Believe it or not, not too long ago, a press release was actually a release sent directly to the press. The sole reason a press release was issued was to convince the media to write about you. Nobody saw the information in a press release except a handful of reporters and editors. The media was the ultimate filter between your company and the public, they were the deciding factor if your news was publicized or swept under the rug.

David Meerman Scott, author of the bestseller The New Rules of Marketing & PR, speaks frequently on the subject. He believes Web 2.0 has changed the way everyone should think of marketing and that marketers who fail to grasp that are doomed to be left in the dust of 20th century ideas. Thanks to the emergence of Internet marketing and Web 2.0 our audience today is millions of people with an Internet connection and access to a search engines and RSS feeds.  Today, press releases are search engine optimized (SEO), publicized and socialized. With 65% of journalists using social media sites for story sources and 100% using Google for story research, your press release needs to be optimized in order to gain the strongest visibility by search engines, target audiences and the media.

“Something like 25,000 press releases have been sent to me, resulting in no stories. Instead, I think about a subject that I want to cover in a column or an article, and I check out what I can find on blogs and through search engines.” – David Meerman Scott

While all PR and marketing professionals understand that press releases sent over the wires appear in near real-time on services like Google and Yahoo News, very few understand the implications for how they should dramatically alter their press release strategy as a result. When done well, optimized press releases can be powerful marketing tools with HUGE SEO benefits.

What makes some press releases more effective than others? The most important factor for a successful press release remains the content itself, but there are certain techniques and tactics that can help optimize the visibility of your release to readers and search engines.

The following are some useful tips or your well-written press release to gain the strongest visibility by search engines, your target audience and the media:

• Use the most popular keyword phrase in the headline – carries the most weight with search engines.

• Repeat the phrase at least three times in a 300-word release (the longest you should make a release that’s search-engine optimized)

• Send your release out via news services, such as PRWEB

• Include a link to your site, but make sure to include the http:// part

• If your release is more than a few paragraphs long, include a subhead with a keyword phrase. It makes the release easier to read and search engines give more weight to bolded text.

• Resist the tendency to shorten familiar terms.  (example: St. Louis or the city)

• Post your release on your site, on its own page, in addition to sending it out over wire services and other distribution methods.

• Include 3 Anchor text links 
 
   -One to homepage – direct visitors directly to your company website.
 
   -One to product/event page – send media and consumers directly to the  product  they are reading about.
 
   -One to blog post – this presents an opportunity to speak to readers in a  less formal fashion.  With social web users     and digital influencers continually  expecting social content, a press release presents a great opportunity to spark interest in your social content.

 
• As more of the web moves to video and imagery, including a photo or other multimedia in your press releases can increase your click-through rates by 2.5 times

- Images can increase the click through rate on releases in both regular and news search by 15 – 25%.  It’s a simple step, but can’t be stressed enough.    Additionally, using images creates more traction in media – journalists and bloggers both love images as it helps them tell their story.

- As the web shifts to a rich media experience, bloggers, media and end users are becoming more accustomed to video.  In the future, it may be common that video is included with releases.  But since today it is not as frequently used, it’s a chance to make your news stand out. *PRWeb has seen up to a 500% increase in time on pages when video is included in a  news release.

If you want to best ensure your release gets into Google News, be sure to pay attention to the following:

Headline. If the headline of your press release looks and sounds like ad copy, then it will stop it from getting included in news search engines. Conventional wisdom suggests that 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only two will jump to the rest of the story. Craft a compelling headline and multiply your chances of engagement.

Release Date. Press releases that include a date in the lead paragraph (first paragraph) earlier than the actual release date, typically do not get included into Google News. If you prefer to include a date, make sure that it syncs with the actual release date.

Length Matters. If your press release is too short (less than 150 words or so), or too long (more than two pages or 500 words) it will be less likely to get included into Google News. News releases that are too short tend to read like an advertisement and are not considered newsworthy.

Links. Too many links in the body of your news release is bad. They could potentially be considered spam and make it difficult to read. Good rule of thumb: one link for every one hundred words.

