SEO Press Releases: Part 2
May 31, 2012 Leave a comment
The upside about learning SEO is you’re not alone if you feel you’re behind the learning curve. The truth is everyone needs to learn to keep on track in this field. It’s an ever changing, ever shifting process. So, wherever you are in the process, that’s okay. My previous article focused on how to write an SEO press release in order to garner increased online visibility and ultimately more views. The basic how-tos include knowing your keywords, using anchor text, and including your URL
While all of this helps you in the world of search engines such as Yahoo and Google, that’s not enough. You don’t simply want to move yourself up in the search engine pecking order; you also want to have a compelling story, a well written targeted release that reaches your target audience. Increasing your website traffic is great but it can be useless if it’s not the right traffic, you need to be speaking to your audience.
Whereas you definitely want to use keywords and it’s important you learn and know your keywords before starting to write a release, you don’t want to get lost in jargon. Every business has its own jargon and to those outside of the business it often sounds like a foreign language. That is not going to make for a compelling read, so keep your jargon to a minimum.
Be sure to bold your secondary keywords and phrases in your release and include a link that will allow the reader to access additional information. Double check that you’ve included the http:// portion of the URL in your press releases or the links will not be clickable when published.
Most releases have a date included, but in this case I think that backfires. Unless your information is timely and has to do with a specific event, season or breaking news story adding a date to your release will only server to make the release look dated. This is particularly true with online-oriented releases.
Write a concise descriptive headline that includes your primary keywords. Don’t be shy about them. This is the real estate that counts. You want to utilize your important keywords in the headline, in the lead and then pepper them throughout your message. I’m not sure this makes for the best releases from a journalistic standpoint, but from an SEO perspective it reinforces your message
The writing and the story are the parts of your release that will engage your audience, SEO is the science of being discovered by your audience and in the online world – you need both.
Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012
