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A press release can be a powerful way to distribute content outside of your usual channels. Optimizing your press releases for search engines will make them easier to find, thus increasing the visibility of your content. A good press release will also contain links to key pages on your website: when the release is distributed and posted on various blogs and websites, you’ll instantly gain a solid set of quality backlinks.

Let’s look at a few ways you can ensure your press release is optimized for the search engines.

1. Choose the right topic to publicize: Keep in mind that a press release isn’t a marketing pitch. Instead, it should be informative in nature, sharing news about some development or trend that involves your company.
2. Research and choose your optimal keyword phrase:In order to narrow down one keyword phrase to emphasize, it’s important to keep a few factors in mind.
   1. You want a keyword phrase that’s specific and relevant to your audience.
   2. You also want the phrase to be relevant to the content of your press release, and to be a search phrase found on your website.
   3. It’s worth investing a bit of effort in your keyword research: the SEO impact of a powerful keyword phrase justifies the time it took to choose it.
3. Work your keywords into the key areas of the press release: You’ll get the most SEO juice out of your chosen keyword phrase if you include it in certain areas of your press release. Be sure to work the phrase, along with variations on it, into the headline, first paragraph, any multimedia elements, and the final sentence.
4. Avoid optimized anchor text links: Using your keywords as anchor text can actually work against you. Google’s latest algorithm views this practice as unnatural link-building, and your search engine ranking may suffer for it.
5. Put your most important information in the headline and first paragraph: Search engines place a lot of weight on content found early in your press release. Be sure to use your keywords within the headline and lead paragraph to reap the maximum SEO rewards. Google and the other search engines don’t understand clever plays on words, so keep your headline straightforward, using the type of language people would use to search for it.
6. Add your keyword to your URL: A well-designed URL can tell users what the subject of that page is about, just by looking at the URL. Including relevant keywords in your URL is helpful to search engines as well as humans, and can give your ranking and visibility a boost.
7. Use multimedia to your advantage: Press releases can benefit from the inclusion of photos and videos. Not only do these multimedia formats make your content more interesting and compelling, but they also can utilize your keywords in their file names. Using images and videos strategically can bump up your visibility in the search engines and give you an advantage on social media platforms like Facebook.

Whether you’re simply e-mailing your press release to a media list, posting it to your web site or are planning to distribute it broadly, keeping these tips in mind will help you garner better visibility for your message within the search engines – and results for your efforts.

Need help?DirectiveGroup can help with all your digital marketing needs – give us a call at 813.341.3800.