Four steps to better press release optimization

I really don’t like press releases. So when Portland-based search engine marketing firm Anvil Media posted something about press release optimization I was immediately skeptical.

But this post was refreshingly different because Anvil Media was honest about one thing: no amount of optimization is going to help a press release that isn’t newsworthy to begin with.

You can’t just wave a magic wand and presto your press release is optimized. It actually requires a lot of creative and strategic thinking. This became very clear after speaking with one of Anvil’s search engine experts, Nick Herinckx.

After a lengthy discussion with Nick, I came up with these four basic steps to better press release optimization:

• Step 1: Build a compelling story that influential journalists and bloggers will want to cover. This is a must-have before any reputable site will link to your company. There is nothing more wasteful than gratuitously stuffing your boring press release with a bunch of links and then paying for it to be distributed. Simply stop doing it and you’ll be better off.

• Step 2: Know your keyword search terms. This is best done by a trained search engine professional (hint: Anvil Media) but you can start off by using Google’s free Keyword Tool. Tip: Don’t just look at the number of monthly searches for a particular keyword. While the temptation is to think more is better it also means there is more competition around that term and will make it much harder to get noticed. If you have the time, create a list of all the search terms that describe your company and then manually go through them weeding out any terms with lower than 100 monthly searches.

• Step 3: Add links to your press release that reflect your top keyword search terms. For example, Anvil uses the anchor text “social media marketing firm” in their press releases (rather than just “Anvil Media.”) The reason for this is twofold: 1) To help search engines associate that term with Anvil; 2) To provide a hint to the journalist or blogger reading your release to use the same link or anchor text in their coverage of your company. The key is to get inbound links to your site from reputable sources. Again, the best way to do this is by carrying out Step 1 every time. Tip: Don’t over link. Search engines will only count one link with the same anchor text. Instead, limit yourself to two or three links, one using the exact anchor text and two using variations.

• Step 4: Use a quality newswire services to distribute your press releases. Yes, these are the ones you pay for although PitchEngine offers high quality news distribution for free. You can also post your press release to free distribution sites but know that they aren’t looked upon as favorably by search engines as the paid sites. In either case, make sure that the distribution service permits you to customize your anchor text (see Step 3).

Still, the biggest obstacle to press release optimization is determining what is newsworthy in the first place. There are no shortcuts here either.

But there is one thing you could try. You may remember that I developed an online news vetting system a few years back to help communicators identify the most newsworthy elements of their stories. It was developed after much consultation with journalists and bloggers. It doesn’t look pretty, but it works. Give it a try and let me know what you think.