Search engine optimization improves the appearance and positioning of web pages by creating organic search results. Since organic search is one of the most popular ways for people to gain access to online content, agood SEO strategy is essential for improving the quality and quantity of traffic to your company’s website.
Studies have shown that with a higher ranking through SEO, you can gain more consumers, outrank competitors and boost your credibility. Over 50% of all website traffic comes from organic search, and research has shown that SEO drives 1,000% more traffic than organic social media, and leads also have a 14.6% close rate.
However, before ranking high in search engines, you also need to devise a content marketing strategy that will attract media attention and boost your SEO. Press releases are an essential element of content marketing. If you want to give your brand a boost with a professional press release, you can start generating traffic, backlinks, conversions, and more. Additionally, as your return on investment increases, you can set your business up for long-term growth and success.
More than 50% of all online activities start with search engines. However, 75% of people tend not to go beyond the first page of search results. Without SEO, people may not see your company’s press release or know that your business exists in the first place. Writing SEO press releases is a proactive way of doing PR. Ultimately, proactive PR will help you get ahead of the narrative about your brand before the public makes their own conclusions about your brand image.
In this article, we will look at some tips you can use to boost your SEO with your press releases and content marketing. Before we dive in, let us look at some reasons why creating SEO-friendly press releases matters.
1) Generates Brand Awareness
Creating SEO-friendly press releases allows you to get in front of your customers and keeps you top of mind among your target audience. It takes just a few impressions before consumers become aware that a brand exists. Additionally, it only takes a few seconds for people to form an image of a brand. You need to make those few seconds count.
Press releases can help people become more aware of your brand and its products. However, creating a quality press release is only the first step. This press release also needs to appear in significant news publications to make a solid first impression. With press release SEO, you can improve your online visibility. An optimized press release allows your business to rank in relevant search results when people type in keywords associated with your brand.
Improving rankings will position your website at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) and ensure people see your company every time. As mentioned previously, many people do not look beyond the first page of SERPs, so boosting your SEO score can earn you brand recognition. This means that the next time someone needs the products or services that you sell, they will remember seeing your press release and visiting your website. This kind of direct traffic can also further improve your company’s SEO rankings.
2) Gains Links
To improve SEO rankings, you will need backlinks from high-authority websites to send readers to you from those websites. While backlinks from different websites can be beneficial, it is better to gain them from websites with high domain authority scores to boost your company’s authority. This results in search engines taking notice and boosting your rankings, thus helping you reach more customers. At the same time, more people will see your content online and might decide to link to your company’s content on their website. As a result, you will continue gaining fresh backlinks, which can benefit your SEO strategy as a whole.
3) Boosts Credibility
Consumers tend to choose businesses that they can trust. You can leverage a publication’s existing credibility to establish your own. By showing your credibility online, you can also boost brand trust. Developing brand trust encourages more people to try your company’s product or service for themselves. As a result, you will generate more leads and sales, which will contribute to your return on investment. Meanwhile, consumers will start talking about your company and boosting your brand reputation. As credibility grows, brand trust turns into brand loyalty.
4) Improves ROI
Research has shown that content marketing is three times more efficient in generating leads than outbound marketing. As mentioned in the last point, about 60% of customers prefer shopping from brands they trust and know. Companies can use their press release SEO strategy to inform people about their business. With SEO-friendly press releases, consumers will recognize your brand’s value and credibility before shopping from your company. Over 60% of customers tend to make purchases after reading recommendations from blogs. Additionally, marketers who create posts are more than ten times more likely to experience positive ROI.
Now that we have looked at why companies should have a press release SEO strategy, let us look at some optimization tips.
Every press release’s primary goal is to get the attention of the proper people: the suitable media, customers, and shareholders. However, since around 3,000 press releases are sent out every day, you must make sure yours will stand out. Using high-value SEO keywords in your press release is the best way to do this. While news releases no longer carry the same weight as search engine rankings, an optimized press release can indirectly boost your authority. This increases your ranking in search engines.
How Pressfarm can help with this
Would you prefer to leave your press release writing to someone else and focus on improving your product? The team at Pressfarm is skilled at writing quality press releases that will help your brand make a memorable impression. Reach out today and let us help you create a press release that will capture attention and rank in search engines.
