherpa has an excellent article on how to write a press release to enhance organic search. Here are my top tips:
1) Keywords: Collaborate with your client to understand what their key terms are for SEO. The goal is not to use all of these words in your release, but rather how these terms may be applied based on the topic of your release.
2) Title Tags: This is the description that appears when you navigate to a web page. Many search engines weigh title tags heavily for ranking the content of the site. By understanding your client’s general key word groupings, you can craft a title tag that a) includes these keywords and b) accurately describes the content of the press release.
3) Header, subhead, first paragraph: These three elements of your release are important for search engines to evaluate the content of your release. Balance the use of keywords with your client’s messages. Though keyword density (the number of times a keyword appears in the release) is important, don’t overdue as it may be seen as trying to game the search engines.
4) News Wires: If you client is incorporating SEO, then consider paying extra money to SEO your press release. Why? Since the release is distributed to various sites, this can increase the number of links pointing to your client’s website. Since the boilerplate is included in every release, the boilerplate is a great way to incorporate keywords and appropriate links for SEO.
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12 Comments
June 22, 2007 at 14:17
SEO Your Press Release
Press releases are an important component of PR. Typically, I focus on writing the right headline to catch a reporter’s attention, while crafting intelligent quotes for my spokesperson.
June 22, 2007 at 23:31
Good post about SEO’ed press releases. Here’s a couple other tidbits to consider:
An SEO’ed press release has little to no value unless properly and widely distributed online. It needs to be found on quality (by search engine standards) sites and content relevant sites.
And what if your press release is going to be deleted or even moved to a new URL after a few months, what good it that? Make sure it doesn’t happen.
Be sure to check into these things when choosing who is going to distribute your SEO’ed press releases.
Joe Beaulaurier
PRWeb
June 23, 2007 at 18:08
Joe – Great points. One other thing I forgot is tagging of press releases. Look into the types of tags you can associate to you press release and how your news wire handles this.
Thanks!
August 22, 2007 at 17:39
Like your article Joe: I’d add the links you mention – in the boilerplate or elsewhere, should be hyperlinked through keywords. I still see releases linking back to websites through “click here” instead of topical keywords relevant to the page in which you are directing visitors.
August 23, 2007 at 00:08
Very good points Vince. Linking to keywords vs. “click here” type phrases helps with the SEO aspect. And the boilerplate word linking provides consistent linking while the main body may change.
August 23, 2007 at 17:20
Seach and Find – SEO Your Press Release « PR Meets Marketing
Top tips for optimizing press releases for search engines.
September 12, 2007 at 17:43
[...] Kilka ciekawych uwag na temat SEO press release znalazłem także na blogu PR meets Marketing, gdzie niejaki Cece opisuje jak wykorzystać SEO Press release w agencjach PR. [...]
September 22, 2007 at 07:08
seoline
…wrote a very informative article on…
November 30, 2007 at 20:30
Great article there. Learned a lot!
June 14, 2008 at 05:54
There is some controversy over how representative Alexa’s user base is of typical Internet behavior. If http://www.alexa.com/data/details/main?url=www.fortunehotels.in Alexa’s user base is a fair statistical sample of the internet user population, Alexa’s ranking should be quite accurate.
July 4, 2008 at 19:08
Excellent point, Press releases are an important tool and why should it be left outside the purview of SEO when it is used an an integral strategy of SEO.
August 13, 2008 at 03:18
Agree with every one of your points – something I’d written about myself previously:
http://pressreleaseprblog.com/2008/07/24/yes-a-press-release-will-increase-your-web-traffic/