How to Prepare Your Press Release for the Search Engines
How to Prepare Your Press Release for the Search Engines:
from Blogging Tips
With search engine rankings playing such an important part in online business success, press releases have quickly become the primary method of gaining top rankings for your keywords by using paid distribution to put your press release across the Internet on major news websites as well as distribution through RSS.
This content will essentially discuss two things:
- The different strategies distribution services use to get you those top rankings.
- What you need to do to ensure that your press release gets you to the top (and hopefully helps you stay there).
What is Search Engine Optimization?
In the simplest of words, search engine optimization (SEO) is about making sure that your website shows up as high in search engine results as possible when users search for information / products / services in your industry.One of the biggest (and most successful) strategies of doing this is to ensure that you get as many other websites as possible to link to your website. The more, the merrier (and to a certain extent, the better chance you have of ranking high in search engine results).
With competition for the top page (and especially for the top 3 listings) of search results extremely intense, quality links (from high ranking websites in your industry) are at a premium.
So how can a single press release help you with that?
Let’s find out.Keyword-Based Search Engine Presence
Online press release distribution services have evolved to include complimentary services such as search engine optimization and press release tracking (to determine where your press release is eventually displayed, and to find out how much traffic a press release has brought in).One of the keys to building a high-profile search engine presence is to have quality links pointing towards your website. When you press release is distributed to newspapers and media outlets, it is NOT posted on their websites.
So where are the links coming from?
- From the distribution service archiving / posting your press release itself.
- Websites that place the PR service’s RSS Feed on their website (incidentally, this means that your feed will be ‘cycled’ out as new press releases come in).
- Newspapers, journalists and media outlets that post your press release and / or write a story based on your press release in their publication, blog or website.
What can we learn from this?
Sending out a press release is no guarantee of better search engine rankings. The primary purpose of a press release remains the same: to sell your story to the media. Your success in this regard will determine whether the media will run your story, and in the process, build links for you.Another aspect of search engine visibility is how well your press release is optimized for the search engines. Building links and optimizing your content goes hand in hand; without either one your efforts would be start failures.
Formatting for SEO
Formatting your press release for SEO requires two steps:- Keyword optimization
- Linking strategy
Keyword Optimization
When you search for something on Google or Yahoo (or the search engine of your choice), you use key-phrases to indicate your query. For example, if you’re looking for news on Saddam Hussein, you’ll type something like “Saddam Hussein” or “Saddam Hussein news”.Search engines, on the other hand, rank websites and web pages by a variety of factors, in which one of them is relevance, or how relevant a particular page is for a certain keyword.
Keyword optimization involves preparing your press releases so that when someone searches for information in your target market, your press release is seen as being as relevant as possible by the search engine.
Linking Strategy
The second important part of optimizing your press releases is to use a linking strategy. Note that free press release distribution is always a text-based submission, so you will not be able to add any HTML tags – i.e. you cannot add your keyword-optimized links into the press release.For paid distribution, it’s a different ballgame. You can place links in your press release pointing to your website with the anchor text of those links exactly as the primary keywords that you know are relevant for your business (keywords that people would be using to search for information in your target market).
Placing links to your website within the press release then means that wherever this press release is fully displayed on the Internet, it will count not only as one link (in the contact information box), but as multiple links for search terms that are highly relevant for your niche.
Alternatively, you can pay the distribution service to optimize the press releases themselves. Usually, the press release distribution service will be able to take care of all aspects of press release optimization, including keyword optimization and placing links in your press release.
Getting High Rankings
A press release is no guarantee for your business to get high rankings in the search engines. Instead, your press release is a time-sensitive opportunity for your business to get noticed by the media.Your success in the search engines (based on your SEO press release) directly depends on how well your story sells and how well your press release is received by the media.
Don’t be pulled in by the hype of search engine optimization for press releases. It is a complimentary, value-added service that you can just as well perform yourself.
Instead, keep in your mind that you are paying the press release distribution services to do one primary thing:
Project your presence (via your press release) to a highly targeted market on as wide a scale as possible. The story, the content, the ‘selling’ part of your press release…
That is the only key to success with SEO press releases. Don’t get me wrong. Search engine optimization is important. However, don’t look to replace your regular search engine marketing strategy with distributing press releases.
A press release performs a specific purpose, and so does your search engine marketing strategy. Both are for different purposes. Your SEM strategy will ensure long-term presence and visibility on the search engines.
Your press release, on the other hand, is a limited opportunity to promote a specific event related to your company.
Do you have any tips on optimizing SEO Press release?
This guest post was written by Bill, who is the author of seoarticlewriteservice.com, a popular blog that provides Guaranteed SEO Services to small business people and affiliate marketers. Subscribe to his RSS feed for more SEO Tips.
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