We all know that SEO has evolved drastically over the past year or so. What once worked no longer works today, and if you don’t adapt, you run the risk of damaging your online presence. Simply put, the traditional SEO press release is dead. The days of stuffing your press releases with keywords and keyword-rich anchor text to drive up your search rankings are long gone. If you’re still doing those things, you need to stop…now. But does that mean that we should ignore SEO altogether when writing press releases? For example, should you stop including keywords in the headlines of your press releases?
The answer: yes and no.
Let me explain.
Google is making it harder for you to determine which exact keywords are driving traffic to your website. Now, you can’t see what people are searching in order to arrive at your website. On the surface, this is a move to make searches more secure, but it also signals an important shift in Google’s approach to ranking websites. No longer is it all about exact match keywords. These days, Google is focused on larger topics and user intent. Rather than returning results that contain the exact keywords the user entered into the search engine, Google is trying to instead return results that are more relevant to what the person is really searching for.
What does this mean for you? It means you don’t need to worry so much about finding the perfect keyword to target. You don’t need to obsess over which keyword to include in your headline.
Now that doesn’t mean you should be ignoring keywords altogether. They do still help Google classify your content accordingly. But for example, an automotive parts dealer doesn’t need to stress over whether he should target “car parts” or “auto parts” or “automotive parts” anymore. As long as he’s using phrases that are on topic, he should be fine.
When it comes to writing headlines, you don’t need to force a keyword in there if it doesn’t fit naturally. And you don’t need to stress out over which phrase to include. Just try to be clear and on topic, and Google should be able to index it properly.
This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases (https://www.ereleases.com), the online leader in affordable press release distribution. Download your free copy of 7 Cheap PR Tactics for Success in Any Economy here: https://www.ereleases.com/free-offer/cheap-pr-tactics/