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Free SEO Press Release Distribution Services - Step by Step Instructions
- Q:I understand the importance of news and free press release distribution for SEO purposes, but could you explain it (again) step by step? Thanks.
- Susan Dallas, Stamford, CT
March 22, 2010
- Answer -
By Jason McDonald, Ph.D.
Press Releases and SEO
Press releases, or news releases, as they are often called are a fantastic SEO opportunity. Google loves news! Google looks to sites that have new content as sites that are 'alive' vs. the many, many walking dead sites on the Internet. For successful SEO, one habit to get into is posting news on a regular schedule to your website.
What constitutes news? Many companies will feel - especially small companies - that they do not have news. We are all taught in school and in church to be modest, humble, and stay quiet. In the world of SEO and news, however, we have entered the world of promotion. There is every benefit to being loud and trumpeting your company's news and successes. The short answer, then is anything can be news.
You want to let your keywords drive your news strategy, and not just post news for news sake. So, if you are a wedding florist in New York, and your target keywords / keyphrases are ones like 'New York Wedding Florist' or 'New York Wedding Flowers,' or 'Flower Ideas New York City Weddings,' then your news needs to be centered around your core keywords (Wedding Florist, Wedding Flowers) plus your helper keywords (New York, NYC, Ideas), etc.
What is in a good news release? Here are the major elements:
- A snappy headline - the headline should include the target keywords and by pithy, exciting and fun. Write something someone wants to read more about!
- The first paragraph has the main idea. Your first paragraph should have the city, state, and state of release, and more importantly have the main idea. Readers will read this to judge if they want to go further.
- Direct link for more information. In this case use the HTML format for your link as in http://www.yourcompany.com/newproduct.html. You want to use this format rather than the traditional keyword-centric link, as news is syndicated and you want to preserve the link across websites.
- Two to three paragraphs with more detail, keyword heavy. Don't forget your target keywords and weave them into your news release. Often, a quote from your boss or manager explaining why you did such-and-such, why it is the greatest new thing since sliced bread, etc. Don't be modest!
- About your company - a paragraph about your company and link to more information.
So your first step is to figure out your news release by keywords, and draft it in writing. You second step here is to optimize the news release for SEO. Meaning, use all the techniques I teach in my Page Tags Webinar. Your snappy headline with keywords becomes your TITLE tag. Your first paragraph becomes your META DESCRIPTION. Use H1s, BOLDS, and other tags to nest your keywords.
News releases are a great SEO opportunity, especially for long tail keywords. You get the benefit of showing up well on long tail searches, you encourage Google to index that page on your website, and the news / freshness on your site will encourage Google to reindex and train Google that you update frequently! There are lots of benefits!
The Best Free Press Release Distribution Services on the Internet
Getting ahead of ourselves a bit, one of your major goals in doing news releases and SEO, is to push them out via syndication. There are many new syndication services popping up on the Internet. For, free, many of them allow you to upload your news, and then they will 'push' this news out to blogs, newspapers, websites, portals, etc.
Syndication allows you to have other websites run your news. What are the benefits? You get your news out there not just on your website, but on others. In addition, many (if not all) of them will link back to your news on your website, and include your nested link. So you get the link value and inbound link juice of these news release sites for SEO purposes.
Your news can be read by others on other websites, Google sees it as 'buzz' around you and your website, and you may even spur new contacts with editors, bloggers, and others beyond customers who may see your news. All for free - or low cost.
Here are links to my favorite news syndication sites. In class, I teach these plus some others.
For each, follow the instructions to upload your news release. I recommend uploading it to your own site, first. PRWeb is a paid service, but for $200, they do a really fantastic job of proliferating your news on the Internet. I use it for my 'bigger' releases, and use the 'free' services for my minor releases.
Step-by-step Instructions for News Releases and SEO
OK, so to wrap up, what are the step by step instructions to doing a good SEO-friendly news release? First, identify your target keywords. Your keywords should drive your news release strategy for SEO! Second, identify a concept for your news release that is focused around your target keywords. Third, write your news release following the outline above. Fourth, upload your news release to your website in SEO-friendly HTML. Fifth, log on to the free (or paid) news services and input your news release.
Be sure to have an HTML link prominently in the second paragraph that uses the http://www.yourcompany.com/ format. Your goal is to get backlinks to your site, as well as lots of clickable incoming traffic so the link is paramount to success.
Good luck! Start issuing those news releases! And, like physical fitness, better to do this on a regular schedule that you can stick with - weekly, monthly, quarterly rather than in huge bursts.
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