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Press Releases: How and Why to Include Them in Your SEO

By
Real Estate Agent with Ocean Capital Lending & Ocean Capital Real Estate Services Group NMLS# 1990881 SL# 3516742

 

Think press releases are a thing of the past? Press releases, when done correctly, are a powerful SEO tool that helps drive more traffic to your website and increase relevancy for your website. By submitting your press release to press release distribution services you increase the number of back links to your site with relevant content through the newswire services and the web sites to which they distribute content. Just one simple act of submitting a single press release through a distribution service gives your site several relevant in-bound links from trusted websites all over the internet.

But, in order to benefit fully from your press release distribution, you have to approach the SEO of your press releases in much the same way that you would approach the Search Engine Optimization of any page on your website. Your press release has to be drafted keeping your targeted keywords in mind and must contain relevant content to those keywords.

Wait…Hold up… You don’t think you have anything to write about that is news-worthy? Actually you do. You can submit a press release about pretty much anything. You can announce a new product or service, announce a new service area, announce a new hire… anything. You can even submit a press release about your blog. Don’t have a blog yet? (Shame on you) Sit down a take a few minutes to start a blog, write your first blog entry and then submit a press release about it. Press releases are simply too important to not distribute.

There are 5 parts of a press release and we are going to discuss how to create each part. They are:

Title

Summary

Body

About the Company

Press Contact

Each part of your press release needs to be created correctly in order to maximize the SEO benefit of the final press release. Here are the 10 steps that you should take when drafting your press release.

Step 1.  Choose the keyword(s) that you would like to target with your press release. Your keywords can be one word or more. Choosing long-tail keywords is best to attract visitors that are looking for your products and services. For example: If you are an exclusive buyers agent in Long Beach California and your farming area is actually restricted to the Long Beach Area, you would not want to just use ‘California Real Estate’. A better choice in this scenario would be ‘Long Beach California Real Estate Buyers Agent’.

Step 2. Choose a webpage or two on your website that you will be linking to that has the same targeted keywords. Many press release services will allow you to use anchor text within the body of your press release so choose your web pages carefully and make sure they have not only the same selected keywords, but also that they have relevant content.

Step 3. Create the title of your press release WITH your keywords in the title. What would someone type to come across your press release? Get inside your prospective clients head and then write your title to target that client.

Step 4. Draft the summary of your press release using the most important keyword that you have chosen in step 1. You will need to keep the summary short (less than 150 characters) and include different keywords from the ones that you chose to put in your title. Your summary will be used as a description directly under the title on SERPs (search engine results pages) and using different keywords maximizes the exposure for your selected keywords.

Step 5. Write the content (body) of your press release keeping in mind that it must be in a ‘third-party news reporting’ tone of voice. Refrain from using the words you, your, our, or any word that makes it appear that you are talking to your target audience. This part of your press release must be completely objective and cannot be promotional in nature. Use your target keywords throughout the content of your press release, but refrain from keyword stuffing. Use anchor text to link to exactly two pages on your website. Some newswire distributors will not allow you to include the anchor text but many will, so have your links ready to go for those that do allow anchor text.

Step 6.  Create your quote. This is the only place in your press release that you can use your voice to advertise your business. The rest of the press release MUST maintain the ‘third-party news reporting’ voice. Only include one quote in your press release and stick to using only two quotation marks. Don’t break up your quote into two sets of quotes because some services only index the first quote and if it is an incomplete thought it will look very unprofessional.

Step 7. Create your ‘About the Company’. In 3-4 sentences describe your company in the same ‘third-party news reporting’ voice as the content of your press release. You want this to be your company’s ‘elevator pitch’. Include a link to the index page of your site using anchor text. Again, some newswire distributors will not allow anchor text. Most of the time, the ones that do not allow anchor text will allow you to write out the URL of your site as long as you do not precede it with the http://.

Step 8. Determine who your press contact will be and include the information at the very bottom of your press release. Depending on the press release service, you may have to remove this section when you submit your press release in lieu of providing contact information somewhere else on the submission form.

Step 9. Read your press release OUT LOUD. I cannot stress how important this step is in drafting your press release. Reading your press release out loud will identify areas of the press release that ‘just don’t sound right’. Once you have read your press release out loud and have made any necessary corrections to the content you are ready to start submitting your release to distribution services.

