Press Release

Guidelines for Effective Press Releases: An Editor’s Perspective

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Guidelines for Effective Press Releases: An Editor’s Perspective

As press release distributors, we’ve seen numerous press releases come across our desks, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. In this article, we invite you to join us on an insightful journey as we explore the do’s and don’ts of writing press releases from an editor’s perspective. By adhering to these invaluable guidelines, you can significantly enhance your chances of capturing attention, securing publication, and effectively conveying your message to your intended audience.

The Dos and Don’ts For Your Web 20 Ranker Press Release

Let’s begin by delving into the Do’s

Maintain a Third-Person Perspective

When writing a press release, it’s crucial to adopt a third-person perspective throughout the entire document. Avoid using first-person pronouns like “I” or “we/us/our” and second-person pronouns like “you.” Instead, focus on presenting the information objectively, as if you were a neutral observer reporting the news. This approach helps establish credibility, maintains a professional tone, and ensures that your press release can be easily repurposed by editors without requiring significant modifications. 

Additionally, incorporating the third-person perspective into your press release not only contributes to a stronger professional tone but also aligns with SEO best practices, improving the chances of your press release being discovered and ranked favorably by search engines.

Keep the Title Concise and Informative

The first impression matters! Crafting a title that grabs attention while accurately summarizing the content is essential. Readers appreciate succinct and descriptive titles that capture the essence of the news being presented. Aim for a title that is no more than 20 words long, avoiding unnecessary fluff or vague wording. A concise title helps editors quickly grasp the main message of your press release and entices readers to delve deeper into the content.

Improve SEO with a Great Title

In addition to making a strong first impression, a great title also plays a crucial role in improving search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines rely heavily on titles to understand the context and relevance of an article. Here’s how a great title can enhance SEO:

  • Keyword Relevance: Including relevant keywords in your press release title helps search engines understand the topic and relevance of your news. Research and incorporate popular keywords that align with your target audience’s search queries. This increases the chances of your press release appearing in search results when users search for those keywords.
  • Increased Visibility: A compelling and succinct title grabs the attention of both readers and search engines. When your press release title accurately reflects the content and is engaging, it increases the likelihood of users clicking on it in search results. Higher click-through rates (CTR) indicate to search engines that your press release is valuable and relevant, leading to improved search engine rankings.
  • News Syndication: Journalists and media outlets often search for news stories using relevant keywords. By optimizing your press release title with these keywords, you increase the chances of it being discovered by journalists and potentially getting picked up for wider coverage. This helps to expand the reach and visibility of your news.
  • Social Sharing: A well-crafted press release title is more likely to be shared on social media platforms, blogs, and other websites. When others share your press release using the title as the headline or anchor text, it improves your press release’s visibility and potentially generates backlinks. Backlinks from reputable sources further enhance your press release’s SEO rankings.
  • Online Press Release Distribution: Many online press release distribution services and platforms index press releases based on their titles. By optimizing your title with relevant keywords, you increase the likelihood of your press release being indexed and found by users searching for news on those topics.

Here are a couple of additional tips for enhancing your press release title:

  • Include Your Brand Name: Including your brand name in the press release title can help strengthen your brand recognition and association. It also makes it easier for readers and search engines to identify the source of the news. Place your brand name at the beginning or end of the title to ensure it stands out.
  • Add Location if Relevant: If your company operates locally or the news has a specific geographic relevance, consider incorporating the location into the press release title. This helps in targeting local audiences and improves the chances of your press release appearing in location-based searches. Including the city or region can make the title more specific and attractive to readers in that area.

Here’s an example to illustrate how these tips can be incorporated into a press release title:

“XYZ Company Launches Innovative Product Line in Austin”

In this example, “XYZ Company” represents the brand name, “Launches Innovative Product Line” highlights the key news, and “Austin” adds the location aspect. This title not only grabs attention but also improves search engine optimization by including the brand name and location.

At Web 20 Ranker, our team can help you optimize your title for search engines while considering the user experience. Balancing SEO requirements with user-friendly and engaging titles will ultimately lead to better search rankings and increased organic traffic.

