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Making Sure Press Releases Generate Leads and Column Inches

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The latest rage is optimizing releases for search engines
You can exponentially increase the number of people who read your next press release by ensuring it gets picked up by search engines. You’ll hit two audiences with one stone — prospects searching for info and journalists looking for story ideas. You know prospects are using search engines like Google to find suppliers. Well, the same thing’s happening with journalists. More than 90% of reporters go online to research articles and 73% are looking for releases.

What are the best ways to optimize?
To write a press release so it’s optimized — or search engine friendly — consider these steps recommended by expert B.L. Ochman:

  • Use the most popular search engine phrase in the headline and repeat it at least three times in a 300-word release. Don’t know what terms to include? You can find popular key words and phrases by visiting the sites listed in the box.
  • Repeat the search terms in subheadings or bolded text. Ochman says search engines give more weight to bolded text.
  • Keep releases short. Long press releases don’t get high ratings.
  • Avoid abbreviations, unless they’re easily-recognized industry acronyms.
  • Mix and match. Send your release out on a service like PR Newswire one week. Then release it with a different lead or first paragraph later on BusinessWire or PR Web.

Adapted from “How to Optimize Your Press Releases for Search (and Why You Should),” by B.L. Ochman, www.MarketingProfs.com

The Right Key Words
You can research popular keywords which relate to your business at: www.wordtracker.com

 

Reprinted with permission from
The Marketing Report
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