Press Release SEO Tips – Basic and Advanced

You can pay big bucks for SEO press release distribution, or you can learn how to do it yourself.

How can your press release compete with the thousands of press releases that go out every day? Well you can start by making them long-lasting in the eyes of search engines.

Posting press releases on your own site gives you control of your meta data, image ALT tags and other elements necessary for good search engine optimization (SEO). However, when it’s time to submit your press releases to external sites, you lose some of that control.

Here are some tips below that can be practiced both on your own site AND on the sites you use to distribute your press releases:

Basic Press Release SEO Tips

• Research your keywords before your write. Before you even put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard), find at least two keyword phrases that you want to be found by in search engines. Hopefully if you’re promoting a free product, you all ready did your keyword research before naming the product and you know what keywords you’re writing for. If not, learn how to find niche keywords with the Google Keyword Tool first. From this, take away a primary keyword and a secondary keyword.
• Pay attention to the first 250 words. The first 250 words of content in your press release are what Google will use to determine how relevant your information is, compared to the rest of its search results. Use the first 250 words to set the tone of the rest of your article and make sure you include your primary and secondary keywords several times.
• Check your keyword density. When you’re done, use a keyword density tool to see how often you’re lacing keywords into your content. Most experts agree that a good keyword density is somewhere between 6-12%.
• Use your primary keyword in your press release title. On external sites, your title may also become your URL, so that’s hitting two birds with one stone. You don’t need to use both of your niche keyword phrases all in one place though; save your secondary keyword phrase for the subhead.Your title, subhead and first paragraph are the most search-relevant items in your press release.
• Link keywords. When linking back to your site, make sure to link your keywords, not generic phrases. By linking the words “click here”, you’re not telling Google anything about the content of that link. Also, make sure you include the full URL (including “http://” ) when linking to your site.
• Post the press release on your site. Don’t just give away your content to the wires, post your press release at the source: your site. By doing this, you can post a link in your release back to the original press release on your site. This will encourage any bloggers or journalists to link to your site, rather than the site they found it on.

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Advanced Press Release SEO Tips

• Get your press release noticed. We have a list of the best paid and free press release sites you can use to submit a press release, but don’t forget to also submit it to social bookmarking sites like Digg. These social bookmarking sites will generate inbound links (and traffic) to your press release, and the sooner you have inbound links, the quicker Google will pick it up.
• Track your press release. As with any marketing effort, after the content is distributed, it’s important to track effectiveness. TopRankBlog offers these press release tracking tactics:
  • Embed tracking codes in the links from the release to the landing page.
  • Monitor the web analytics of the site the press release links to for referral traffic sources.
  • Setup Google alerts to monitor when the release gets picked up.
  • Monitor blog search engines like Google blog search and Technorati for pickups.
  • Monitor standard search engines for pickups and links.
  • Track conversions from press release landing pages.
• Find alternatives to “wire” sites.Yes, send your press releases via the wire like you normally would, but don’t be afraid to try some of the new sites that have been sprouting over the past few years. If your press release is for an event, don’t hesitate about submitting it to event listing websites. Firstly—most of them are free. Secondly—the more niche of a site that you submit your content, the more easily it will be found and linked to by your target audience.

Have press release SEO tips to share with us? Let us know what you’ve done and what’s worked for you by leaving us a comment below.