Stick to the Word Count Range 

Maintaining an appropriate word count is crucial when writing press releases. Journalists and media outlets receive a significant volume of submissions, and adhering to the specified word count range ensures that your press release can be easily reviewed and considered for publication. Aim for a minimum of 300 words to provide sufficient information, while keeping the content concise and engaging. Avoid exceeding the maximum limit of 1000 words, as lengthy press releases may lose the reader’s interest or require significant trimming. 

At Web 2.0 Ranker, we understand the importance of word count and optimizing press releases for SEO. Our team of experienced professionals can help you craft compelling press releases that are within the recommended word count range while effectively conveying your key messages. We specialize in creating engaging content that captures attention and maximizes the chances of your press release being noticed by journalists and media outlets.

Focus on Newsworthy Information 

Media outlets are primarily interested in publishing press releases that contain genuinely newsworthy information. While it’s natural to want to promote your brand or product, ensure that your press release delivers valuable insights, updates, or announcements to readers. Include pertinent details such as key milestones, industry trends, upcoming events, or significant achievements. This approach increases the chances of your press release being considered relevant and valuable to the target audience, improving its prospects for publication. 

Added Value for Readers: When your press release provides valuable insights or updates, it becomes more than just a promotional piece. It offers useful information, analysis, or news that can benefit readers and provide them with valuable content. By focusing on delivering such value, you establish your brand or organization as a credible source of information, which can further attract media interest.

Establishing Thought Leadership: Including insights, trends, or analysis in your press release positions your brand or organization as a thought leader in the industry. This can pique the interest of journalists and media outlets seeking expert opinions or industry perspectives. By showcasing your expertise, you increase the chances of your press release being seen as a valuable resource worth publishing.

Speak to and about your audience, not only your brand

Use Hyperlinks and Keywords Appropriately

One common mistake that people often make when writing a press release is overlinking. It’s important to strike the right balance between incorporating keywords and links for SEO purposes while avoiding the pitfalls of spammy practices. 

Overlinking can have negative consequences, as search engines may perceive it as spam. When links are excessive or irrelevant, search engines might disregard your efforts altogether, potentially impacting the visibility and effectiveness of your press release.

Use anchors relevant to your content;

Link only to relevant pages.

Our skilled team can help you identify the ideal keywords and relevant links that will enhance your press release’s SEO performance.

Uphold unwavering accuracy

Inaccuracies can seriously undermine the credibility of your press release. Always verify your facts and meticulously double-check your information before sending your release out into the world. 

Accuracy helps Establish Trust and Reliability: Accuracy forms the foundation of trust between you and your audience. When your press release contains accurate information, readers, journalists, and media outlets perceive it as reliable and trustworthy. This builds confidence in your brand or organization and enhances your reputation.

Protecting Your Brand Image: Inaccuracies in press releases can negatively impact your brand’s image and reputation. Journalists and readers expect accurate and reliable information, and any perceived inaccuracies can harm your credibility. By upholding accuracy, you demonstrate your commitment to delivering factual and trustworthy content, which enhances your brand’s image and integrity.

Highlight the key selling points of your Press release in a concise and impactful manner. 

Emphasize the main highlights of your press release in a succinct and impactful manner.

Identify what makes your story unique and differentiates it from others, such as a groundbreaking innovation, an exclusive interview, or a significant milestone. Make sure this distinctive aspect stands out.

Clearly communicate the benefits and value that your story brings to the intended audience.

Whether it’s a new product addressing a common problem or a charitable initiative making a positive impact, emphasize how your story can make a difference or provide solutions.

Incorporate quotes from key stakeholders or industry experts that support your key selling points. Quotes enhance credibility, offer additional perspectives, and make the story more engaging.

Provide supporting evidence or data to reinforce your key selling points, such as relevant statistics, research findings, or case studies. By presenting solid data, you strengthen your claims and enhance the persuasiveness of your story.

