Including Press Releases into Your Online Marketing Mix – A Useful tool with Multiple Benefits

Until recently, press release articles have been texts created by a company’s media or PR department and distributed in newspapers, magazines, etc., in order to inform the audience about newsworthy events in the life of the company and in the industry the company is active in. Nowadays, press releases are more and more increasingly used as part of a company’s search engine marketing strategy, having undeniable merits in increasing the page ranking of company websites.

Product launches, sponsorship events, niche-related national and international news, industry reports are all excellent topics for online press releases, so let’s have a look at how you can leverage the potential of this low-cost, highly efficient online marketing device to your advantage.

The Advantages of Online Press Releases

The internet is the ultimate source we, journalists or non-journalists, turn to for information. We are looking for products and services and we find out about news and events through the internet. Media press releases formulated in line with search engine optimization guidelines can not only help you with your branding efforts, by informing your public about your company events and news, but they also provide a useful tool that can generate targeted traffic towards your website.

A press release is practically a text dealing with such an event, a text published on carefully selected third party news submission sites with the purpose of informing the public and of convincing your audience to visit your website after reading your press release. Also, having many links posted on authority press release sites pointing back to your site which will lead to your site’s improved page ranking, a higher page rank meaning a better position on search engine result pages.

As another advantage, press releases are efficient in the long run. Once published, most releases remain active for several years, improving the long-term visibility of your website.

Creating and Distributing Press Releases

Press releases need to be formulated in line with specific search engine guidelines in order to be really efficient. First of all, your PR needs to be not only informative, but also unique and original. Search engines view duplicate content badly, which means that it is not recommended to publish the same text across several different pres release sites.

 

Your press release article also needs to be structured around the right keywords. Search engines return query results based on the search word entered by internet users – the more frequently the words used in your texts are searched for by net users, the more frequently your article will appear among the query results, increasing the probability of getting clicked on and read. So, before setting off to write a unique, original and informative article, you need to research the best keywords to use in the article.

The next step after having created your release is researching the right media to publish the article on. There are numerous press release directories and newswires you can use, some paid, others free of charge. These directories usually review the articles they receive and they publish them under categories and subcategories, so one of the aspects you need to consider when choosing the publisher is whether the site approaches the topic you are writing about. If you run a company that sells engine oils and you are sponsoring a rally event, it would be useless to publish your press release on a site dealing with health-related news.

Do It Yourself or Hire Professionals?

If you decide to include press release submissions into your SEO campaign, you can either choose to create the releases inside the company or you can hire professionals to write and submit the press releases for you. Creating the texts by yourself has the advantage of saving some money and possibly having the texts to publish more quickly; but writing a professional PR, choosing the right media for your text and publishing the release do require expertise and experience. Hiring a professional press release submission service will make sure your texts will have the right form and the right content, and that they will appear on the right media to direct maximum traffic towards your company website and to increase your website’s page ranking quickly and efficiently.

Enriching your online marketing campaign with press release promotion is one of the best marketing decisions you can make. Writing and publishing public relation press release articles will not only inform your target group about the major events in your company’s life, but will also help spread the word about your products and services. If you use this marketing method in a focused, strategic way, teaming it up with other tools, like social media marketing, you will be able to harvest the fruits of your efforts very soon.