SEO Press Releases
If you do SEO or you know at least some of the basics of link building, you might have heard that a press release and SEO can work together to build authority and increase your rankings.
In today’s post, we’re looking at what press releases are, what benefits they have, how they should be optimized for SEO, and whether they still work.
Press releases for SEO – A guide
What is a press release?
Companies send press releases to journalists to notify them about products or services that they have launched, but also to gain media coverage, build their reputation, as well keep a crisis under control (if something bad happened and you have to give a statement about it).
Press releases with links in them are different compared to links that you’d get in a random post in an online publication such as a magazine. Usually, a press release should only be used when something newsworthy has happened.
SEO press releases benefits
Indirect value is the most important benefit that you can get from an SEO press release. You’re basically spreading the word about what you do and how you can help your potential clients or product buyers.
A press release can be picked up by a blog, newspaper, or a media outlet if it is unique and valuable. When this happens, your website gets the link you’re looking for, a mention, as well as some buzz from the readers.
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Press releases build links naturally, so they don’t go against any rules that search engines might have in place. They also provide you with referral traffic, as well as a boost in brand visibility and recognition.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that press releases should be used only when they have something interesting or valuable to transmit. If it is not newsworthy in any way, it’s not going to help your SEO strategy — it will rather be counterproductive and even work against your SEO goals.
Optimizing an SEO press release
Bold and hyperlink your keywords
Naturally, if your press release gets picked up by several publications, you will want to use the right anchor text and link in the content. Over-linking is not a good practice, though, but it is a mistake that many newbies make.
While you should make sure that your main keyword is used in the first part of your press release text, you will want to avoid going overboard. Not only is it frustrating for someone to read a keyword-stuffed piece of content, but it’s also difficult to comprehend.
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Plus, the search engines are going to consider it spam, so they might ignore your press release altogether. Your website might even get penalized in some situations.
Make sure that the first 200-300 words are optimized
A good press release, at least in terms of search engine optimization, should basically follow the same rules that you apply when you write new content for your own website. Ideally, your main keyword should appear in the intro paragraph and at least in one of the headings.
Your main keyword should be closely linked to what the press release deals with — this means that the readers are going to easily and quickly understand what it’s about, and they’ll also get relevant information.
Provide your company details at the end of the press release
This is one of the easiest ways to let people know about your brand or at least your website, but you would be surprised to find out just how many times copywriters forget all about including these details, too.
Creating press releases for SEO
Do something interesting
If you haven’t done anything in particular in the past couple of weeks, your press release isn’t going to provide any value to its readers or to the journalists — they’re not going to want to pick it up. On another note, this is why you should always focus on doing new things for your business.
Make it catchy
The title and the text have to be attention-grabbing, but you shouldn’t go overboard. Don’t use misleading, catchy titles, as they aren’t going to convince any journalists or readers if the content doesn’t deal with the topic in the title.
Share it with the right people
As you can expect, journalists get hundreds, if not thousands, of such emails every day. Your goal should be to build relationships with some of these people. Most (if not all) that you will reach out to will ask you for some money to publish your press release on the website they have access to.
If you don’t want to deal with the hassle of creating the outreach campaign yourself, you can hire a virtual assistant for the purpose. Or you can simply look for journalists on websites for freelancers, such as Upwork – and keep their contact details for the future.
Imitation is a form of flattery
No one said that your press release should be absolutely unique in every way. Check out some of the websites you want your content to be published on and look at other press releases, just to get an example of what might work.
Use the power of the Internet to search for bad press releases, too, as this can help you avoid making many serious mistakes.
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Do press releases help SEO?
The answer to this question is yes, but there’s a caveat. If you start spamming journalists with press releases they definitely do not want to hear about, this will work against you.
However, if you are getting in touch with the people that do want to hear about what you’ve recently launched, press releases can definitely help your SEO strategy.
When it comes to link building, you shouldn’t base all of your efforts on press releases. Use a mix of niche edits, guest posts, sponsored posts, and a variety of other linking opportunities (such as the Skyscraper technique) besides SEO press releases.
Need more help with your press releases? Find out more about the services that we offer by clicking the button below.
Craig Campbell
I am a Glasgow based SEO expert who has been doing SEO for 22 years.
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