Add media elements associated with the story. This can be a photo report or the event’s poster, infographics, banners, promo photos, videos, and more.

Be Clear Why You are Sharing this News Now, Instead of Five Weeks Ago or Two Months From Now

Relevance to Current Events: Is your news connected to ongoing events or trends that are currently capturing public attention? Highlight how your story aligns with the present context to emphasize its timeliness.

Time-Sensitive Topics: If there are specific subjects or issues that require immediate attention or action, make sure to convey their urgency in your press release. This prompts media outlets to prioritize the dissemination of your news.

Leveraging Syndication Services and Publishing Outlets: Our syndication services and network of publishing outlets enable your press release to reach a wider audience across different locations. Emphasize that the goal is to have your news shared with the media, who can further distribute it to their clients in various locations.

Now, let’s cover the “don’ts,” highlighting the pitfalls to avoid when crafting your press release:

Steer Clear of Verbosity

Resist the temptation to be excessively wordy. Lengthy sentences and paragraphs can confuse and disengage your readers. Opt instead for concise and focused writing that delivers your message directly. Remember, brevity is the essence of wit!

Avoid excessive self-promotion

While it’s important to showcase your achievements, maintaining a balanced approach is key. Refrain from overwhelming self-promotion and instead focus on the value your story brings to your audience. Let your accomplishments shine naturally within the context of your press release.

Yes, the goal is to increase sales but be careful not to make it sound like a thinly veiled sales pitch.

Don’t bury the lead

The opening paragraph of your press release, known as the lead, should succinctly capture the most important information. Avoid using vague language or saving the key details for later in the release.

Avoid excessive jargon

While it’s essential to maintain a professional tone, excessive jargon or technical language can alienate readers who may not be familiar with the industry or topic. Keep your press release accessible and understandable by using clear and concise language. Explain any complex terms or acronyms that are necessary to understand the context.

Don’t overlook the target audience

Before writing your press release, consider who you are trying to reach and tailor the content accordingly. Personalizing your communication can significantly increase the chances of it being picked up and covered.

Avoid embellishments and hype

While it’s essential to present your news in a positive light, avoid exaggerations, unsupported claims, or overly promotional language. Journalists value accurate and unbiased information, so provide facts, data, and evidence to support your claims. Let the news speak for itself without resorting to hyperbole.

Don’t neglect proper formatting

A well-structured and visually appealing press release is more likely to grab attention. Use a clear and concise headline, subheadings to break up the content, and bullet points or numbered lists for key information. Include relevant contact information, such as a media contact or spokesperson, at the end of the release.

Avoid neglecting proofreading and editing

Errors in grammar, spelling, or formatting can diminish the credibility of your press release. Always proofread your content thoroughly before distributing it. Consider having someone else review it as well to catch any overlooked mistakes. Presenting a polished and error-free press release demonstrates professionalism and attention to detail.

Don’t forget the call to action

A press release should prompt the reader to take action or seek additional information. Clearly state what you want the audience to do next, whether it’s visiting a website, contacting a representative, attending an event, or scheduling an interview. Including a call to action increases the likelihood of a desired response.

Conclusion 

Adhering to specific guidelines when crafting press releases is crucial for success. By maintaining a third-person perspective, crafting concise titles, sticking to word count limits, and focusing on newsworthy information, you can maximize your chances of securing publication and effectively conveying your message.

Writing a Press Release for SEO

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Writing a Press Release for SEO
Press Release SEO Part 2 Of 3

Crafting Search Engine Optimized Press Releases

Hey everyone, Chaz and the Web 20 team here and I wanted to share with you the basics of press releases and how to create a search engine optimized press release.

Learn How To Write The Best Press Release For News Pick-Up And SEO

But First, Let’s Talk About The Basics Of A Press Release

Imagine you want a friend of yours to come and visit you, but you don’t provide them with any details on how to find you, including your address. It would be pretty hard for your friend to find out this information in order to come and see you, and it is much the same for press releases.

When sending your release for distribution, you want to give as much information as possible so that your target audience and potential customers know how to contact you.

