Why Press Releases Should Be Part of Your Content Marketing Strategy

If you’ve mastered the art of blogging, it’s time to add a new tool to your content marketing arsenal.

You may not have considered press releases as part of that strategy — after all, that falls more under PR, doesn’t it? But David Meerman Scott says that the lines between PR, marketing, and social media have blurred to the point of there being little distinction among the three. I digress.

Press releases are fantastic for several reasons:

1. They’re little injections of SEO;
2. They make you look important; and
3. They give journalists what they need to write about you.

Ignore Matt Cutts: Press Releases Boost Your Search Results

I was surprised to find that Matt Cutts, Search Quality evangelist at Google, said people shouldn’t expect press releases to benefit rankings on a Google forum. After all, I’ve been saying for years that press releases do help with SEO.

But then people proved him wrong. I did my own experiment too, and managed to move from position 11 to position 6 for the term “how to create a press release” when I put out a press release. It’s not an earth-shattering shift, but it did get me on Page 1. I digress again. Funny how easy that is to do.

My point here is: if you use keywords in your press release that you want people to find you for, it probably will help you rank higher for those keywords.

Why? There are dozens of sites that pick up a given release distributed through a service like PRWeb, all of which use those keywords, and all of which have a link back to your site.

And those backlinks are also key to your SEO boost. Google likes to see more links to your site in order to decide that it’s important enough to move up search engine results. It wants those sites to be relevant, with other content relating to what’s on your site.

When you use reputable press release distribution sites like PRWeb, the sites that your release is sent to tend to be on Google’s OK list.

Time to Toot Your Own Horn

There’s nothing wrong with making your business look important. After all, the more buzz there is, the more people feel you’re moving and shaking.

I tell clients to issue at least one press release a month. That way, they’re creating a steady flow of news that they can distribute online, publish to their News page, and post to their blog. Whether it’s a journalist or customer visiting the site or searching for the company, he should see plenty going on for your business.

Help a Journalist Out

Let me make one thing clear: while, yes, some people who pitch national journalists get media coverage, it’s like shooting for the moon for many small businesses. Imagine the sheer number of media pitches a Wall Street Journal writer gets in a given day.

How do you stand out from the noise?

I advise you to start locally if you’re clamoring to get in print (or digital print, as it were). Pitch your local newspaper and get coverage there.

Then move to the state level. Once you’ve gotten enough buzz to turn the heads of a major journalist, you’re ready.

A press release can give a journalist more meat to write about. It can tell her what your company does (in the About section) and provide details about your news.

When you pitch a journalist, just include the high level points of your news. I like to send three bullet points, then link to the online press release.  You also have to sell the journalist on why her readers care about your news.

As you can see, press releases serve multiple purposes, all tying back to your goal with content marketing, which should be to drive traffic to your site and establish you as an expert in your field.

Susan Payton is the President of Egg Marketing & Communications, an Internet marketing firm specializing in marketing communications, copywriting and blog posts. She’s also the founder of How to Create a Press Release, a free resource for business owners.

Susan has written three books: DIY Press Releases: Your Guide to Becoming Your Own PR Consultant, 101 Entrepreneur Tips and Internet Marketing Strategies for Entrepreneurs, and has blogged for several sites, including The Marketing Eggspert Blog, as well as CorpNet, Small Business Trends, and BizLaunch. Follow her on Twitter @eggmarketing.

Link Roundup

Each time I write a post, I collect the 10 best reads from around the web and share them with you here.

These posts focus on web-based solutions, online resources and up-to-date news for small businesses.

Enjoy!

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