Juiced Up Press Releases

March 21st, 2008 by Bernie | Filed under Link Building, SEO.

I’ve written before about the importance of merit based link building.  I talk about it everyday with our clients.  So, here I go again writing about it.

Wait a minute - the title of this post says it’s about press releases.  Right….

Too many marketers have a one dimensional view of their press releases. They think a press release is an announcement designed to produce some public relations (that other “PR”) value.  Once upon a time, I hawked press releases in a previous life, working the editors and analysts hoping to get ink and win kudos from my boss and my sales counterparts.

Marketers should think of their press releases as content for their website.  Even more, they should think of press releases as content that can be syndicated across the web.  And, it is a great opportunity for merit based links back to your website, ie., SEO, ie., Google juice!

Those of us in the Internet Marketing business refer to “Google juice” as any content which helps us get indexed by Google.  The most powerful Google juice is content which has valuable links anchored from our desirable keyword phrases on a web page of relevant content.

Another term for this simply is an optimized press release.  If we optimize our web content for search engine optimization (SEO), then an optimized press release is just another form of optimized content.

The difference is that an optimized press release can get distributed over a search engine friendly wire service such as PRWeb and BusinessWire.  And, it can produce valuable and juiced up links, anchored from some of your favorite keywords.

Understanding this should inspire marketers not to limit press releases to the most newsworthy stories in their company.  A good marketer should be thinking of press releases as a key component to their SEO strategy.  That’s because a good marketer understands that in SEO content is king, and press releases can make for great content.  And, great content produces merit based links.  This is the SEO circle of life!

Take for example this press release.  In this release we announced a client engagement.  Regardless of your opinion of the news value, note the anchor text linking in this press release.  By optimizing it for keywords such as “SEO strategy” with links back to our website, we are producing valuable one-way links from news services such as PRWeb: http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2008/3/prweb774424.htm. 

So, juice up your press releases by optimizing them and creating great content and great links for SEO value.  It’s not too hard to do it and definitely worth the effort.

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4 Responses to “Juiced Up Press Releases”

  1. Joan Stewart | 23/03/08

    I’m so glad to see you mentioned press releases.
    Search engine optimization is particularly important when writing press releases. If you use the same keywords in your releases that people use when searching online for the same information, you can attract a lot of attention for your product, service, cause or issue.

    I’m offering a free email course called “89 Ways to Write Powerful Press Releases.”

    I explain why we should no longer be writing press releases only for the press, but for consumers who can find the releases online, click through to our websites and enter our sales cycle, even if journalists don’t think our release is worthy of attention.

    The course includes several terrific press release samples as well as “before” and “after” makeovers.

    You can sign up for the free press release writing tutorial at http://www.PublicityHound.com/pressreleasetips/art.htm

    It’s a very long tutorial but please stick with it. By the time you’re done, it will be like earning a master’s degree in writing and distributing press releases. And you’ll know more about this topic than many PR people.

  2. Susan Tatum | 26/03/08

    Hi Bernie,

    Good post. Do you create a customized landing page for those links back to your site?

    Cheers,

    Susan

  3. Bernie | 26/03/08

    Hi Susan,
    If you mean, do I make each press release a standalone web page, absolutely! Example: http://www.findandconvert.com/internet-marketing-datamentors.html/. Note the URL has the main theme of the press release. This is one reason press releases should be viewed as website content with SEO value.
    Regards,
    Bernie

  4. Press release distribution | Philadelphia SEO Internet Marketing | 31/03/08

    [...] One option not used often enough is the whole notion of optimized press releases you can find a very good explanation of them here. [...]

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