Press releases are the backbone of your marketing efforts. They’re your first chance to showcase your company’s services or products to your intended audience- it’s imperative that you get it right. The key to building an effective press release strategy is promoting high-quality content using search engine optimization (SEO) tips and tricks. However, knowing how to implement SEO tricks online is not always intuitive.
These eight SEO tricks are geared towards helping you create your ideal press release while helping you rank higher on Google.
1. Know Your Angle
Deciding on your approach to your new product or service will help your audience understand the value of it. By creating a captivating story, you can help your audience visualize themselves using your product and enhance the likelihood of converting them.
The angle you take should focus on solving a major problem in your primary audience’s life or display how excited your company is for its release.
Using either of these angles will make your company memorable. Demonstrating a unique and informative company brand increases your audience’s interest and prompts them to remain invested in your product or service as your company progresses.
2. SEO Tricks 101: Insert Keywords
One of the best ways to be seen online is to use researched keywords. Your keywords should be industry-related and be dispersed throughout your headline, introduction and content of your company’s press release.
Selecting the right keywords is crucial for audience engagement. They help you get in front of the ideal audience by using terms related to products or services that users are searching for.
Ideally, you want your terms to have a high search volume at low competition. These factors, coupled with their relevance to your company, will increase your visibility online and help improve your press release exposure.
3. Research Your Competition
In order to stay ahead of your competition, you need to research them. You need to discover what keywords they’re using and create a better and more strategic press release with those same keywords.
To do this, simply make a list of the top keywords your competition is ranking for. Include these keywords throughout the story you established at the beginning of your press release process.
Finding the keywords, and backlinks, your competitors are targeting will help you be found online by relevant users. There are many SEO tips and tricks that will help you gain a competitive advantage over other companies, yet this is the most direct.
4. Form Enticing Headlines
Creating a captivating headline is the key to drawing your audience in. It is projected that 80% of people will read your headline however, only 20% will continue and read the rest of your content.
Your audience is exposed to many headlines every day, so you’ll need to create a headline that stands out from the rest. Failure to produce an eye-catching headline will greatly decrease the likelihood of getting readers to continue learning about your company.
As a general rule, you should keep your headlines to under 80 characters. Headlines should be keyword-focused and concise so that your target audience can quickly grasp the subject matter of the rest of your press release.
5. Focus on the 5 Ws
After creating your headline and choosing your high-ranking keywords, you should begin forming your press release introduction. Including points relevant to the 5 Ws (who, what, where, when, why) helps you appeal to your audience through personalization.
These details help your audience visualize your product or service by giving them information about the press release. This tactic, coupled with your primary keyword, will help pique their interest and motivate them to continue reading your content.
For optimal results, be sure to include your primary keyword in the first paragraph. This should be done sparingly. Stuffing your content with keywords will trigger Google to decrease your ranking and reduce your online exposure.
6. Write Useful Copy
To write engaging content you must first understand the audience you are trying to reach. Common ways to grab their attention may include appealing to their general interests and frequently experienced problems.
Adding quotes, data, or examples will help enhance the points you are trying to make throughout your press release.
Finally, you want to summarize your content with a boilerplate. As always, be sure to disperse your keywords throughout this section to see optimal SEO results.
7. Include Media
Adding varying forms of media increases the chances that your audience will remember your content. According to Brain Rules, users are 55% more likely to remember your content with the addition of visuals.
Photos, videos or audio clips help your audience better understand how your product or service operates.
For optimal SEO results, you should include keywords in the file names, alt text and captions of these media files. Google uses this information to better understand your brand image and can help you rank better to a more relevant audience.
8. Include a Call-to-Action
At the end of your press release, you should always include an engaging call-to-action (CTA). Your CTA entirely depends on the goal of your press release. Do you want your readers to subscribe to your company? Are you trying to increase your sales?
Regardless of your press release’s intentions, your CTA should invite the reader to engage in your desired result. This should be a subtle and friendly approach as opposed to common CTA’s such as ‘click here’.
Some examples may include offering free products in return for following your CTA, or offer instant deals. These CTAs help you further engage with your customers and help build long-term relationships with them.
Seeing Desired Results
Ultimately, a successful press release will show your audience that you are a reputable company that they can trust. To add, using these SEO tricks properly will enhance your exposure and help you bring in new leads.
We understand the importance of building an effective brand image. Learn how to begin building your press release strategy today by contacting us for more information.