All Aboard! Inbound Links for SEO

Did you know that search-engine-optimized Press Releases can help you achieve excellent rankings within major search engines? SEO press releases provide opportunities for inbound link development when Yahoo News, Google News and major news search engines list your data online.

The link structure of a properly distributed “search optimized” press release also benefits your website when you issue a release because you are providing relevant information to those searching for news related to your industry. It could be a prospect looking for industry info when researching a purchase or a journalist researching a story. At any rate, your company will be represented in the search results, which increases the relevant traffic to your site.

SEO Press Release deliverables will generally include:

• 450-500 word press release; optimized for a core search term and 2 to 3 niche terms
• Release incorporates anchor text; based on search term associated with target web page
• You often have your choice of distribution
• Access to view statistics about how your news release performed over a 30-day period
• RSS feed and paid inclusion distribution

Keyword Analysis

Prior to preparing your search-optimized press release, a qualified SEO technician conducts keyword research and planning. Using the business information you provide, the vendor can then make comparisons with your competitors and similar websites. A weighted value is calculated for each keyword based on the number of searches over the past two months compared to its percentage of relevance.

Because the first step in optimizing a web page for search engine ranking is placing keywords in the Title, it makes sense to determine how many pages have been somewhat optimized. A good vendor will perform an “InTitle” and “Title+Anchor” search at Google to give you an indication of the popularity of your various terms, comparing these results with WordTracker’s KEI (keyword effectiveness index).

This research allows one to determine relevancy, evaluate competition, and add modifiers for providing you the best advice on selecting your best keywords and phrases. The vendor may also marry the Keyword List to a Site Review and consider your current content to make recommendations for overall improvement and performance.

Benefits of an SEO Press Release

• Top rankings in Google News, Yahoo News and MSN news for targeted search terms • New rankings in Google and Yahoo web search results, often first page results • Coverage on hundreds of relevant web sites subscribed to PR Web’s RSS feed • Links from web sites that pick up your news release • Help in building link popularity for your web pages • Archived press releases to deliver long-term link value

Often, the vendor can provide you with a tracking report to summarize the rankings achieved in news and web searches. The vendor can also provide stats on top search terms for which a news release is accessed; page reads and downloads of a release; number of sites that carried the release as news; and number of links created back to target web page!

There are several such vendors, and currently I prefer using SEO-PR. As noted on their website, “Greg Jarboe and Jamie O’Donnell, the co-founders of SEO-PR, have 40 years of combined experience managing PR for tech companies and PR for web companies.” So you’re in good hands with these guys.

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