How to Optimize a Press release for SEO and Increase Your Website's Exposure and Traffic?

by Guna Nadar - 7/17/2020 1163 Views

Are you looking to optimize your press releases for SEO? Here’s a simple step by step guide for you. Follow it to increase your website's exposure and traffic.

Press Release

“Successful SEO is not about tricking Google. It is about partnering with Google to provide the best search results for Google user.” – Phil Frost

SEO has been around for many years, and what started as a trend in marketing strategy has now become a must-have for many brands. Are you trying to get the word out about your Company? Or, do you want to create exposure to recent activity, product announcement, release, or change in your industry? Then press release distribution is your go-to. Online press releases can get your Company the desired search engine visibility.

Press releases often called PRs are one of the organic ways for lead generation, build backlinks and to gain better SEO ranks. When done right, it can add a lot more value to your organic search efforts and help rank high in SERPS.

You sure have heard about press releases, but there’s a good chance that you haven’t tried using them yet. In this blog, we will talk about the importance of press release, the best practices, and a quick checklist to optimize press releases.

Let’s start from the basics!

1. What is a Press Release?

2. Is Press Release Distribution still worth it in 2020?

3. Why should businesses focus on Press Releases?

4. How Press Release Distributions help SEO?

5. How to optimize PR for SEO?

1.1 Research your Keywords

1.2 Create a Descriptive Title

1.3 Write Engaging Contents

1.4 Include Multimedia

1.5 Include a Call-to-Action

What is a Press Release?

A press release is a tool to distribute and announce something newsworthy in the most ideal way possible. It is an official announcement that an organization issues to the news media and beyond. The ultimate aim of a PR is to get coverage and get noticed by the target audience.

Is Press Release Distribution still worth it in 2020?

The short answer to this question is, yes. Press releases are still relevant and possibly will be for a long time to come. PR is one of the best, effective and inexpensive brand promotion strategy, but only if it is newsworthy and done correctly. This means if you publish a PR to announce something fresh and unique, it will get viral. It will not only help in lead generation letting prospects know about your Company and services but also helps in building quality backlinks, and improves your press release SEO.

Still not convinced? Here’s a statistic for you! According to a recent research, 81% of people feel that they must be able to trust a brand to make a purchase. Moreover, it is well known, consumers view press releases as a trusted source of data and information. These pieces of information prove that PRs are still worth it in 2020.

Why should Businesses focus on Press Releases?

The purpose of a press release is to get attention and generate publicity. It can help you promote something specific and significant. The marketing and promotional purposes of PRs include:

To promote your business online and aid lead generation.
To notify the media about an event hoping that they will spread the word.
Have your Company show up in Google News.
To get attention, make the news, and gain publicity.
Create brand awareness.
Boost your Company’s trust and credibility.

How Press Release Distributions help SEO?

You might be surprised to learn that over 90% of websites don’t get any organic traffic from Google. If yours is one among those, don’t worry, you still have the time to boost your SEO by optimizing your press releases. Yes, just as it is for other contents, press release SEO is essential.

Wondering how? Continue reading.

Of course, press releases help you ensure that your news reaches the right audience. It has the potential to bring quality backlinks to your site. It can even get featured in Google news and get shared on social media. In addition, press releases can spread brand awareness among people who are not aware of you and help in lead generation. It can help you reach those who are in dire need of your products or services. Top of all, a research shows that 71% of journalists, claims that news and press releases are one of the top contents they want to receive from brands.

But, for all these to happen, your prospects should first find you. And for that you have optimize press releases. An SEO optimized PR can drive leads to your businesses and boost their conversion rate.

How to Optimize PR for SEO?

Here’s a simple guide on how to optimize press releases to increase your website's exposure and traffic.

1.1. Research your Keywords:

Research your Keywords

Optimizing your press release always starts with keyword research. Your story may be relevant to 90% of readers, but if they can’t find it, they can't read it.

Google ranks web pages by crawling them for specific key terms. So it’s significant to figure out which keywords your prospective customers are searching for.

You should include those keywords in your content strategically. It should be in the header of the press release, subheadings, and even in the image captions. That’s because Google specifically crawls these areas of the contents, to pull keywords and use them in the ranking algorithm.

But, be careful not to overuse the keywords. A good rule of thumb is to use your keywords no more than five times within a press release.

1.2. Create a Descriptive Title:

Create a Descriptive Title

So, you've got your announcement in mind and performed the keyword research. Now it's time to get it down in words to share it with your community, industry, and followers. But before that, you must choose a suitable headline for the press release. Headlines are so compelling that a single word can impact a campaign dramatically. If you are wondering what makes the headline so important, according to Google, 80% of users read headlines while only 20% of them read the whole content.

