A press release will get increased visibility and more views by employing SEO along with it. It is an easy way to get more traffic, but before you start optimizing your press release, you need a good story to get visitors to read and never forget that you are writing for humans. Also, the common flaw; don’t overdo your optimization when writing your PR articles.
How can you make your press release more SEO friendly?
Length
The maximum length for a press release is generally 400-600 words. This length is fairly easy for readers to digest and comprehend.
Headline
You need a catchy headline and try to include at least one relevant keyword phrase that your audience search for and if it’s possible in the beginning of the press release article. It’s important to reduce unnecessary words in your headline. Following the inverted pyramid format in news writing is a safe and standard technique.
Tags
Relevant tags pertaining to your subject, industry, service or product are beneficial for search queries. If you use a distribution partners then you can indicate tag/s on your press release with relevant keywords.
Keywords
Make sure to use important keywords in your headline and text but don’t overdo it. Try using Googles keyword search tool to make it a little easier to find relevant keywords. You can also use Google Insights for Search to evaluate and discover popular variations. Remember that you should know your keywords before you start to write your press release article.
Anchor links
Try to include anchor text links with your keywords. It will drive viewers to your web site but it is important that you link to a site that is relevant to the press release article. Also try to link to others pages than your homepage on your site. The links can deliver significant SEO benefit to the website you’re linking to. Again, don’t overdo it; 3-4 links per press release is good enough.
Optimized PR Summary
The first 200-250 words of your press release is important. It’s important for your ranking but if your content is not interesting in the beginning the reader will stop reading the release. Try to have your keywords and important phrases in the beginning. If you use a distribution partner, the summary is often used as Meta description.
Newsworthy
The most important thing is to be newsworthy and the content should be the content that interests your audience not the content that interrupts them. If you don’t have a good story, no one will read your press release and doing SEO would be a useless effort. It’s also helpful to follow the basics of news writing with a persuasive touch on it.
