Issuing a press release is one of the best ways to announce and let the world know about your company's achievements, updates, and latest news. Press releases are official brand statements that a company sends to media publications to gain positive coverage. Previously, at the time of print media, PR (PressRelease) content was used as a communication tool. When digital media came to the scene, the print media started to decline, and so did the popularity of press releases. However, if anyone thought that this was the end of one of the most popular brand communications, they were wrong, loud and clear. Because PRs did come back and became very adaptive to digital media as well.
Now PRs are not only one of the biggest and most popular brand communication mediums, but they have also become a very popular marketing tool as well. With the help of digital publications, press releases are now used to promote brands and increase awareness. Not just that, but writing press releases for SEO also brings in online visibility more than ever before! So let’s see how you can write one. But before that, let’s focus on why they are so important in today’s world of media communication.
The Multi-beneficial Press Releases:
- Strong Media Relationship - Press releases help brands establish strong media relationships. It can be a great way to start a conversation with a journalist and move your way up. Journalists receive hundreds, if not thousands of press releases every day, but most of them are unattractive, boring pitches that they end up ignoring. In this situation, if you give them well-crafted PR content that is relevant to the industry, the reporters will appreciate it. Even if they cannot cover your story this time, they are more likely to work with you the next time because you have already established credibility. This in a way will help the brand get positive media coverage from the reputed media outlet.
- Control the Narrative - As PRs were known to be great communication mediums, they still work wonderfully when a company wants to publish any message or update. This becomes extremely useful, especially when the company is going through a crisis. At times like this, brands need to tell their story and put an end to the negative gossip and controversies that are going around. Press releases give the opportunity to companies to tell the story and span the narrative so the truth comes to light.
- Customer Engagement and Trust - Frequent publishing of PR content helps the brand build customer trust and reputation in the market. When your target customer sees your name in the reputed media and news outlets frequently they will become familiar with your brand and this will create a stronger bond between the two. This strong bond builds customer trust and increases their engagement with the said brand. The company will also have the opportunity to tap into an audience they never even considered before!
6 Effective Tips for Writing an SEO-friendly Press Release:
Among these above-mentioned benefits, a large advantage of publishing frequent press releases is improved SEO. Search Engine Optimization or SEO refers to the process of increasing the quality of a website and its content so that it can reach better rankings in the search engine. The higher the ranking of a website or its webpage is going to be on search engines, the more visibility and audience reach it will get. With frequent publishing of PR content, this can be easily improved over time. The website will get more views, and more web traffic if its SEO performance is improved and better. So let's see how you can craft an SEO-friendly press release with these 6 simple yet effective tips.
1. The Intention must be Clear
Readers will need a story in every piece of content they come across online. Similarly, if your press release gives only general statements or mechanical data, they will not find it interesting and move right past on, without giving you any traffic. So when you are crafting a PR, you need to remember that both journalists and general readers are interested in what your brand has to offer and whether you have a story to support it. With time, readers have also evolved and now they are more interested in how you can solve their problems, rather than what services you provide. While crafting the content, you must show your audience what benefits they are going to get from your brand, instead of just telling them the features of your products. In the content, show that you have helped an audience like them. The press release’s intention must be clear that your brand and its products and services are helping the audience.
2. Compelling Headlines
Headlines are the content's first 4-6 words that the target audience reads at first glance. A headline is also the sentence that makes or breaks it for them. They decide whether to give your story a chance based on what headline you present to them. So the goal is to always produce headlines that are catchy and compelling, attracting the audiences in the first go. Because you must have heard, "first impression is the last impression." Now crafting a catchy headline not only attracts the users but also helps search engine indexes to analyze the data and decide whether the intent is clear. Every effective headline needs to include -
i) Long-tailed keywords that specify the intent of the PR.
ii) Problem-solving intent.
iii) Encouraging readers to move further into the story.
3. Choose Relevant Keywords
To understand simply, keywords are the phrases and words that normal people use to search for something in Google and other search engines. These are the words that make your content relevant to their queries online. When you include keywords in the press release content, it helps the Google search engine to recognize the content as the problem solver to the online queries. So, in a way, keywords are the currency for your business and its visibility online. Therefore, choosing the right and relevant keywords is essential for SEO and your website's ranking on the search engine. Before crafting the content, research what are the keywords that your target audience is searching for, and use those strategically in your content's headline, summary, and body. While you are including keywords in your content, here are a few things you need to remember -
i) Avoid keyword-stuffing as much as possible.
ii) Add one primary keyword in the content’s headline and subtitles.
iii) Prefer your target audience’s search on the internet while selecting keywords for the PR.
iv) Choose keywords that are related to hot trends and current topics.
4. Optimization of the First Paragraph
A press release is considered good only when it is short, yet compelling. Quality PR content can catch the eyes of the readers on the first go. Therefore, the content should be solution-savvy, interesting, and more importantly, valuable to the readers. So the SEO PR should be written in the third person throughout and the first 250 words, meaning the first paragraph should be well optimized. Now how do you do that? You need to include the 5Ws of journalism in the first paragraph of your press release. These 5Ws are - What, When, Where, Where, and Why. The first 250 words bring answers to all these questions as these are the queries that grab the attention of the readers.
Keeping this in mind, the entire content should be short, no more than 800-1000 words, and must contain very specific information without any irrelevant data, topic, or sentences.
5. Body Structure
Now that the first paragraph is settled, let's move on to the body of the PR content, which is the main part of the entire thing. The body of the content is where you put the content and all other details of your story. So the structure of this should be logical and easy to read. You should use short sentences and short paragraphs throughout the entire content, using subtitles, relevant quotes from any expert in the industry, and even bullet points. At the same time, you should also keywords and related terms throughout the entire content, but in a way that is relevant and natural. Additionally, you need to avoid any industry jargon, fluff of any kind, and hype. This is your time to focus on the benefits and facts in your press release. You can also add some statistics but don't forget to bold the important phrases, quotes, and statistics. A good press release body can help your website rank better with less competitive long-tailed keywords.
6. Multimedia and Links
Reading a text can be monotonous which tends to be the most common problem with press releases and the reason for its failure. To enhance the quality of the content, and make it more interesting you can add hyperlinks and multimedia. In the body, you can add links to your website and social media handles, along with other sources that support your update. At the same time, you can also use anchor text that contains keywords, helping the search engine index better. On top of that, add multimedia such as images, videos, infographics, etc. that either illustrate or complement the news that you are sharing. You can also optimize these multimedia options by using relevant file names, descriptions, captions, and tags. The multimedia and links also help press releases drive web traffic for the business website, improve conversion rates, and even increase shares.
Other than the above-mentioned points, you also need to make sure that the content you are sharing is newsworthy. Otherwise, people will end up ignoring it and you might lose your credibility as a brand. At the end of your press release, make sure to add your company details and contact information so that the readers know where to reach you.
