Though SEO is not as easy as pie, it is also not as difficult as you imagine. As you put your mind and time in SEO, you will be able to figure out how to strategize, analyze, implement, measure, and perfect your SEO campaigns. Most important of all, incorporating press releases can help reach your SEO goals and help you out-rank the competition.
Press Releases are not just an important component to SEO but have become one of the most important factors in getting you to rank and out-rank your competition. The following 10 steps will help you outline a complete strategy and actionable list on local SEO, and how to utilize PR to gain SEO success.
Do different from usual
When you are creating a PR campaign, it is tempting to come up with ideas that support a popular point of view or reinforce current trends. However, when people are expecting something, you can have a great deal by proving something different from what people are expecting. This gives writers a unique way to cover a topic they might have already written about extensively, but remember not to provoke the views of the readers.
Supplement it with an asset
Creating a supporting asset to go alongside your campaign is essential. Whether it is an interactive page for an embeddable quiz is this gives your campaign something sharable that readers can send to their friends and colleagues. You can also include the asset on your website to encourage other brands to link.
Create a media list
Creating a media list is not just about organizing which publications to send your campaign to; it’s about finding the right publications for your campaign as well. It is important to research each website’s style and tone of voice and understand what types of topics they tend to cover.
Pitch the right journalist
You will find that most major publications will have something between half a dozen and 100 journalists writing for them. Each journalist will be assigned to different topics. There may be some who specialize in entertainment, brand building, or the latest trends, while others may be concerned with news and culture. Try to connect with the journalists who specialize in your product or services to get additional benefits.
Give them the story, not the data
Most readers don’t care about data; they care about stories. If your PR campaign is led by research, it is important to package it as a clear entertaining narrative. Tell your readers why they should care about the campaign and not just about what the campaign is.
The subject line is the key
Famous news websites receive around Android PR emails every single day. When you receive unread emails a day you don’t have the time to read everything. You need to grab the reader’s attention immediately with the catchy subject line or title that covers the key information in one short sentence.
Personalize your email
Tell your press release database why they should be covering your story instead of the many others that have been pitched that day. Explain why the audience will want to read it or why it will fit in perfectly with other stories they have written recently.
Don’t be afraid to follow up
Journalists are busy. With deadlines to meet and copy to file they may not have supported your email the first time around. Some experts say otherwise but nothing in my experience has ever suggested that PRs should not follow up. A short polite email asking if they had a chance to see your page is harmless. At worst, they will ignore it. At best it will remind them of a great story they had initially missed.
Monitor your coverage
Free tools like Google alerts can immediately alert you when you campaign in shared by blogs social media news sources or any other publication. This allows you to easily keep track of coverage of reporting purposes and monitor what consumers might be saying about your brand.
Turn on linking coverage into an SEO win
The press release publication sites will not always link to a brand’s website as credit. You should not immediately consider this as a loss. However, you can reach up to the author and ask them to amend the article. If this fails it may be worth contacting their editor. Alternatively, most major news sites have a corrections email which might be worth reaching out to.
No matter what industry you are in PR can not only boost your brand awareness but have a measurable impact on SEO. So start building those contacts and with the above 10 steps, you will be able to see SEO success. For more interesting guides to SEO success, visit www.digitalpresence.today.