Step 10. Submit your press release to 2-5 distribution services. There are many free press release distribution services on the net. Two that I use are przoom.com and 1888pressrelease.com

That’s it! Once you have your press release submitted you will normally have to wait a day or so for the distribution service to approve your press release. Once they have approved your press release, you will have several relevant in-bound links from trusted websites all over the internet.

But wait… there is ONE more thing that you need to do with your press release.

Once you have submitted your press release through the newswire distribution services, you will then need to convert it to a PDF and place it on your site. You should have a section of your website dedicated to news about your company and link the news announcements to your PDFs. You should also link to your PDFs from your blog and link your blog to the news section of your website.

Whew! Sounds like an awful lot for one little press release doesn’t it? Truth is that once you have done it a few times it becomes easy. Try to get into the routine of submitting one press release every month. You can add it to the day that you already have set aside to write your monthly newsletter (you do have one right?) and alter the content a bit to include in your company announcements as well. Getting into this habit will help you to increase traffic to your site with visitors that are already looking for your services. What better way to increase your bottom-line with $0 investment?

 

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as seen onCheryl Carradini, MBA | Marketing Strategist |  GoSIMC

Cheryl Carradini, BSB/MKT, MBA, is a Marketing Strategist for highly successful real estate professionals. She earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Business with a concentration in Marketing and a Master’s of Business Administration. She is currently a Ph.D. student working on her Doctor of Philosophy with a concentration in Marketing. She is a US Navy Veteran and the president and founder of GoSIMC Inc. Her marketing firm specializes in providing website & IDX solutions for busy real estate professionals that want to dominate the search engines.  She has authored several books, Internet courses, and direct marketing manuals for small businesses and real estate agents around the world.   

Quote: "If you do not have a marketing strategy in place, then all you are doing is spending money on marketing that ‘might work’. Marketing is the single most important function in your business and you CANNOT afford to use guesswork as a strategy.

 

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Comments (10)

Michael A. Caruso
Surterre Properties - Laguna Niguel, CA

Great information! I have a press release I've been wanting to get out but kept putting it on the back-burner. These free distribution websites seem really easy. Thank you!

Best,

Michael Caruso

Aug 07, 2009 07:54 AM
Jim Hale
ACTIONAGENTS.NET - Eugene, OR
Eugene Oregon's Best Home Search Website

Cheryl:

This is an exciting concept.  Better SEO. Zero dollars.  MY kind of deal.

Aug 07, 2009 08:05 AM
Lori Cain
Own Tulsa - Tulsa, OK
Midtown Tulsa Real Estate Top Producer

This is great advice, and I'm going to bookmark it for future reference. Thanks for the links to distribute!

Aug 07, 2009 08:08 AM
Ralph Gorgoglione
Metro Life Homes - Palm Springs, CA
California and Hawaii Real Estate (310) 497-9407

Very cool post.

Going to look into it and see what I can do.

Thanks!!

Aug 07, 2009 08:10 AM
John Mulkey
TheHousingGuru.com - Waleska, GA
Housing Guru

Thanks for the info and the prod to get to work. 

Aug 07, 2009 08:10 AM
Tim Lorenz
TIM LORENZ - Elite Home Sales Team - Mission Viejo, CA
949 874-2247

This is great I'm fairly new to this media. 

Aug 07, 2009 10:21 AM
Bob & Carolin Benjamin
Benjamin Realty LLC - Gold Canyon, AZ
East Phoenix Arizona Homes

Good ideas-- thanks for sharing -- we all need all the help we can get.

Aug 07, 2009 03:57 PM
Linda Lohman
Fonville Morisey Realty - Cary, NC
Former Teacher/Broker

I hate writing, I whine about blogging, not sure if I can venture in to a press release.  Yes, I'll take cheese with that!

Nov 11, 2009 07:31 AM
Kathy Torline
ERA Herman Group Real Estate - Colorado Springs, CO
Colorado Springs Real Estate Blog 719-287-1049

Thanks for sharing this.  I'm just getting ready to write a couple of press releases, and you gave me some great tips I hadn't thought about.

Jan 02, 2010 10:16 PM
Brian Lee Burke
Kenna Real Estate - Lone Tree, CO
Broker & Advising Expert-Kenna Luxury Real Estate

Little late here to find this post of yours but I'm happy that I did. Thanks a million. ~Rita

Jan 04, 2010 11:38 AM