In addition to helping you create a professional press release, we can also help you write engaging guest posts and design an eye-catching media kit. By distributing this content to the right media outlets and startup directories, we can help you feature in relevant search results across different search engines.
Finally, as a client, you also get custom media lists. When combined with our media databases, these media lists can help you connect with the best thought leaders and storytellers in your niche.
While SEO is not always a part of a PR professional’s primary job description, it has become a big part of it because it is more about growth promotion or content marketing than advertising. Here’s how to optimize your press releases:
1) Use relevant and readable content
For a press release to be optimized, it needs to be entertaining, relevant, readable, insightful, and valuable. If it is not deemed newsworthy, it can damage your company’s SEO efforts. Even the best optimization efforts won’t get readers to connect with information that isn’t fascinating or noteworthy. This is why it’s crucial to start with content that will appeal to intended audiences. Before you start writing, you should think about what your audience will need to believe in the announcement you’re making. You must address the problems that your target audience would be attempting to solve with your product or service.
Since Google and other search engines have created algorithms that prioritize information that best answers user queries, this is significant. Furthermore, content that receives more engagement, as measured by click-through rates, shares, tweets, and other metrics, gets a considerable boost in search engine results pages.
2) Include optimized keywords
Proper keyword analysis and selection are critical when it comes to optimizing a press release for SEO. In your press release, you should target at least one keyword, and that keyword should be in the title, first paragraph, and one anchor link. Even so, you should also avoid jamming too many keywords into the press release because Google will penalize you if you do.
To figure out what the best keywords are, you can use online keyword tools like Google AdWords Keyword Tool or SEMRush to find the keywords being searched for most often in your niche. Choosing effective keywords takes quite a bit of research on your part.
To begin, you must establish some of the primary themes that will be addressed in your release. You should also consider the perspective of the person browsing for solutions online. Therefore, you must know what search terms or phrases your customers would use to find your press releases on the internet. You must evaluate your specialty and avoid terms that your competitors have ranked for.
3) Choose a newsworthy press release topic
It’s crucial to choose topics that are fascinating, engaging, and noteworthy for your press releases. People will not want to read your press release if it is not attractive. Ultimately, these people are unlikely to just stumble upon your brand elsewhere – you need to give them an incentive to browse through your press release by using interesting story angles.
This part can be a little tricky. After all, how do you know what exactly qualifies as “newsworthy”? Naturally, the answer to this question is determined by the audience. This is where you must think about the end-user and what will retain their attention. A fantastic piece of content is current, meaningful, and impactful; it should demonstrate something and be worth reading or writing about. If you find the perfect hook, you can turn practically anything into a news story. You need to focus on what makes your brand or product unique. By focusing on your unique value proposition, you can stand out from competitors.
4) Include social media & multimedia links
You need to provide your name and contact information at the end of your press release in addition to any relevant links. Although some sites that view press releases may not allow this, having this information is still helpful because multiple sites can link back to your company website from these articles.
Backlinking is the final significant component of SEO, as previously stated. The links in a news release are often placed in the introductory paragraph and boilerplate, with one or two links in the main body. If you can earn backlinks to the keywords in your press release, then you can rank higher for these phrases.
After determining your core keywords, press release writers must figure out how to use these keywords to attract members of the public to the brand website. Ideally, these links should go to landing pages that the brand needs to attract traffic to. These landing pages should also have a sales funnel that can lead potential customers through the buyer’s journey.
Conclusion
Press releases are helpful with SEO and will remain so for many years to come. While news releases are no longer standard tools for boosting SEO, a single press release can yield massive rewards if done right. The goal of drafting a well-written and persuasive press release should not be to obtain SEO benefits. Instead, you should craft your press release for the purpose of increasing your market presence, making newsworthy announcements, and generating a lot of referral traffic.
Even though we’ve mentioned that SEO is not generally a significant part of a PR professional’s primary obligations, many PR firms have added it to their job description. After all, the role of a PR agency is to help you create quality content and distribute it widely so that other people can see it. PR agencies like Pressfarm help companies create newsworthy content and help with SEO optimization in search engine results on various search engines.