Do you still think press releases should be a part of your SEO strategy?
YES. It complements your SEO strategy, which already contains content marketing, blogging, social media marketing, and much more.
By including press releases in your SEO strategy, the idea is to share your new products & services, and other noteworthy content with the right audience.
The relevance that press releases used to hold a few years back, unfortunately, does not exit today. This happened when Google found that marketers are writing & publishing press releases just to get backlinks and the key purpose is not being served (to share news).
However, even today, you can add value to your business and benefit your SEO strategy by press release — if you are doing it in the right way.
You can still use press releases to your advantage.
You may be wondering — is it advantageous for your business to spend money on press release distribution?
In the present scenario when businesses have started abusing the idea behind the press release, it is hard to answer these questions. If you really wish to get the desired result that you have planned with your press release distribution strategy then you have to understand the right way to do it.
Let’s first understand what is a press release & how it works?
Press Release
A press release is an official statement that tells about a noteworthy event taking place in your business. It gives information about this particular event to journalists. A press release might look very trivial when you are up with a big event, but it is one of the most effective ways of turning heads on your business. But, for that to happen, you must make sure you are doing it in the right way.
There are two important aspects of the success of your press release:
- Writing
- Distribution
For your press release to get the results that you have been eyeing on, you must make sure that you are doing your press release writing & distribution – both right.
What is the right way to go for press release writing & distribution?
With new technical developments, other than the key goal of putting your side of the story to let people know, companies started sending press releases to gain links. And, that is when Google started penalizing these sites.
So, if you have decided to incorporate press releases in your SEO strategy then you must take care of certain things. In this blog post, we have talked about the three simple steps that you can follow for the success of your press release.
Let’s get started:
- Draft an easy to read, marketable & interesting Press Release
So, if you really want to gain from your press release it should not look messy. The best part to start with is — an interesting attention-grabbing title. You must frame your title in a way that the audience will care about.
Make sure that your title is crisp & looks like one that is written in a newspaper. If you have written your title perfectly, journalists will copy & paste your title without making changes to it while writing their own stories.
Here are some more tips to write your press release:
- Write your press release only in the third person.
- You must keep your press release shorts & crisp. It should not be more than 400 – 500 words — make that the rule of thumb.
- You must also add interesting images, screenshots & other media.
- Write your Press release in a way that speaks directly to the user.
- Kill the fluff and get straight to the point.
- Write a press release only when there is something noteworthy to share.
Don’t do it just for getting backlinks. Don’t write about everything & anything — sharing about the new recruitment would only degrade your brand value. But, this necessarily does not mean that it can be done only when your company has done something that huge. We would suggest you study your audience and how far they want to know about your business and its new development. Once you have found the right thing to share through your press release — make sure you are giving your 100%. Pen it down in a way that you have nothing else to talk about.
- Choose the right Journalists to share your Press Release with
Don’t take this in the wrong direction – instead of choosing thousands of journalists, choose only those who you feel would be interested in writing about you. The first thing you must do to get through with this step is to – do your research. Find out only those journalists who are interested in writing in your niche.
Final words.
So, the question remains — is press release writing an effective way that should be incorporated in your SEO strategy? And, the answer is yes — if it’s done in the right way through the right people and is about the right event, it does add value to your business.
But, if you are turning the wrong path – writing your press release just to get backlinks from reputed news agencies then – you should stop doing it. Press releases are great for your SEO, but it works only when done in the right way with the right intention.