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How To Write A News Release For Better Search Engine Optimization

How to Write a News Release for
Better Search Engine Optimization
Search engines are the primary driver of Web site traffic for most companies and organizations. Optimizing your news releases
for search engines is a smart way to connect your audiences with your messages and attract qualified, interested people to
your Web site. Releases that are optimized for search are more easily found – an important factor in driving the visibility of your
message and traffic to your Web site.
PR Newswire’s SEO service is completely automated, so you don’t have to do anything except send your news release to us.
However, the way you write your release can enhance your search results.
Tips for Writing your News Release for Better Search Engine Optimization:
Choose your keywords wisely.
•
Choose keywords that wil depict the central theme of your release by first defining what your release is about, who
the target audience is and how it will tie back into your brand or company Web site.
•
Once you’ve defined the theme of the release, determine a list of keywords (words and phrases) that will represent
the central theme of the release message.
•
Decide which keywords your release will focus on. In general, identify two or three relevant search terms that your
audience is likely to use when performing a search.
Write a keyword rich, contextually thematic headline.
•
Your release headline is the most important line within your release and it must be keyword rich and express the
general theme of the release. Try to keep it to 80 characters or less, and put your most important keywords towards
the beginning of the headline.
•
Your company name and headline will become your page title for the release. The Page Title is the name that the
search engine uses to identify your release as a Web page within its database and should therefore be extremely
relevant to the release message.
•
If you need another line to further detail the theme of the release, use a sub-headline to do so, as this will also be
optimized. Utilize keywords in the first sentence of the initial paragraph and throughout the body content of the
release.
•
The first sentence of the first paragraph of your release becomes the release description and therefore should describe
what the rest of the body content of the release is about.
•
Search engines spider the first 300-500 words on a page. This is where your important terms should be located. If
your news release is long, make sure not to isolate important terms at the bottom of the document.
•
Search engines will identify certain keywords that are used too often throughout any Web page as “SPAM;” do not
repeat your keyword phrases more than three times each for a release of approximately 250 words in length.
•
Keywords should appear naturally, within the context of your news release. Trying to overload your document with
keywords—especially those that bear little relation to your topic—can actually make your news release less effective.
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How to Write a News Release for
Better Search Engine Optimization
Write naturally to get your message across in a human manner.
•
Make sure to keep the entire release content natural sounding so that the reader is unaware that placement of your
keywords throughout the body of the release is planned.
•
You want your audience to click-through the link at the end of the release, and the more natural and conversational
your release is, the more likely they are to go to the URL you want to direct them to.
Use PR Newswire’s Keyword Density tool.
•
When you are done writing your news release, use PR Newswire’s Keyword Density tool to “test“ your release to see
if the keywords that you consider critical appear in your text with ideal frequency. The tool is available in the Online
Member Center customer portal.
•
Keyword density refers to the number of times a keyword or phrase appears in a news release in relation to the total
words in the document. This is important because search engines use keyword density to determine the relevance
and classification of a document.
Use anchor text to build links and drive traffic to Web sites.
•
Provide readers with an easy way to get more information by using anchor text (i.e., hyperlinking a word to a specific
URL). Simply embed links in the Word document you submit to PR Newswire.
•
Build important backlinks by linking relevant keywords that support your message to deep, specific pages of Web
sites.
•
Write out the full URLs (i.e., http://thewholeURL.com) to particularly important sites. Many third party sites do not
render anchor text. Include full URLs in addition to anchor text so that interested readers always have a call to action
and a place to go for more information.
•
Use anchor text in the body of your release, not the headline or subhead. Web sites will not render anchor text in
your headline or subhead.
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(888) 776-0942 | www.prnewswire.com.
Copyright © 2009 PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights Reserved.