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Keyword optimisation on your website has become standard procedure for most marketers. But are you optimising your press releases with your chosen keywords?

Here are a few reasons why you should:
• If you’re posting your press releases to your website (and you should be), it’s going to be the freshest content and Google likes fresh content.
• Generally, press releases and news articles rank very highly on Google. The more keyword rich your press releases are, the better you/they will rank in Google.
• Press releases aren’t just for the press. Make it easy for prospects, bloggers, customers and the media to find you wherever they’re searching.

Don’t know where to start to find the right keywords?
• Find out what keywords successful competitors are using.
• Read articles written by target journalists.
• Survey your PR and Marketing department personnel.
• Survey your Web site development team.
• Survey product development personnel and executive management.

Many press release distribution services have built in SEO features. Use them for a trial period and track results in order to get an idea of which of your keywords are the most popular. Also, be sure to avoid over used industry words like “flexible,” “scalable” and “market-leading”.

After you’ve written your press release and think you’ve optimised for all the necessary keywords, put it to the test. HubSpot have a free online Press Release Grader tool to rate your press release. “Press Release Grader rates a press release based on a checklist of criteria – from content and structure, to search optimisation and link analysis. The free tool is designed to optimise a press release so it can be found more easily.

Going through the above process will train you in a style where you will not only be considering how to get the news out there, but will make you think openly about what people will be searching for so that they can actually find your content. Building these search terms and keywords into your story will then leverage this valuable source of content.

Tags: press releases, web site development

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 28th, 2010 at 5:41 pm and is filed under How To Do.... You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.