Writing A Press Release For Maximum Web Visibility

The Search Landscape is Changing

The Web Search landscape is constantly changing. One of the hottest trends that emerged at the San Jose Search Engine Strategies conference was the fact that people are refining their searches – they’re using the subcategories on the search engines like images, maps and, most of all, the news tab.

Online News More Popular Than Newspapers

Mainstream print media is not enjoying this shift in media consumption - the Audit Bureau of Circulation reported this week that newspaper readership is down another few percent, while the news engines and news websites continue to attract more readers. Yahoo! News now has the largest online news audience in the world.

Most People Read Their News On the Web

Online ad revenue earnings online are rising steadily too. The advertisers know where the news audience is. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project more than 75 percent of all web users read their news online.

Optimizing Press Releases - One of Top Three SEO Trends

A new 285 page report just out from Marketing Sherpa, Search Marketing Benchmark Guide, identifies optimizing press releases for Yahoo! News, AOL News, Google News and other news engines and sites as one of the top three SEO trends for 2006. Online press releases make a great response device for the search-using public, says the report.

Writing a Press Release - Ten Reasons Why Press Releases Are Important

• More and more people are using online news sources to find information on products, services, companies and ideas. Most news stories and press releases are read by the public looking for data.
• A correctly optimized online news release can get you to the top of page one for your chosen keywords in the news engines within 24 hours.
• If there is a relevant and timely news result on a keyword, both Yahoo and Google are displaying this news item above the number one organic position in web search.
• You reach your target audience directly – no reporters or editors to filter your message.
• You know that when someone reads your news release they are interested in that subject – they asked for it by keyword.
• Online releases can be tracked – for the first time you can get statistics of how many times your press release was accessed or downloaded. With the proper web analytics in place you can track click throughs to your website too.
• The article will get picked up and published on other relevant sites increasing the number of people who see your content and visit your site.
• If your article has been correctly optimized, it will have keyword links in it. Every time your article appears on another website it builds more relevant inbound links to your site, which positively affects your search rankings.
• Optimized online press releases migrate from the news search to the web search within a week or so and they can show up in the web search on your keywords.
• If you add the releases to your website and put them into an RSS feed you increase your visibility. Soon your articles will be showing up in news aggregators, Yahoo News and Google Blogsearch.