| Thousands
of documents are published each day on news release sites,
including Google News, Yahoo News and MSN. If you take a close
look at them you’ll notice they are not properly categorized
and sometimes you get rather irrelevant stories for a particular
topic. This shouldn’t come as a surprise.
As the search results, the news results are
fully automated. There’s no human editor to create what
you would call “a logical structure” in each main
category. If you look for LEDs you might get news or stories
about Led Zeppelin. Not such a relevant result for the optoelectronic
industry! Therefore you’ll need to write your press
release in the best way possible to achieve visibility and
reach the needed public.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Click
here to find the new way to make long-term money online in
your spare time
-------------------------------------------------------------
It may come as a surprise, but the most experienced
copywriters don’t know how to write a press release
for the web. It takes a public relations expert to do the
job right. Most press releases online look like being written
lyrically. Instead of sending a message loud and clear, their
writers were busy creating pieces of prose. If you choose
such a writer you waste your money. Period.
Here are some errors you should avoid:
* Too long sentences (Writers love long sentences.
They feel like these prove writing skills and make the story
more…”professional”).
* Too short sentences. This happens when people try to respect
the “keep it simple” principle, but deliver a
formless message instead.
* Use of repetitions and abstract terms. Your message should
be plain and clear. Concretized.
And this is how you should “build”
your press release:
* Attract your reader with an incisive title
– this is the most important sentence in a press release.
* First paragraph explains why the press release is newsworthy.
* Second (and where necessary third, fourth) paragraph is
the content of the press release.
* Last paragraph concludes the story.
Press Release Optimization
* Why? As clarified earlier above: to enable
newsworthy information about your company and your products
achieve visibility and reach the wanted audience.
* How? By optimizing the micro content (title) and the macro
content (press release body). Optimizing web pages is not
the same.
Now let’s focus on the “how”.
What you need to do is decide on a keyword phrase that is
relevant for your area of expertise or your product. This
should not be the most relevant keyword phrase to you, but
to your readers.
And this is a difficult choice. You could
check the keyword phrase at overture.com and see how many
searches it produced for a particular month. Then go for the
more suitable keyword phrase – in this case you’d
want to target what people look for (but don’t deviate
from the main idea of your press release).
For example, if you run a small, rather nameless,
company and you’ve developed a new SEO software (with
some proven results), don’t use the just the name of
the software in the title of your release. Write, for example
“SEO Software XYZ Released – With New Website
Promotion Tools” (That is if your software includes
new website promotion tools. If not, just write the most important
benefit, to grab readers’ attention.)
Don’t use a title like “Company
Releases Amazing XYZ for Top Rankings”. This title says
nothing newsworthy about your product. The “amazing”
and “top rankings” touches will bring you traffic
and customers only if you are lucky and some of them start
reading a story with such a title. Readers are tired of clichés
and pompous words.
Repeat the main keyword phrase – “SEO
software” in this case – three-four times within
your press release.
Outstanding press releases do get enough
public attention, not only from random readers, but from journalist
as well. They might consider your story newsworthy enough
for the print media. It is a good practice to include photos
and other enclosures (where necessary) to help the journalists
work on it faster and have it printed.
And it is in your best interest to use all
possible communication channels to deliver your message. So
when you write a press release for the online media, have
three aspects in mind: readers, search engines and print.
Journalists will edit your press release for printed publications,
but if you already provide all the information and enclosures
they might need, you’ve done your job right.
How
to Get Media Attention for Your Business |
How
to Write a Press Release in 14 Easy Steps
Getting
Free Publicity for Your Online Business |
Public
Relations | Electronic
Press Kit |
Basic
Principles of Press Release Optimization |
