With more than 14 years of experience in the internet marketing industry, Search Engine Partner has a unique understanding of how to write a SEO press release so it achieves success online. The following press release tips will help you write a professional, concise and powerful SEO press release.
Proofread: SEP recommends that you write an SEO press release in a Word or other text document instead of writing it directly on the online submit page. Writing online will not achieve the best results. Write an SEO press release, print it, and proofread. Rewrite and then proofread again. The more time you take to do it right, the better your company's first impression.
Start Strong: Your headline, summary and first paragraph should clarify your news. The rest of your SEO press release should provide the detail. You only have a matter of seconds to grab your readers' attention, so you want to capture it with a strong opening.
Identify Yourself: If your SEO press release does not identify the source of the information and news within the first few paragraphs, you may lose the promotional value your release can provide. Readers want to know who is talking; letting them know builds the credibility of the release and promotes your name and brand online.
Write Professionally: It takes only a few sentences to discern whether a SEO press release is written professionally. If your release contains hype, slang, excessive exclamation points or direct address, chances are it will be viewed as an advertisement rather than a SEO press release. There is no better way to destroy credibility than to distribute a release full of hype. Additionally, on occasion, media outlets may pick up your release and run it in their publications with little or no modification. The more professional your release sounds, the greater the chances are that this will happen.
Answer the Tough Questions: Not everything is news. Your excitement about something and its availability does not necessarily mean you have a newsworthy story. Think about your audience. Will someone else find your story interesting? Let's assume that you have just spent a lot of effort to launch a new online store. Announcing a company's opening is always an exciting time for any business, but the last thing the media wants to write about is another online store. Instead, focus on the features of your site's shopping experience, unique products and/or services. Answer the question, "Why should anyone care?" Make sure your announcement contains news values like timeliness, uniqueness or highlights something truly unusual. Avoid clichés such as "customers save money" or "great customer service." Focus on the aspects of your announcement that truly set you apart from everyone else.
Pick an Angle: Try to make SEO press release timely. Make sure that your release has a good news hook. Tying your news to current events, recent studies, trends and social issues brings relevance, urgency and importance to your message.
Use Anchor Text and Features: Search Engine Partner SEO press releases can accommodate multimedia files like images, video, links and other features that will capture the attention of your readers and highlight your news. Nothing is worse than seeing a release go out "naked" with none of these capabilities utilized. Attach logos, head shots, product shots, photographs, audio files, video files, PDF documents or any other supplemental materials that build up your release. Use anchor text and hyperlinks to point readers back to your site ensures both your website and your important keywords receive simultaneous promotion in SEO press release.
Illustrate the Solution: Use real life examples to illustrate how your company or organization solved a problem. Identify the problem and why your solution is the right solution. Give examples of how your service or product fulfils needs or satisfies desires. Using real life examples powerfully communicates the benefits of using your product or service.
Don't Be Afraid to Toot Your Own Horn: Online SEO press release distribution is a successful way to create expert status. If your company has reached a milestone, celebrated an anniversary, hired a new president, experienced significant growth or received an award, tell the world what you did right. Or, write a tip sheet that offers readers "tips" or help in your field of expertise.
Don't Give Away All the Secrets: If you're running a new promotion this season, tell readers where they can go to learn more. Provide links in SEO press release directly to the page on your website where readers can learn the specifics about your news and then act upon it. If you give your readers no reason to click through to your site, they're not necessarily going to. This kind of "call to action" pulls them away from reading and urges them to respond.
Stick to the Facts: Tell the truth. Avoid fluff, embellishments, hype and exaggerations. If you feel that SEO press release seems sensational, there's a good chance your readers will think so too. With so much information available to the consumer, readers are naturally skeptical. If your story sounds too good to be true, you are probably hurting your own credibility. Even if it is true, you may want to tone it down a bit.
Use Active Voice: Verbs in the active voice can bring an SEO press release to life. Rather than writing "entered into a partnership," use "partnered" instead. Do not be afraid to use strong verbs. For example, "The committee exhibited severe hostility over the incident" reads better if changed to "The committee was enraged over the incident." Writing in this manner helps give life and energy to your release, which may set it apart from the rest of the pack.
Economize Your Words: Wordiness is distracting, so be concise. In addition, news search engines sometimes reject SEO press releases with overly long headlines, excessive lists and high overall word counts. Eliminate unnecessary adjectives, flowery language or redundant expressions such as "added bonus" or "first time ever." Make each word count. If you can tell your story with fewer words, you'll have better results with your readers and the search engines.
