SEO and News Releases

Search Engine Optimization for News Releases Schwartz Communications http://www.Schwartz-PR.com

Process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website from search engines via “natural” or “organic” search results as opposed to paid inclusion. (Source: Wikipedia)
What’s SEO? Your company here

They’re generating leads and/or selling through their websites
It’s one of three primary sources of website traffic
Brand recognition—people already know you and go straight to your site
Advertising
Links from search engines and other sites
Improving SEO means getting found by audiences online
Less expensive than the marketing alternatives
Why Do Businesses Care About SEO?

Things beyond PR’s direct control such as:
Website architecture
Age of the website
Heavy use of technologies like Flash
Plus, lots of things PR can affect
Backlinks—Links from credible websites (e.g., news media, prominent blogs) to your own
Keywords and keyword phrases—Prominence and repeated use of terms people are searching on
Timeliness—Search engines favor fresh content
Consistency—SEO works only when pursued over time
Releases let us pull together all of these elements
What Affects SEO Rankings?

Two Ways to Use News to Support SEO Writing Distribution links keywords

Terms or phrases your customers use to find information online
They’re what customers are looking for—in their own words
They’re often not your company or product name
Must be some search volume on a term for SEO to work
Up to about 5 keywords or keyword phrases per release
How do you find them?
Examine top-performing keywords in site analytics
Consider performance of your AdWords
Check whether people who searched on certain terms spend longer on your website site—these terms may be more promising than others
Step 1: Pick Your Keywords

Google AdWords seems to be the most widely used tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
There are lots of others available—search on “free keyword research tools”
Terms with lighter (but still significant) search volume are easier to impact, so choose your niche carefully. Don’t assume that the terms with the highest search volume are best for you.
Don’t Know Your Keywords?

Most important keyword or phrase goes in the headline
Headlines are heavily weighted by search engines
Subheads likely matter, but unclear how much; put one or two supporting keywords here
May blow up “[Company] announced [thing]” approach and make you write about stuff your customers search on
Write short
PR Newswire recommends 80 characters or fewer
BusinessWire suggests about 60
Google News Alerts display the first 60 or so characters
If you have to write long, put your keywords first
You want to trigger and have people click on Google Alerts, so make the keywords immediately apparent to readers
If using PR Web, think “clickable title” for syndication to blogs and websites via RSS
Step 2: Put A Keyword In the Headline

Put more keywords in the first few sentences
Beginning of the release is more likely to be read than the end
Keep working your keywords and keyword phrases into the body of the release
This shouldn’t supplant good writing or otherwise warp your style
Use quotes, particularly if you’re distributing via BusinessWire (the wire’s EON service relies on them to keep material fresh in Google’s eyes)
Check your work for proper use of keywords
PR Newswire ( http://www.icrossing.com/tools/calculator.htm ) lets you make sure you’ve got the proper keyword density—this is free
Add or remove keywords as you draft, before release has been through approval cycles
Step 3: Write the Body of the Release

Link to your website, blog, YouTube channel—something you “own”
Rule of thumb: 1 link for every 100 words
Don’t go overboard or search engines will ID your release as spam and may not index it
Don’t add links to the headline or subhead
They don’t carry through well in syndication to other sites
Do add a link in the first sentence to the company’s name and the name of a product or service if applicable
This is largely for the convenience of readers
The higher up the link, the more likely it is to be clicked on
Make sure your logo on BusinessWire, PR Newswire or other service is clickable
Go into their online systems used for loading press releases for distribution and ensure that a URL is associated with your logo
Step 4: Add Hyperlinks

Three Ways to Use Hyperlinks Anyone searching on “Digium” will get to the company’s website anyway, but here’s the link for convenience Anchor text—the link to the website is associated with words that someone who doesn’t know Digium may type into a search Full URL, including http://, for websites that don’t support anchor text

Make Smart Use of Links
Link to terms that people really search on, not just your company name and product names
Link deeper than the home page at least once
Second- or third-level pages that contain the keyword or keyword phrase/s that you care about are better
If you can’t find such a page, consider creating one
If it’s not too distracting as you read, consider adding full URLs alongside anchor text
e.g., AsteriskExchange ( http://www.asteriskexchange.com )
This is most practical in the body of the release, past the first paragraph, which readers should be able to skim
Many sites that syndicate news still don’t support embedded links
Vary the words you use as anchor text
e.g., “VoIP,” “voice over IP phones” and “business phone systems” may all link to the same page on your site

Step 5: Make a Call on Formatting
No clear agreement on the value of using bold, italics, bullets, etc.
PR Newswire and BusinessWire advise to use them judiciously, but do recommend bolding keywords, for example
HubSpot believes too much formatting causes Google to toss releases out
HubSpot also notes that many websites that take syndicated news releases have trouble with formatting
Finish up by checking your work again
http://pressrelease.grader.com

Step 6: Choose a Distribution Method
Free
Many sites claim to boost SEO rankings substantially
They often require that you mess with HTML
OpenPR.com, PR.com, PR-Inside.com, PRLog.org, etc.
Not free
BusinessWire, PR Newswire, MarketWire, PR Web
All constantly evolving their platforms to improve SEO
Syndicate to websites large and small
BusinessWire
EON now mandatory to hit Google Web and Google News
PR Newswire
URL in page title, geographies noted to support local searches
Both encourage use of multimedia
Social media releases
Don’t replace traditional—goal is to stimulate conversation

Be Clear on Your Goal
Regardless of the distribution service you choose, remember that the goal of SEO is to bring visitors to the website, multimedia/social media newsroom or blog
Include links to appealing content
Link numerous times to your own website
Make your own choice about the value of pushing as much content out online (via a wire service’s multimedia offerings) versus giving readers a bit of info and trying to draw them to your site for more
If your goal is getting the content in front of as many people as possible, it may be worth the extra money to pay for multimedia press release distribution
If your top goal is bringing people to your website, house key content there and only there (i.e., not on the wire service’s website)

In Sum
Understand and use keywords and keyword phrases
Add hyperlinks (including http://)
Know that consistency and patience are required for success
Good Reading
http://www.seo-pr.com , @gregjarboe
PR Newswire, Michael Pranikoff, @mpranikoff
BusinessWire, @MalcolmAtherton
Lee Odden, @TopRank, http://www.toprankblog.com
Search Engine Watch, http://www.searchenginewatch.com
Search Engine Journal, http://www.searchenginejournal.com

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SEO and News Releases

by Laura Kempke

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