This is why most high ranking search results usually include their brand name in the title. So in this era, where contents are coming from all sides, the PR headline is an opportunity for you to grab users' attention. Be very careful while choosing the headline. It can make or even break your efforts in creating the PR.

Just like writing the perfect blog post title, start writing your PR with a catchy headline. You only have one line to work with, which may sound scary, but try to make your header appealing. Use clear, understandable language, action verbs, and keep your headline short and simple. Above all, make it interesting.

Also, keep in mind, people come across hundreds of press releases each day, so put in the time to write an appealing headline. It's worth the time and effort on your part.

Here are some pro tips to optimize press release header with keywords:

The header you choose must be informative and deliver some value.
Offer solutions to a problem.
If possible, avoid jargon.
Insert essential keywords.
As numbers get more clicks, use numbers in your header.

1.3. Write Engaging Contents:

PRs have changed a lot over the years, particularly since businesses have realized the importance of online marketing. However, the fact that content is king remains unchanged. So, if you want to build an online reputation and trust, you have to write customized, high-quality press releases giving people what exactly they want to know. Hence from the outset, it is imperative to keep your readers in mind.

Moreover, writing high-quality press releases is one proven way to improve your SEO. Google considers quite a few factors to measure the quality index of the contents, like originality, timeliness, and length. It always prefers to deliver only relevant and fresh contents to its users. When it comes to originality, Google rewards original contents and at the same time penalizes plagiarized and redundant contents.

Before you start to write, ask yourself, what question is this press release answering to? What is it about this announcement that my readers will find compelling? Knowing answers to these questions will help you focus better.

The first paragraph of your release should cover the ‘who, what, why, where, and how of your new launch, update, or development.

Also, as a reader reaches the last paragraph of your PR, he should already know all of the vital details and information you want to convey through it.

Understandably, it can be tempting to provide surplus facts and tidbits about your Company or the development of your announcement. But, keep in mind a press release distribution should be helpful and concise.

1.4. Include Multimedia:

According to Brain Rules, after three days of reading some contents, users’ tend to remember only 10% of the information they learned. However, with added visuals, their memory power increases by 65%.

These stats clearly show that visuals can help increase the efficacy of your press release. It can prevent readers from getting bored and keep them engaged. It can also make your content remembered longer.

So, if you are looking to push the performance of your press release SEO, you must include some eye-catching multimedia. You can easily add relevant visuals, such as images and videos in the content. These can take your story further.

Moreover, to SEO optimize the visuals in your PR, you can include keywords in their captions, and file names to help Google get an idea about what the image is about.

Top of all, including videos or images, also increases the likelihood that your press release will end up being shared in social media. Isn’t that cool?

1.5. Include a Call-to-Action:

Include a Call to Action

You have spent a lot of time to create an SEO-friendly, engaging PR. You don’t want your readers to leave without taking the preferred action. You have to tell them what they should do after reading your press release. After ensuring that your readers get a good idea of what you want to convey, encourage them to click through by smartly placing a compelling Call-to-Action (CTA).

CTAs are what push a user to take the desired action when they scroll through your PR. You should add a relevant call-to-action to meet your end-goal.

The CTA for the PR depends entirely on what you want to achieve through the press release. So, you must determine your aim behind creating it.

Do you want to:

Sell something?
Get new email subscribers?
Gain more awareness of your product launch?
Increase event attendees?

Moreover, if you don’t add the right Call-to-Actions at the right places, your visitors may find it challenging to navigate and leave the page. Even if they navigate through the PR easily, a CTA added at the right place will help get more conversions. The more logical the placement of this Call-to-Action, the more success you’ll have.

A pro tip for you! To avoid using common Call-to-Actions like “click here” here are some effective ways to use CTAs at the end of your press release.

Include a form that users can fill out if they want to learn more.
Offer freebies relevant to your topic, to download
Offer deals like “buy now and get 50% off."
Invite them to call you for a free consultation.
Include numbers and percentages.

Take Away!

Press releases can help you get the word out about your products, brand, and services. However, to make sure that they reach the right audience and for lead generation, you have to optimize them for SEO. There is, of course, much more in perfecting an SEO strategy, however, by following the tips discussed above, you will be off to a good start in improving the online performance of your PRs. You can execute them to convey your message to prospects and encourage them to take the desired action. If you find it hard or if you are new to SEO, take the help of a reputed White label SEO Company like SubmitInMe to build your SEO credibility over time, lead generation, and get more media attention from your press releases.

Category :

SEO News

Tags :

Press Release Distribution

About Guna Nadar

Brief Info about Guna Nadar +

I mostly write technical aspects and not much into creative writing. For the past decade I worked along with top notch SEO & Internet Marketing professionals which naturally lured me into the world of Search Engines. When I am not writing I read from comics to philosophy.Antiques, Fishing, hunting are my passions. Currently I am working on Google Penalty protection and .... more info about the author