Limit Jargon: Jargon is language specific to certain professions, industries or groups and is not appropriate for general readership. While a limited amount of jargon is required if your goal is to optimize your SEO press release for online search, the best way to communicate your news is to speak plainly using ordinary language. Using an abundance of technical language and jargon limits your reading audience.
The correct formatting creates a professional, SEO press release that is automatically more media and Search Engine friendly. How you present your news is just as important as your content. Follow these formatting guidelines to best use SEP's distribution platform.
Initial Case: Your headline should be written in initial case, with the first letter of each word capitalized. Exceptions to this include words less than three characters and prepositions.
ALL CAPS: It is considered bad form to submit a press release entirely in upper case letters, or ALL CAPS. In the unlikely event that your release passes through SEP's editorial review process, it will be ignored by journalists and many readers. In addition, avoid using ALL CAPS to create emphasis on certain words or phrases, as this is a red flag that your release is an advertisement or spam. Always use mixed case when formatting your SEO press release.
Summary: Include a one paragraph summary, ideally two to three sentences in length. Some distribution points will only display your headline, summary and a link to your SEO press release, so if SEO press release does not have a summary paragraph, you may reduce the effectiveness of your news since readers will not be enticed to click through to the full SEO press release.
Dateline: SEO press release body should begin with a dateline, which looks like this:
City, State (SEP) Day, Month and Year. Including the city and town related to your news is optional, but helpful for readers. The date should reflect the date of distribution for your release.
Spacing: Each paragraph should have natural line wraps, not forced line breaks. Leave one line break between each paragraph. It's not necessary to include dashes, asterisks or other symbols to separate sections in your release.
HTML: SearchEnginePartner does not support embedded HTML or other markup languages. Your SEO press release will be distributed over a wide array of networks and including such formatting will negatively impact the readability of SEO press release.
Link Spam: To avoid link spam, include no more than one link per 100 words of your release. These links include both anchor text links and active URL hyperlinks.
Lists: SEP has found that long lists may cause your release to be rejected from the news search engines. To avoid this, limit your use of listed items like: free, no obligation, no cost, quote, click here, and so forth.
Length: It is nearly impossible to announce your news in a few sentences. If you do not have more than a few sentences, you may not have a newsworthy item. SEP recommends release lengths between 300 and 800 words in paragraph form. This means that an SEO press release should be written in a five paragraph format with a thesis paragraph, supporting paragraphs not more than four sentences each, and a conclusion with a call to action.
Keywords: Finally, what makes a press release an SEO press release is the use and amount (also called density) of the keywords appearing in the release. We recommend using a keyword one time per every 3-5 sentences. On this very page we have around 1,500 words. The keyword SEO press release occurs around 27 times. In this case 27 occurrences wouldn't be enough to sustain a ranking for the keyword SEO press release. We would either need to reduce the total words or use SEO press release more often. For optimal results we recommend inserting keywords in the title, first sentence, last paragraph and throughout body text with a 5% keyword density.
Keyword Tips: separate keywords with period, change the order of keywords, and insert 1 or 2 words into the phrase so it makes sense. Never use characters like commas dashes or anything else that may look out of place. This is a red flag for search engines that you're trying to cram in keywords and is considered “black hat.” Secondary keyword phrases should appear in sub-heading and throughout body text with keyword density of 1-3%. Using a third keyword per page may be pushing it for a press release.
Where to Start:
1. Make a list of targeted keywords that you will want to include in your press release. Making sure you include your desired keywords will ensure your article will rank as highly as possible.
2. Decide on a headline. Your headline should be interesting and descriptive. It should also include your most valuable keyword.
3. Keep the body of your press release basic and in simple terms. Make sure your press release is written in terms and words that the general public would understand or search for.
4. Use the “real estate” of your press release wisely. Make sure the headline and the first and last paragraphs are rich in your most desirable keywords.
5. Within the text, use formatting techniques such as bullets and subtitles to make the SEO press release easier to read and more search engine friendly.
6. Include links to products or articles within your website. Make sure the links are labeled with Search Engine friendly wording and keywords and not SPAM words like "click here".
7. Lastly, make sure you insert pictures and your logo where appropriate. Label all inserted images. |
