How Press Releases Improve SEO

July 16th, 2010 | Posted in Blog, Marketing, Social Media, Tutorials | No Comments »

With Facebook membership at more than 400 million worldwide and Twitter with more than 80 million registered users, businesses of all sizes are now looking at using social media as part of an effective SEO strategy, and for good reason. However, one of the easiest and most overlooked ways to improve SEO is with Press Releases. However, there are still some who are skeptical about the whole idea of the press release being used as an SEO strategy. And they have good reason, as the SEO press release has become associated with spam over the past few years due to shady free press release directories and even shadier marketing tactics, but that doesn’t mean a few bad apples have spoiled the whole bunch.

Not surprisingly, in today’s world almost all press release distribution just like everything else has shifted to online activity. With more companies placing news sections on their websites, it’s become increasingly important to optimize your press releases to drive more search engine traffic and to attract targeted customers. Companies need to stop looking at press releases as a way to break news, since that can easily be accomplished on twitter (ask any pro athlete), and instead view it as part of a highly effective search engine optimization strategy.

If you’re still on the fence about using press releases as part of your overall SEO strategy, consider these statistics:

  • 80 million people get their news online every day
  • 100 million people use search engines every day
  • 64% of journalists use Google or Yahoo! to follow the news

There are even some estimates that show about 80% of all internet sessions begin with a search. So, it’s pretty obvious that there are many benefits to be obtained by optimizing your press releases. You can:

  • Improve the search engine rankings of your website.
  • Attract customers who are ready to buy
  • Position yourself as a subject matter expert

How to Optimize Your Press Releases:

The good news is you don’t have to be an expert or even hire an expert on SEO to properly optimize your press releases. It’s actually pretty straightforward.

  • Choose the keywords to target – If you’ve already optimized your website, you know which keywords you should be focusing on. A good press release contains information that people are looking for. When you write the release you need to take a step back and think about what search terms or keywords people would enter to find it.
  • Place the keyword strategically throughout – If possible, you should try to include your keyword in your headline, subtitle, and throughout the body of the press release. However, be careful not to force it. This is where it can get tricky, because if your keyword is article it’s easy to overuse article in your article by trying to fit article anywhere you can in the article(doesn’t that sound natural?). With practice you’ll get it
  • Use keyword rich links pointed at your website – Google explains that, “The best way to ensure Google finds your site, is for your pages to be linked from lots of pages on other sites. Google’s robots jump from page to page on the Web via hyperlinks, so the more sites that link to you, the more likely it is that we’ll find you quickly.” So Links are good. Just make sure your links serve a purpose and aren’t just there as a sneaky way to get more links.
  • Publish new press releases on a regular basis – Press release distribution and SEO both require a long-term commitment to be successful. There is no one press release that is suddenly going to make you appear at the top of search engine rankings organically overnight. It’s like lotto you have to be in it to win it.

SEO Rules to Live By:

To make sure you don’t turn into an SEO spammer, here are some basic guidelines to stick to.

  • Quality, readable content is your top priority; SEO comes second.
  • Always have a newsworthy angle. Simply releasing press release after press release just to improve SEO is just going to have users tuning you out.
  • Don’t write press releases that read like advertisements.

Free Press Release Services To Get You Started:

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