Jani Virtanen of Marketwire came and visited the March office for a ‘Training Tea’ session—he gave us insight on how we can increase our client’s online visibility and SEO and elaborated on the in’s and out’s of Marketwire. What was useful about this presentation was Jani’s tips and recommendations on how we can best utilize press releases for our clients. But before we dive in to these helpful tips, it would probably be helpful to know what actually influences SEO?
SEO Factors:
- How frequent does your content changes? This is one of the main reasons why having a company is important. Everyone a new post is added to the blog, it registers with Google and bumps up your SEO that much more.
- Use of keywords. Identify keywords that are important to your client, and what people are searching for online to find your client. A good start is to identify 20 or so words. Try and include these in your press releases, website copy, blog etc. The more frequently these words are used, Google will begin associating these words with your client.
- Hyperlink to credible sources. If you link to a source that already has a high SEO with Google; Google will associate that particular source with your hyperlink. Your hyperlink should be linked to a descriptive word—instead of hyperlinking “to download, click here”; try “download Immunet Protect”. Also, quality matters with hyperlinking—don’t hyperlink 15 words to your company’s website. Google will recognize this and disregard your content.
Now that we know how SEO plays a role. Consider these statistics:
- 98% of the media start each new trend by doing a Google search
- 76% of the media search sources and experts on Google
- 73% of the media search for press releases on Google.
Nearly all of the media are using Google to research and identify new trends and three-quarters are using it for background purposes. From a PR perspective, knowing the influence Google plays on a journalist’s stories and news, don’t you want your client to appear within these searches? To increase client’s PR and SEO results and have them appear for these searches try the following:
- Use Multimedia —if your news wire service allows for multimedia, whether it is graphics, videos, podcasts, etc., upload them. This registers well for Google and will increase your client’s product or company in a search result. This feature is also more appealing for the user who is viewing your press release, as it is more engaging and interactive.
- Use Google AdWords —this allows you to identify the right keywords when you are writing for your client. Try and use these keywords in all of your online content. Particularly for press releases incorporate these into your headline, first paragraph, body of release and boilerplate. Ideally, the optimal keyword density for press release should be 2% —this is the percentage your keywords should account for in your press release.
This post was first published by Nicole Miscioscia on March Communications’ blog, PR Nonsense. Please note that this is an old article and some facts or conclusions may not apply anymore.