Lots of digital media experts will lure companies and content creators with the promise of increasing their SEO (search engine optimization). Better search engine results = more clicks = more people coming to your release = more people coming to your site = increased traffic = increased business. It makes sense why some press release writers will seek out this expertise. However, knowing some of the main components of SEO will help you craft better releases that will get more views.
Important features to remember are:
- Structure the release with H1, H2 and H3 – Headers, Sub-headers, and highlights in bullets
- Keep the release concise
- Add relevant & optimized multimedia with alt-text and caption
- Write naturally with specific keywords, and avoid overusing jargons
- Link to relevant sites and further reading
The top 5 releases of July represent writing that takes note of the above standards to push themselves to the top of search engines.
1. Toshiba takes on the world’s smallest LiDAR – Improving the “Eyes” of Autonomous Driving
Toshiba’s release is an optimized release due to the clear and concise paragraphing. Releases featuring digestible, shorter paragraphs receive ranking points over large, blocky releases. Likewise, the release’s multimedia feature suitable captions. Accessibility is a key component of search engines.
2. Coway’s Award-Winning Airmega Air Purifiers Finally Come to Australia
Coway’s release makes reading easy. Bulleted lists and sub-headers guide the eye. Search engines reward this type of organization. If your release is simple to read, it will be more likely to rank higher in searches. To help guide readers to your main points, add 1 or 2 sub-headers in the release body to outline the main points in the paragraphs that follow. Split up key information into easily digestible bullets or lists to assist readers in the key takeaways.
3. President Director Sunarso Named as The Best ‘SME Banker of the Year’ by The Asset Triple A
Multimedia relevance is important to search engines. If your release doesn’t have a photo, find one. A self-created photo beats a stock photo every time. Be sure that your photo is clear but compressed. Photos of smaller file sizes allow for more speed, which search engines love. Including alt-text or captions with your multimedia will allow search engines to prioritize your release over those without them, so that everyone can interact with the page.
4. Thailand Uplifts Contemporary Cultural Crafts to the International Market with the Tribal Project
No matter what you do to try to trick the search engines, if your release doesn’t contain quality content (aka a quality story or good information), the ranking will quickly drop. This release utilizes a good story with key information and keywords of that information to help search engines connect it to readers searching for specific keywords. Note the keyword strings in the first paragraph that an engine could easily catch for similar keyword searches: “entrepreneurs”, “create added value”, “contemporary products”, “support”, and “contemporary design”.
5. Trip.com Group and Singapore Tourism Board strengthen collaboration to promote Singapore as a destination of choice
Like the Department of Cultural Promotion of Thailand, the Trip.com Group release focuses on common, natural language in their release that people using a search engine would naturally type into their computers. Along with this search engine optimizer, they have also included several links in the release, which will increase their relevance score. Search engines love a release with relevant links that help build the release’s authority.