6 Tips for SEO Optimizing Press Releases

If you’ve been reading this blog, you know that I’m a firm believer in using monthly press releases to promote your business. I’ve been using them for my clients for years and they work. This is why I recently published a Leader’s Guide for using press releases to promote business growth.

But they can’t work if no one ever finds them.

Optimizing your press releases for search engines can help you improve your website’s visibility and rankings. Here are some tips to help you optimize your press releases for search engines:

Identify Relevant Keywords

Start by identifying relevant keywords that are related to your press release and your target audience’s search queries. Use keyword research tools to find popular and relevant keywords that you can incorporate into your press release.

Incorporate Keywords Strategically

Once you have identified relevant keywords, incorporate them strategically throughout your press release. Include them in the headline, lede, body, and boilerplate (if possible). However, make sure to use keywords naturally and avoid keyword stuffing, as this can negatively impact your rankings.

Add Links to Your Website

Include links to relevant pages on your website within your press release. This can help drive traffic to your website and improve your website’s visibility and rankings on search engines. Some distribution services will strip these out, but they will stay in for any reporter you send it to directly. Your website’s newsroom will also preserve the links.

Include Multimedia Elements

Add images, videos, and infographics to your press release to make it more engaging and shareable. Multimedia elements can also help improve your website’s visibility and rankings on search engines.

Share Your Press Release on Social Media

After distributing your press release, share it on your social media channels. This can help increase its visibility, engagement, and potential for generating traffic to your website.

Write a Blog Post

If you write a blog post about the release, you can link from it to your press release, either in your newsroom or on a news site that picks up your news. Think of the press release as the news and the blog post as what’s behind the news (why it happened, what it means to stakeholders, etc.)

Optimizing each press release you write involves some work, identifying relevant keywords, incorporating keywords strategically, adding links to your website, optimizing your press release format, including multimedia elements, and sharing your press release on social media. But it’s worth it.

Do this every month and you’ll be promoting your business in a very effective way. Find out more in our Leader’s Guide for press releases.