Duplicate Content. Duplicates are not accepted. If a press release has been previously released via a newswire service, and was already included into Google News, then it is most likely not going to be included again.

In conclusion, digital media is revolutionizing the way in which we communicate. There has been a lot of change in the field of writing press release in the past few years. New platforms, such as PRWEB, allow public relations professionals to communicate directly with their target audience, generate their own news and boost search engine ranking – all with bypassing the media and assuming the role of news provider for the company in which they represent.

One aspect of press releases has not changed, the best public relations strategy remains to find a worthwhile angle to a story and create quality content that is visible to your target audience. Covering all aspects of the writing and online press release distribution process, from attention-grabbing headlines to helpful social media sharing links – will provide you with a rewarding public relations effort for your company.

If your company is looking to integrate online press releases into your online marketing strategy, but does not have the time or resources to craft a new worthy press release Contact The Net Impact to help you begin your online public relations effort in an organized manner. Our clients see their press releases on top placements on the most popular search engines, industry-related blogs and websites, commented on by experts and included in newspapers and magazine articles.  Let us help your news make an impact online.

On Friday November 5th, I attended the Public Relations Society of St. Louis’ Technology Day at Maryville University. The sessions at this half-day workshop focused on how technology has impacted the changing landscape of the public relations industry and provided strategic views on how to leverage technology to boost your company’s public relations efforts.

With presentation topics ranging from social media marketing, blog marketing, web analytics, video production, email marketing and digital branding – it was tough to pick which three sessions I wanted to attend. Below is a quick rundown of the presentations I participated in and some useful tips and facts I acquired at PRSA Tech Day.

• “Leveraging Your Brand in a Digital World”- Michael Pranikoff ( @mpranikoff ) Global Director of Emerging Media for PR Newswire

With at least 72% of Internet users being a part of at least one social network and 57% of users sharing links to news stories via social channels; learning to leverage, monitor and measure social media to monitor your company’s brand is becoming vital. As learned in this very informational, and perhaps my favorite session of the conference, today in PR we are seeing a shift from brand voice to social voice (in other words, your brand is what others say it is). In using specific examples- such as Starbuck’s My Idea Campaign’s use of crowd sourcing, Pranikoff stressed the importance of PR, marketing and advertising working together to share one message. The most surprising fact I learned from this session was in 2010 there will be more content created than in the history of mankind! So how do you get your content found amongst the crowd online? Make sure your content is accessible, easy to view and easy to use – use social media to make your content directional!

Check out Pranikoff’s presentation on slideshare!

Presenter Michael Pranikoff of PR Newswire

• “Blogger Relations”-  Todd Jordan ( @Tojosan ), St. Louis Bloggers Guild

Creating quality relationships with bloggers is one of the most cost effective and beneficial Internet marketing strategies you can use in your public relations endeavors. So how do you find the right bloggers to connect with in the first place? On twitter and other social networks, google searches, blogging conferences, and through other sources. Make sure the selected bloggers are people who will care about your company and your news, or else you will just waste their time as well as your own. Don’t just pitch to bloggers like you would to a journalist – get in their inner circle by listening and participating. A great tip I learned to improve these relations: notify a blogger 24 hours before your news hits the wire. This is a great way to let the blogger know their opinion matters enough to you and your organization to notify them first. Remember – blogging is all about rewards, how will the blogger benefit from your relationship? Keep this important factor in mind when starting your outreach. The most impressive part of this presentation was Jordan’s evident passion for blogging. The tactics and strategies shared in this session to improve blogger relations came from an excellent source with a great deal of experience in the blogging world. As bloggers are becoming increasingly important influencers for brands all over the globe, maintaining good blogger relations can be critical to keeping your brand at the top of the mind of your consumers.

Check out some Tweets from Jordan’s audience at PRSA Tech Day!

