Here's how online media releases (press releases) help your search engine optimization program:
We just completed a project for Wild Apricot redeveloping and relaunching their Membership Management Software web site. As part of a larger search marketing program we planned and wrote a media release announcing the re-launch of their site. We planned and optimized the content and links in the release for their ideal key phrases and distributed it through PR Web.
The goal of a search optimized online media release is a little different from a traditional media release. Traditional releases are intended solely to get the attention of journalists who might be able to write or air a story related to the release. Internet distributed releases can do that, too, but are also intended to be indexed and rank in the popular online news search engines (Google News, Yahoo News) so that consumers searching for news on the topic will find and read the releases directly. The other benefit of online distributed releases - the benefit that helps your search engine optimization program - are the links generated from the release.
Online media releases are generally made available through RSS feeds. There are thousands of web sites that filter and re-publish these feeds on their web site, frequently with the original links intact.
At the highest level of payment through PR Web, it is possible to insert many links into the content and control the link anchor text of each link. If you have well defined key phrases for your search marketing program, this is an ideal opportunity to get links out there on the net that point back to your site with the words you choose.
The final release targeted several high value phrases. The most important phrases to our search optimization campaign, such as membership database management, event management, and association management were linked to appropriate sections of the site using the link anchor text we wanted.
The results? A quick search in Google for a unique phrase in the release shows 350+ pages displaying the press release. A few examples can be found here, here, and here.
