A press release is a powerful tool to communicate with the market and industry about the company and its news, events, and achievements. But releasing a press release alone will not attract all the attention to your brand, you need to put some SEO efforts in as well. SEO is the abbreviation of Search Engine Optimization which decides which rank your company’s website will get when someone searches for a similar product or service that you provide. The higher your rank will be, the more web traffic your website will get. Now imagine how good it would do if you could add the SEO efforts in your press release as well.
Well, you can, and here are the top 10 tips on how you can write SEO friendly press releases to make them more effective and increase your brand awareness even more.
1. Include Keywords
The first thing that comes to everyone’s mind whenever someone talks about SEO is keywords. So the first tip would be to include the keywords in your content so that your potential audience can easily find your press release. When you write the press release by using keywords that will help your content stand out. The search engine will easily recognize your content to be relevant and present it at a higher rank when the targeted searchers post their query.
2. Optimize the First 250 Words
Now that you know about the importance of keywords, the next question is where do you use them? The answer is quite simple. Use the keywords in your press release’s headline and in the first paragraph. Usually, the first paragraph of a standard press release is about 250 words which should always be optimized.
3. Bold the SEO Keywords and Phrases
When you include keywords in your writing, always bold them so that the search engine can easily recognize the words without searching too far. You can also include phrases from important people in your industry and bolding them will strengthen your intent of using that.
4. Add Relevant Hyperlinks for Anchor Texts
One common mistake that can happen while writing a press release is over-linking. Hyperlinking important statistics and quotes are important. It can serve as an anchor text for some external linking to other content on your website. But overdoing it is a big no-no and it will make it harder for readers to read your press release.
5. Use Visual Media
Apart from SEO, the elements of your press release can highly impact the senses of your readers. Using visual media like a picture or a short video that tells a story will not only make your content stand out, but also make it more interesting for the readers of your content.
6. Keep the Content News-Worthy
Including SEO-friendly keywords in your press release is a must, but you need to make sure that the content itself is newsworthy. Otherwise, the chances of media sites featuring your announcement will be low to negative and will not serve well for your intent, which is to bring awareness to your brand and its announcements.
7. Get the Timing Right
Lastly, get the timing right for your press release. Publish it at a time when the readers will be able to find your content online easily.
These are the tips that you can use when you are writing a press release that is SEO-friendly and the results of improvement will be visible!
