Earlier today I attended a webinar presented by my favorite resources for all things Social Media and PR related: MarketWire & PRESSfeed. Titled “Learn the Secrets of Optimized Press Releases,” the hosts presented 3 types of releases (traditional, optimized & social media press releases) in addition to the 11 steps towards creating an optimized press release.
In “NM” (new media) language, an “optimized press release” is one that is specifically for an online audience. Whereas traditional press releases are targeted towards traditional media, optimized releases allow you to speak directly to your target audience. In other words, there are no gatekeepers (i.e. editors) who decide whether or not your release is newsworthy and worthy of distribution. You can do it all yourself with Web 2.0. The following are the 11 steps towards creating an optimized press release:
1. Determine what the release is going to be about. Gather data and information and look it over to determine what the most obvious keywords are.
2. If possible, find a current and major news item or stat that can be used in the lead of the press release, but is still relevant. This well increase Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You can use Yahoo! News or Google News Timeline.
3. Conduct some keyword research using Google AdWords free Keyword Tool.
4. Once you’ve finalized which keywords are best, make a search term grid. The grid will have three columns labeled as follows:
- Search Term: This is the actual keyword or phrase that you will be using.
- Searches/Month: Truth be told, the webinar didn’t do a great job of explaining how one gets this number. My best guess is through Google AdWords because this is definitely not a number Google displays in a search.
- Google Competition: This is basically the number of results that come up when you enter the word or phrase, which can be found to the right in the blue highlighted bar towards the top.
Once you have all this information, you can then compare the competition to the actual searches. Ultimately you want keywords that are low in competition but high in searches.
5. Write the headline using keywords as close to the beginning of the headline as possible. Keep in mind that Google will only register 65 characters (including spaces).
6. Write the first paragraph using the main keyword. Be sure to put a link at the end of the first paragraph rather than the beginning because you don’t want to lose your audience. You can embed the link using anchor text, which is a keyword or phrase that is related to the link.
7. Write the body of the release making sure to use keywords throughout the body for SEO. However, these keywords or phrases should make up no more than 2-4% of the entire text.
8. Post the press release to your own company website in a Media or Press Room.
9. Syndicate using RSS. This makes it easier for Google & other sites to pull content.
10. Distribute on free wire services such as MarketWire, which will allow the release to show up on Yahoo! News or Google News.
11. Track your results. A lot of newswire services, including MarketWire, will provide you with statistics and results You can even run a search of your press release title to see if and where it’s picked up.
Click here for additional information on PR 2.0.
Now go … get your release on!!!
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