You’ll want to include a headline, summary, and beginning paragraph for starters. This will help you to make the best possible first impression with your readers.

Creating Search Engine Optimized Press Releases


The Headline

When you write a press release, you’ll want to make sure that you’re getting across the right message and information to your target audience. Remember, you’re writing a press release, NOT a sales letter.

You’ll need to create a headline that announces the news that you want to share, like a new location or service. Think about headlines in a newspaper.

You want something that is going to catch the eye of your readers, but something that is also new and newsworthy. A good rule of thumb for creating a headline is to use an active verb.


The Summary

This is perhaps the easiest part of the entire press release writing process.

Your summary should be no more than a paragraph, and should give readers a brief description of the content to follow.

You don’t want your summary to mimic your first paragraph, as audiences can quickly lose interest if they believe you’re being repetitive.

Think about the back cover or inside flap of your favorite book. In most cases, these areas give you just enough information to be interested in what you are about to read, while not giving away the entire story.


Location And Introduction

There is no point reading a press release for a lawn care company in New York if you live in Oregon. That means you’ll want to include a dateline consisting of the city, state, and the issuing date of the press release in the first line of your copy.

You will then follow this with the introduction of your announcement.

Following this, the first paragraph of your release should provide your readers with information and answers to the 5W1H rule of writing: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. And it goes without saying that you’ll want to provide these answers in a way that grabs their attention.

Of course, your introduction should be different from your summary. This paragraph should be the highlights of your release so that your target audience can understand the message of your release by only reading the first few sentences.


Third Person Point Of View

First person language is generally used with calls to action and sales letters, whereas the third person is a great way to give an outside perspective on the events in question.

Think again of newspapers and magazines. Oftentimes, you don’t even know the writer until you’ve gotten to the end of the article.

Your release shouldn’t sound like you telling your readers about your company and news, it should sound like a journalist reporting the facts. Of course, there is an exception to this rule when speaking of the quotation paragraph of your press release.

If you are quoting someone the company, a partner, or a customer, it is perfectly acceptable to use first person language.


The Boilerplate

If your press release is all about the newsworthy thing that your company is doing, readers might start to wonder what it is that your company does, or what they are known for most in their industry.

This is where the boilerplate comes in handy. This short paragraph, usually the last of the release, is where you will write information about your company or organization.

Here you will add some details about your company’s background, and you may choose to use a subheading like, “About (Company Name)” in order to separate this piece from the body of the release in order to help readers easily locate this information.

It is important that you provide your target audience with a company name, phone number, and email address. This just makes it that much easier for potential customers who are interested in your products or services to contact you. This also helps you to gain authority. Now that you know how to write your own press release, you can begin learning how to write your release for maximum exposure.

SEO Tactics

If you are interested in writing a press release for SEO value, and you should be, you’ll want to start by understanding the basis of SEO tactics.


Choice In Keywords

When you choose your keywords, you’ll want to choose ones that people will search for fairly regularly. By doing this, you can start to rank your content for particular keywords.

Here you might want to use our favorite free tool, Google Keyword Planner, in order to look for the search volume of your keywords. You can also do some research on whether you should use short-tailed or long-tailed keywords for your own release in order to get the best results.

Now that you have your keywords, you’ll want to include them in your headline, summary, and core content.

Be careful of Google’s penalties, which you can incur by using too many keywords. By using LSI keywords, or keywords similar to your main keywords, you can vary the usage in your content and avoid Google penalties. To get more LSI keywords, try using LSIGraph.


Google’s Penalties

Google penalizes those who practice keyword stuffing in order to manipulate the search engines and get ranked. Google also penalizes links that are not of benefit to your readers.

This means you’ll want to create a unique release with both content and links that are beneficial to your readers, as well as to Google and other search engines.

But there is another way to avoid Google’s penalties.

Try to include no-follow links in your press release. When you add these links, you are telling Google bots not to count those links.

This can help you to avoid penalties while still getting valuable referral traffic from the links in your press release.


