SEO Press Releases Extend Your Coverage

Today, more than ever, B2B marketers must be willing to bring their message to their publics in whatever form works.  Budgets are tight, so it is essential for you to develop marketing communications plans that maximize your reach without straining your coffers.  Your plans can no longer follow the simple IMC model of branding, advertising, PR and direct/email marketing.  Yes it’s important for your tactics to be integrated to each other, but only if they are also fully integrated with and reflective of your objectives.  You have to optimize everything that you do.

For PR practitioners, here are ten tips to get you started down the optimization path:

1. SEO press releases must be keyword optimized and rich with links to boost both your organic search results and your inbound marketing efforts – making you the editor/blogger’s best friend and getting your company more/better pick up than a simple text version. 
2. Optimize the release by conducting keyword research to identify the top two or three search terms that your target audience is likely to use for a search.
3. Use Google’s keyword tool or Newsforce to determine your keywords. 
4. Put your main search term in the headline and put all terms in the first paragraph of the release (about the first 50-75 words).
5. Create direct, live links back to your website, ideally using the top keyword(s).
6. Distribute the release through a wire service.
7. Ensure that your press releases are added to your news area or your press room.
8. Write a blog on the news, using the same keywords, and then linking it back to the release. Then Tweet it, Link it, Facebook it, Technorati it — and disperse the other elements to apt sites:  the video to YouTube and LinkedIn, the photos to Flickr, etc.
9. Add an RSS feed to your website to further raise your visibility/reach online.
10. Track click-thrus to your website, or setting up specific landing pages so that you know the exact results from a press release.  

Displaying these releases on your website (with all attendant material) can be another way of extending your expertise — and your reach.  Intel seems to have really mastered this approach.  They have evolved the SEO press release into a pretty substantive form:  

* Offering the news highlights in short, bulleted form, above the full press release copy.  
* Offering a quotes section where you can find statements from Intel principals, Intel collaborators, educators and the like.
* Providing all relevant photography, videos from their YouTube channel, supplementary information, i.e., research/articles
* And all the social media play you could imagine: Facebook and Twitter feeds, links to their blogs, audio presentations, videos, and the ability to both rate and comment on the information being offered.

Also, since Intel’s Press Room is chock full of news releases, it allows the user to filter the releases by categories or tags; it includes a section of broadcast news/videos and b-roll content; it has a section that houses press kits, with all related information (not just the releases, but video presentations, fact sheets and backgrounders, links to relevant material on their website and related blog posts, Facebook posts and Twitter feeds.)

I guess we should all get busy!