SEO Your Press Release

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By: Matt Clark

PR practitioners have been throwing “SEO” around for a while now and every major wire service has SEO services available for practitioners. There is a lot to learn, however, about SEOing a press release.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of utilizing search-engine-sensitive keywords in online content to increase organic Web site traffic volume and quality from search engines. When you SEO your press release, it helps increase your company’s Google search rank and traffic. If done right, your press release could be on Google page one. SEOing press releases is becoming so popular that industry experts are starting to read company press releases over trade publications.

This is a topic we will cover in depth here at DigitalBlab. Here are a few tips for starters:

• Research, Research, Research - Find keywords for your target audience and industry (i.e., Wireless, Mobile, etc.)
• Write an interesting headline that its optimized and no longer than 12 words. Remember the NYT article, “This Boring Headline is Written for Google…”
• Link keywords back to content on your Web site
• Add top keywords to the first 250 words of your content. Search engine spiders focus on the top of the content.
• Make sure your keywords and terms make up 8-15% of the overall release. This is called keyword density.
• Choose the right distribution sites such as PR Wire and MarketWire to make sure that your SEO efforts are being used to their fullest. Also post the release on the company Web site.
• SEO’ing a release is secondary - make sure you are writing a good press release. You can do a great job with SEO and keywords, but a bad release still won’t travel, no matter what.