• “Using Advanced Features of Facebook and Twitter”- Ed Mayuga ( @elmayuga ) AMM Communications

This informational session covered the less-known features of Social Networks. Mayuga opened the discussion with Facebook’s privacy settings. These settings are important to consistently check since Facebook changes them so frequently. Mayuga also went over how to add various groups to your Facebook account in order to share information with the correct audience, since in most cases – Facebook users want to direct their information to specific groups of people (such as  family, friends and work colleagues). Also covered in this session was FBML static pages. Mayuga suggested using @marismith as a good resource for FBML tip and other social media strategies. A few of the social media tools Mayuga suggested to test out are Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Listorious and PRlog. Learning more about this advanced features can help your business get ahead of the social media curve.

Thanks to sponsors PR Newswire and Maryville University for putting together this informative PRSA St. Louis event, looking forward to next year. In case you missed  PRSA- STL’s workshop on Friday – Check out the hashtag #PRSATECHDAY!

Until recently,  companies and PR Firms wrote press releases in a very uniform fashion designed for the eyes of the traditional journalist. But the evolution of online public relations has created an entirely new approach to the writing and distributing process of press releases.

The purpose behind most online public relations efforts is to increase overall online exposure, which will in turn direct more people to visit your targeted website.  Increased online exposure can lead to greater brand development, a stronger relationship with your public, increased interest from the media, more connections with potential partners and increased lead generation causing greater revenue.

Any topic that will be of interest to prospects, the media and potential partners (such as a new product launch, industry news, events, community activities, etc…) can be used to construct a press release that is search engine optimized and distributed online. Then, distributing optimized press release via newswires has the power to directly reach millions of Internet users, generate inbound links to your website and raise search engine visibility of your website. The Net Impact’s most often used press release distributor is PRWeb, an excellent proven third party partner for publication of your online press releases, with an average charge of $200 per release.

Most newswire services offer you an exact report on how many people accessed your optimized release. This is an essential tool in gauging your reads and impressions.  In addition, through other analytical tools, such as Google Analytics, you can determine when someone follows a link to your targeted website through your optimized press release.

Now that online news sites such as Yahoo News and Google News contain such an abundance of press release content and RSS feeds, it is easy to syndicate news. An optimized press release can get you a page one SERP result for your relevant keywords in the search engines, news engines and news websites. So we see that press releases are not only an effective tool for distributing content to the media and consumers, they are easily syndicated creating an excellent opportunity to attract organic traffic and incoming links.

 A well written online press release has the ability to:

1.) Capture the attention of editors, journalists and bloggers looking for compelling topics for news stories

2.) Live on the web indefinitely. Press Releases are  published to various websites and blogs, giving your content a long shelf life as the content is never deleted creating enduring links.

3.) Create conversation on social networks.The press release link will be shared indefinitely through social media marketing, such as Twitter and Facebook

4.) Be viewed by new prospects – your target audience.

*As a result of all of these activities, hyperlinks will generate that will point back to the release creator’s targeted web site.

How to re-purpose a press release.

Once the press release has been released, there are still opportunities for increased exposure. The Net Impact Recommends:

-Writing a company blog post with the press release content

-Sharing the announcement using Twitter                                                                                        

-Posting an update on the press release on your Facebook                                   

-Adding the press release to the news page on your company website

-Posting any media collateral on other social sites

-Sharing the press release on your company newsletter

-Distributing the press release internally so associates can share it with their friends and business partners

Lastly, creating a calendar for PR that plans a regular expectation for your potential publishers is important.  Frequent and consistent news will generate more interest in your pieces as publishers begin to rely upon them. 

 Don’t forget, the best public relations strategy is to find a worthwhile angle to a story and create excellent content that is visible to your target audience. Combining creative ability and optimization skills to create compelling, keyword relevant press releases will only prove to be a rewarding public relations effort for your company.

 If online press releases sound like something your company should be doing but you do not know the right approach,  have the time or the resources, Contact The Net Impact to help you begin your online public relations effort in an organized manner. The Net Impact’s public relations services include press release copy-writing and press release submission through third party online platforms.. We can help you implement a successful public relations strategy into your overall marketing plan.