Learn to leverage press release SEO
In an ideal business world, an organization has successfully increased search engine optimization (SEO), is now directing traffic to its website, and has created a salient brand. However, in the real world, companies are constantly looking for ways to improve their SEO and web traffic.
I recently listened in on a webinar from Business Wire, presented by Joseph Muller, Business Wire product manager for Enhanced Online News, and Alison MacDonald, Business Wire account executive. The session, entitled “Beginner’s Guide to Search Optimization for Press Releases” discussed leveraging press releases as an additional method to build SEO.
According to Muller and MacDonald, SEO is the organic process of getting your content indexed and ranked by search engines, and leveraging SEO for press releases is one way of increasing that rank. Incorporating SEO into press releases directs more traffic to your website, strengthens your brand and helps to produce more lead generation and recognition from customers and journalists.
There are three main ways to do this:
- Keywords: It is extremely important to use keywords in your press release’s headline and body. Develop a keyword strategy to identify, finalize and select three to five keywords. The keywords should be included in your press release headline, as well as the body, and should highlight the most important information in the release (company names, repetitive descriptive words that describe a service, etc.). The more specific your keywords are to your release, the more likely they are to pull up in specific search queries.
- Links: Use links as a traffic driver back to your website and link to external sources of news coverage about your company. According to Muller, “You don’t give someone a map and say ‘find me,’ you give them direction.” For instance, don’t just link back to your website homepage – direct readers to certain pages on your website that include information relevant to the release.
- Multi-media elements: 23% of the top 500 releases via Business Wire this year have included multi-media elements – such as pictures and videos. By embedding pictures and videos, and including descriptions and captions, you can increase release reads by up to 70%.
If you utilize these three tools in press releases, your SEO rank will increase and you can watch the release show up in the news, organic and “real-time” results!
Other helpful hints include:
- Limit the headline from anywhere between two and 22 words
- Write for your readers and search engines
- The first 100 words in the body are most important
- Craft your first paragraph with at least two sentences
- Use bolded text
- Include the company name in the press release headline
For more information, view the archived webinar and presentation.
