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You do know Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is essential to generating significant exposure for your press release/news or announcement, right? Okay, just checking.

When it comes to building a strong search engine presence for your company or client’s news, optimization is key. Think of optimization as a ladder. The more optimized your release, the higher it will climb in the search engines.  Some other SEO optimization benefits:

• Potential to gain more media attention
• Generate more awareness about your brand or your client’s brand
• Drive traffic to your site (embed those links!)
• Position your brand or your client’s brand as subject matter experts

According to PR Web, estimates show that nearly 80 percent of Internet sessions begin with search. Here are some additional facts the site provides:

• 80 million people get their news online every day
• 100 million people use search engines every day
• 64% of journalists use Google or Yahoo! to follow the news

Although 80 million people are not going online to specifically search for your brand, this is still a significant amount of eyes that have the potential to see your news or announcement through the right optimization.

So, how do you optimize? Well, it doesn’t take an SEO rocket scientist. Just remember these tips:

• Keywords: Make sure you are creating great copy that is keyword rich. What are keywords? Keywords are popular search terms related to a product or service. By including popular searched terms in your copy, you increase the likelihood of your news being picked up by the search engine. Need help finding the keywords that work best for you? Try this free keyword finder tool from Google Adwords.
• Links: Links, links, links! What better way to drive traffic back to your site than to add or embed the site URL in your copy! Keyword rich links will improve the search engine ranking of your copy.  Tip within a tip: In the first tip about keywords, notice how I embedded the Google AdWords link into “free keyword finder” as oppose to just saying “click here” and embedding the link. Remember to include the http:// when putting a direct link in your copy. Without it, your link won’t click through.
• Online Press Room: If you don’t already have one, you should. An online press room is great for a number of reasons. It’s a great way to build a media library and house news about your company or your client’s company. It’s also a great way to leverage press release content on your company/client’s company’s site. This ultimately increases web site traffic and creates an additional page for search engines to crawl and index.
• SEO Tools: There are some great SEO tools online that will help you reach your desired optimization results. Seobook.com has compiled a great list of SEO tools. You can find a link to that list below.

o   Search Engine Optimization Tools

When writing a release, make sure you optimize the first 250 words as well as the headline. You want to give the reader a reason to read. In addition to newsworthy content that is written well, embedding links will keep the reader interested in your release longer.

Got any other tips? Feel free to share them!