Asking Questions

Press releases are all about announcing news, so you shouldn’t ask any questions in your release. Your message should always come across clear and concise.

Your target audience is interested in learning more about you and your company, not being asked a bunch of questions that require them to think of solutions.

Your job as a business owner when writing your press release should be to offer your customers solutions and products that make life easier for them.

Press Release Writing Styles

Just as press releases have evolved with the invention of the internet, press release writing styles have evolved as well.

Press releases, which were once filled with only the facts, are now written more as articles, and many less than newsworthy. Businesses are now sending press releases for distribution that are full of promotional content and chocked full of keywords and hyperlinks in order to affiliate sites and other networks that can manipulate bots in order to have their content appear in search engines.

Of course this isn’t what you want, because your press release will be rejected by most media outlets, which is a loss of money for your company.

There are 5 main types of press releases that work well for businesses, each of which should be considered when writing your own release for distribution.


General News Press Release

This release doesn’t really include any news, but is written in a newsworthy manner with a powerful headline to grab the attention of your readers. This release should announce something new or updated that is happening in your company.


Launching Press Release

If your company is working on a project or service that is nearly completed, it is a great idea to create a press release announcing the launch of this. This is the most common form of press release for companies, and is a great way to get the word out to your target audience.


Staff Announcement Press Release

Whether you want to talk about the growth of your company or the addition of a new key staff member, this is the way to do so.


Event Press Release

A press release will help you gain more exposure for your upcoming event by getting the news out to your target audience. If you have a powerful standing in social media, you might not see much value in this form of press release. However, if you are a small company or a startup without much exposure, this is a great way to increase the amount of consumers that your news will reach, and even help you to grow that social media following a little more.


Product Press Release

Every business has products and services to sell, or else they wouldn’t be a business! Rather than announcing a new product or service itself, you can use this release to highlight something that your company offers already.

For instance, if you are a lawn care company who offers snow removal, you might consider a press release in the winter highlighting this service to consumers who need it.

You can use this form of a press release to go into detail about a specific product or service, but keep in mind that your release should be written more like news, not a sales letter or advertisement.

Benefits of Press Releases


Exposure

A properly written press release will get your company more exposure, helping you to increase your traffic.


Flexible

You can have press releases written and distributed once a month or several times a month, depending on your company’s needs and your budget.

Press releases are recommended to be distributed quarterly for most companies in order to keep your business relevant with Google and other search engines.


Easy To Create

Your press releases can even be more or less about the same thing. For instance, you can create a press release for the pre-launch, launch, and post-launch of a new product.


Fast Results

Within a short frame of time, you should begin to see positive effects from your press release distributions.

In some cases, you may want to increase traffic suddenly, which can be done by creating several releases on the same subject but with different approaches to the topic.



At the end of the day, you need a press release that is SEO friendly, can reach your target audience, and help you get your site ranked with the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages).

If you spend just a little more time on the optimization of your press release, you’re going to see positive results in traffic and publicity.

You’re probably thinking that this sounds like a lot of work, but in many cases, you don’t even need to write your release yourself! There are a number of inexpensive press release services offered by SEO companies, many of which include both writing and distribution.

Benefits of Press Releases


Google is always getting smarter, and it can be difficult to get every press release into Google News. You should verify sensitive topics not covered by Google News in order to increase your chances of seeing your release make the cut.

If you’re new to press releases, you’re probably thinking about going with either a free or relatively cheap service, or some of the most expensive (and theoretically most effective) distribution services on the market.

But there is a better way. With free services, you don’t know where your press release is going to end up once distributed. With the expensive services, you often know where your release will appear, although you won’t really be leaving any additional room in your marketing budget.

Mid-level press release services will often give you the best opportunity to have your news picked up by premium news sites, including Google News, without busting through your entire budget. And unlike their cheaper counterparts, these services will give you a full report on your press release syndication, including a list of your live links so that you can actually view the sources that have picked up your press release.

Find yourself an expert press release syndication service with a great price tag and start seeing for yourself the benefit of press releases in your marketing strategy.




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