Optimizing A Press Release
The Power of News Search
More and more people are getting their news online. In 2008 the number of people getting news online passed those reading newspapers and the traffic to social media sites exceeds TV's reach. Knowing how to optimize your press releases and news content for the news search engines is an essential part of your PR toolkit.
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Yahoo! News has the largest news audience in the world!
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As the influence of print and TV wanes, making your news content visible in the news search engines (Yahoo! News and Google News) has become a vitally important PR skill.
How to Optimize a Press Release
Step One: Subject Matter
Get the data about the release. Look it over for obvious keywords.
Example: ABC Company and the Green Foundation plan to hold an event to educate parents about the effects of harmful chemicals found in ordinary household products on children.
The most obvious words of interest will be harmful chemicals and children.
Step Two: News Hook
Find some news item or statistics that can be used in the lead.
Tools: Yahoo! News, Google News Timeline
Example: You have a release about chemicals in household products.
A news search reveals a book written by a pediatrician and statistics about kids being poisoned by household chemicals.
Many conventional cleaners are made with petroleum and are among the "most common and worrisome pollutants" in American streams, says Stanford University School of Medicine pediatrician Alan Greene, author of "Raising Baby Green." Like Greene, a growing number of doctors are concerned that chemicals used to make homes cleaner could actually make them sick.
Household cleaners prompted a quarter of all calls to poison control centers in New York City last year, according to a March report. Across the country, 80,000 kids go to emergency rooms each year because of accidental poisoning, and about 30 children die, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. About 70 percent of nonfatal poisonings involve children ages 1 to 2.
Step Three: Keyword Research
Do your Keyword Research based on what you find. Look for words and phrases that people are searching for, so you get the most traffic to your release.
Tools:
Google Adwords Free Keyword Research Tool
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Step Four: Make a Search Term Grid
Create a grid of the search term, number of searches and competitive pages in Google.
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Next you should look into search trends. Check your choice of keywords by going to Google Trends and Google Insights for more data on these words and phrases.
Example: Search Trend for harmful chemicals. As you can see the searches for this term began in early 2007 and have continued on a fairly steady level. There has been a rise in 2009.
The news searches for this phrase are on a slow, but steady rise.
Search Volume for harmful chemicals
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Search volume for Toxic Chemicals
The trend for web searches for toxic chemicals - although the highest number of searches per month - is on a slow decline. The news search trend however, is rising.
Search Volume for toxic chemicals
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Google Search Insights: Google has another tool you can use - Google Insights for Search. This tool shows that harmful chemicals in pregnancy is the top rising search term related to your key phrase. You could use this in the body of the release.
Dangerous chemicals is another rising search phrase. So you would check the search volume for that phrase in Google Trends
Search Volume for dangerous chemicals
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Step Five: Write the headline
Use the keywords as close to the beginning of the headline as possible.
IMPORTANT: The headline should not be longer than 65 characters (with spaces)
Original headline: ABC Company and the Green Foundation Educate Parents on the Effects of Chemicals on Children (93 characters)
Optimized headline: Toxic Household Chemicals Harmful to Children (48 characters)
Subhead: ABC Company and the Green Foundation educate parents on the effects of dangerous chemicals in everyday household products
More Examples:
Dry Skin Study: Shielding Lotion Takes Beauty Beyond Skin Deep (65 characters)
Stock Market Predictions Made Easier with New Online Tool (57 characters)
Subhead: Investor Awareness Index launches website that rates 'investor potential'
Original headline: XYZ Foods Launches New Website Celebrating Mexican culture and heritage (71 characters)
Subhead: Site features traditional Mexican foods and new recipe ideas
Optimized headline: Mexican Recipes, Culture and Heritage Featured on New Website (61 characters)
Subhead: XYZ Foods launches website celebrating the warmth and excitement of Mexico
Use the PRESSfeed Character and Word Count Tools to check the length of your headline and body.
Step Six: Write the First Paragraph
Write the first paragraph. Use your main keyword or phrase in the first paragraph. Put a link to your website at the end of the first paragraph, using the keyword or phrase as anchor text for the link.
Example: The study links damaging the protective layer of the skin to the formation of dry skin. (When you use keywords to make the link it is called anchor text)
Step Seven: Write the Body
Write the body of the release. Use your main keyword or phrase a few more times in the release and once in the last paragraph. Put another link to your website at the end of the release. Use a variation of the keyword.
Example: Shielding lotion replaces the protective layer of the skin and dermatologists have found it effective for the treatment of dry, itchy skin.
Check to see that you have not used the keywords more than 2% of the total word count.
Example: If the release is 300 words then you can use the keyword or phrase a maximum of 6 times - in the headline, the first paragraph, the last paragraph and a couple of times in the body.
Step Eight: Post the news release to your own website
Put the release onto your website in your Media Room before you send it on the wire. Google will always acknowledge the first site it appears on as the owner of the content. So you want that to be your website. We recommend that you use a tool or platform that allows you to load the release yourself so you are not dependent on a webmaster or the IT department.
Step Nine: Syndicate Your Release With An RSS News Feed
What is RSS and why you should use it for your news content.
Step Ten: Distribute the release
Wire Services
Use one of the major wire services to get indexed in Yahoo! News, Google News and many other news sites.
Paid services:
You can use one of the free press release services, but you will not get into Yahoo! News.
Newsforce:
The Newsforce Network is a paid placement network specifically for news announcements and PR. You can use this service to secure the best ad spots in online news, and turn them into PR headline units. in eye tracking studies, 60% of readers tested gazed strongly at Newsforce headline units, almost as much as they read the regular news.
Heat Map
Step Eleven: Track Results
The wire service you choose should give you lots of stats about how well your release does. So can Newsforce. You should also check in Yahoo! News and Google News to see where it shows up for the keywords and what sites have picked up the content.
If it is well optimized, on the day it is released it should appear on page one when you do a search for your keywords in the news engines.
Based on these results make notes on what was successful and improve your next release.