Are Press Release Good for SEO Are Press Release Good for SEO ?

Press Releases used to be the rave back in the day in the SEO community, although there are new and improved methods of improving SEO, back then they were frequently used in directing more traffic to a website. The question is, are they still useful for SEO? Read on to find out the current relevancy status of Press Releases with regards to improving SEO. 

A Brief Insight into Press Release

Press releases are the digital means of announcing and distributing events to the press. According to Google, a Press Release can be referred to as “an official statement issued to newspapers giving information on a particular matter.” Contrary to the widespread assumption that they only come in written format, Press Releases can also be in an audio or video form depending on which medium serves the purpose best. 

One could ask, what does Press Release actually do?  This can simply be explained using this clear and direct example. We all know that in the real sense of events, once someone wants to be famous/popular or has an event, all you need to do is get the attention of the media and voila! You’re trending. Press Releases are the piece of content, written and distributed to news publishers to gain an audience on the internet. They are usually written in the sequence, (Event Happens > Press Release is Written > Press Release is Distributed to News Publishers > News Publishers Pick up the Press Release > News is Published). 

Unfortunately, Press Releases are not an easy thing as it is tough to get the media’s attention. Harder even to get the attention of top news editors who spend hours sifting through tons of new topics, thus making it harder for you to gain the audience your website so desires. 

Are Press Releases Vital To SEO Anymore?

SEO is the bedrock upon which search engines rank a website. The more relevant your content, the better chance you stand to get ranked higher and gain more conversions.  Press Releases helps you publish information about your business and website; thus, it’s vital to SEO.

How? It all comes back to backlinks. When new have you on their radar and continually talking about you, you stand a high chance of getting backlinks from high authority sites and webmasters who find your content relevant to their niche that is a lot of equity! However, when press releases are not done right, they could result in penalties and a complete waste of time.

What’s The Right Time to Run a Press Release?

Press Releases are best run every time there is an actual event happening on your website, or you have important information to pass across. As long as the information you want to get across will be vital to the public, it should be made a Press Release. There is a wide range of topics that fall within the category of a Press Release and here are some of them. 

  • Announcement of a partnership
  • Receiving/giving award
  • During a merger with another business
  • Celebrating anniversaries
  • New product release
  • Change of product name or services
  • Launching of a new website
  • Announcing a significant/major milestone

Such events that require public attention should not be exempted. This will not only attract much-needed attention but will help improve SEO.

What to Expect From a Press Release

Since growing businesses and websites is all about exposure and referrals, a Press Release can help you gain the much-needed exposure necessary for exponential growth.  As long as our news is important and relevant, expect that major news outlets will pick it up. Here’s where Google SEO steps in. Google ranks you higher whenever there is a sudden burst of links from approved News websites going to your website, this also prompts a significant increase in ranking.

Getting the required amount of backlink from niche industry websites is a guarantee of an almost significant increase in traffic. Including targeted keywords in the press Releases also helps put your content high up in the Google SEO food chain. Even though many of the links on a press release will be a no-follow link it does not matter. We found out that links from Google News approved websites will have a direct impact on your site’s rankings.

How Do You Write and Distribute A Press Release

One of the reasons we are stressing the importance of writing a proper Press Release I because they are very good at boosting a website’s search traffic.

To help lift the veil on SEO, I’ve put together five quick tips that you can use to help improve the search engine performance of your press releases. Let’s take a look at how to write a proper press release

  • Ensure Content Is Relevant, Newsworthy and Readable

The truth is as long as your content isn’t captivating readers, relevant nor readable, your press release is as good as dead. Undeniably, SEO is an excellent tool for enhancing the visibility of online material. However, even the best SEO won’t improve your rankings if readers don’t find anything unusual about your content. Therefore, churning out the best content for your audience should be your main priority.

Relevant questions should be asked and answered before writing any content. Before you’ve started to write, ask yourself: what is it about this announcement that my readers will find compelling? What question is this press release answering? Aspects such as reasonable structure, flow, readability and proofing should be considered. At all costs, avoid plagiarism, grammatical errors, and abstract sentences. This way, editors and news agencies won’t toss your content in the bin alongside other low standard contents. 

Also, ensure the content answers relevant questions essential to your title. Google and other search engines have developed algorithms to rank content that answers query correctly. Contents with significantly high clickthroughs, reposting’s, tweets etc. get a significantly high boost on search engine result pages.

  • Select Your Keywords

If you’re looking to get a spotlight for your press release, keyword selection should top of the things on your mind. Proceed by analyzing the keywords relevant to your niche, research on some of the main topics your press release needs to address. Always put yourself in the shoes of the proposed readers and figure out what keyword they are most likely to use.

  • Create Sharable Headlines

This is where the headlines come in. The headline is the most essential part of a successful press release. Not only is it the first thing your readers will see, but in a digital age where attention itself is a commodity, it might be the only thing your reader bothers to read at all. 

The headline should include:

  • Sharable links across platforms
  • Critical keywords
  • Cover the central theme of the story in its first 55-7- characters
  • Contain a sub-headline that discuses other additional information or keywords
  • Include an Interesting Call to Action

Do not make the mistake of not adding a call to action, as a way of availing your readers the opportunity to follow up on the material that they’ve just read. As soon as you finish writing your press release, include a call to action (CTA) that directs readers to other similar content. This action is basically an anchor text on a relevant keyword. Using a relevant keyword rather than a “click here” provides search engines with an indicator as to what the linked page would be all about. 

  • Include Multimedia (Videos, Images, Etc.)

As long as SEO I concerned, you need to include multimedia. Including images or videos alongside your press release is another excellent way of increasing visibility, and thus prompt quick index from media search services like Google Images.

Aside from this fact, there’s a high chance of your press release ending up on social media such as facebook and twitter if it contains multimedia. With the high influx of traffic you could gain from social media, this is not something you should ignore. 

Conclusion 

To sum it up, SEO and press release are still dependent on each other. A press release can effectively help you reach out to comprehensive coverage of the audience without having to personally follow-up on them a dozen times over emails to clarify crucial details. So whenever you are writing a press release, know you well that you are making use of one of the powerful tools for SEO. Just remember to keep the reader at the center of everything you post and you’ll be just fine. Good luck!

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