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Press Release Optimization and Distribution is an effective marketing strategy that has the potential to generate sales, leads, online/offline publicity, and increase the brand awareness for your product or service. Additionally, a well written press release that appeals to the media’s thirst for a good story and that is properly optimized with keywords that you want to rank for can naturally increase your back links (one way links); a search engine optimization tactic that is essential to rank high in the search engines.

Optimizing a press release simply means that you sprinkle relevant keywords and phrases throughout the body of the release; and possibly the title.  Keep in mind, however, that your press release will be read by ‘state-of-the-art’ software using algorithms that only scientist can understand to determine its relevance and categorization; but more importantly, it will be read by human beings as well so make sure it flows naturally.

Along with the traditional benefits of distributing press releases (media coverage, buzz, etc.), a keyword optimized press releases can rank very high in news search engines like Google News, Yahoo News and MSNBC; as well as in the respective search engines.

Furthermore, to track the effectiveness of keyword optimized press releases, it would be wise to direct web traffic to a specific landing page; so that with the help of a web analytics tool, you can see where your traffic is coming from, how long they are staying; and whether or not you are converting them into customers.

Of course, anyone can string words together and hope that they can garner media attention and increase their search engine rankings; however, it’s not as easy as you might think. Optimizing a press release takes careful research and execution and an online PR firm or credible SEO firm usually has the expertise to get this done.  However, if you are small company and can’t afford to hire a firm, here are some valuable tips that you might find useful when writing a press release:

• Timing is crucial. Unless you are the head of PR for a Fortune 1000 company, simply announcing that your product or company exists will barely draw a yawn from the media. It’s important to find a hook; or a way to piggy back on something that’s currently making news (i.e. Cisco suing Apple for copyright infringement); especially if your company sells iPod accessories.  Reporters, journalist and bloggers are always looking for new angles for their follow up stories/blog entries. Oh, and don’t plan on taking vacation the day the release hits the wires.
• The Five W’s; who, what, where, when and why. A given, right? Unfortunately, not. I come across press releases all the time that don’t follow this simple rule. Readers of your press release should be able to gather all the relevant information in the first paragraph. If they don’t find the information there, they won’t read any further.
• Include quotes from an “expert.” The expert can be you, a representative of the company or someone from executive management.  The bottom line is that he/she should be able to authoritatively speak about the topic of the release, and should be available to the media for interviews.
• Keep it short and simple. A press release is just a teaser to get the media interested in your company and what you have to offer.  If reporters, journalist or bloggers want more information, they’ll contact you.
• Last but not least, optimize the press release by adding keywords and key phrases to the body of the content.  Don’t over do it though; and remember that you are writing to people.

Press Release Distribution

When it comes to distributing your press release, you can use well known distribution services like PR Newswire or Business Wire; there are a ton of them out there.  Ideally, you should use a press release distribution service that can target your release to members of the media that specifically cover your market or industry.

Keep in mind that press release distribution can take some time before you see the results. Any immediate responses to your press release will be from online sources; however, that doesn’t mean that an editor at the Wall Street Journal might read your press release and write a story about in the coming months.

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