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In our previous article “SEO Press Release (Part 1): An Overview,” we gave you an idea about press release. We also identified the difference among press release, copywriting and article marketing.  And through that article, we made an introduction about online press release and its benefits on search engine optimization. Now, we will give you some useful tips in writing SEO press releases.

Optimizing the Essential Elements of a Press Release

In general, a press release is composed of seven elements which are: the title/headline, dateline, Introduction/lead, body/content, company bio, ending and media contact information. But the five key elements that must be optimized are headline, introduction, body, boilerplate or company bio and media contact information.

Step 1: The Title or Headline

Just like any news or feature story, the title or the headline of a press release is used to grab the attention of the media and the target readers. The headline also summarizes the story. Thus, the title of your press release should be striking and convincing for human readers and at the same time, it is specially optimized for search engines.

In optimizing the headline, it is important that you include your keyword/s or keyword phrase because it is not only the title of the whole press release itself, but it is also the title tag for the web page. Therefore, keyword research and choosing the scope of your article should be done first before you jump in to writing your SEO press release.

Step 2: Introduction or Lead

The introduction of a press release is usually the basic answers to the questions who, what, when, where, why and how. It is the first paragraph of the article that must be concise, yet informative as it encourages the readers to read the whole article further.

To optimize your lead paragraph, you can include some keywords or keyword phrases which are not included in the title. Thus, you can make the most of keywords’ exposure.

Step 3: Body or Content

The body or content tackles all other relevant details of a press release. It may contain explanations, background of the story, statistics, quotations from persons involve in the story and other newsworthy information. You can maximize the use of the body of your SEO press release by writing a keyword-rich, but newsworthy content so that it can be crawled by search engine bots and can catch the attention of human readers.

Step 4: Boilerplate or Company Bio

In this section you can write something about your company and your business in a few lines. But don’t forget to include your keywords in the copy of your company bio. Using an anchor text, you can link your website in the company bio section of your SEO press release.

Step 5: Media Contact Information

All the details about how you can be contacted are written in media contact information. It includes the office and email address, phone and fax numbers and so many others. Also, make it sure that there’s only one person who will be contacted by the press people because publishers do not accept news releases without contact information, thus your press release may not be published online. The benefit of having a consistent contact person in every press release is that the name of that person is being optimized. Thus, if you want to optimize your name, don’t forget to include it in the media contact information of your SEO press release.

SEO Press Release Dos and Don’ts

Just like any SEO activities, there are also rules in writing online releases that must be followed. You may want to take note of the following before you start writing your SEO press release.

1. Do identify the goals of the company before you start writing your press release. If you know the objectives of your company, you would know where your story is going, thus the confusing article flow can be avoided. Moreover, it will help you in your keywords search too.
2. Don’t sacrifice newsworthiness for the sake of SEO. Although an online press release can boost your visibility on the Internet, the newsworthiness of the content must not be taken for granted. Avoid submitting high volumes of poorly-written and boring press releases to the media. Instead of doing that, submit an interesting and informative news release that can be crawled by search engine bots and is worthy of your target market’s time.
3. Do research your keywords. Just like any SEO activities, it is also important to study the exact keywords that your target customers are using when searching on the Internet. You do it right and you will have a strong foundation for your SEO press release.
4. Don’t stuff your press release with too much keyword. Avoid inserting too much and irrelevant keywords on your content or else the readability of your press release will be put in jeopardy. Instead, the proper placing of keywords in your content should be practiced all the times. Always remember that a well-optimized article does not only rank well on search engines, but it also ranks to your readers.
5. Do use keyword-rich backlinks. Use keyword-rich anchor text links in your press release and you will increase the rankings of the pages that you linked. Thus, it’s like hitting two birds in one stone– driving traffic to your website and increasing your page rankings on search results.

Conclusion

In the competitive world of SEO, companies are struggling in order to gain good site/page rankings and maintain what they have already achieved in terms of search engine optimization. Whether you do online press release, copywriting or article marketing, the only secret to attain success and make the most of these SEO boosters is to exercise the ethical practices in off-page optimization.

Tags: Search Engine Optimization, SEO, SEO article marketing, SEO Copywriting, SEO Philippines, SEO press release