Archive for July 16th, 2010

The Internet has changed the role of the release.  With sites like ThomasNet News as well as others, the press release can now reach customers and prospects directly bypassing the journalists.  The Internet has provided a channel that circumvents the media who were the gatekeepers of the past that determined what constituted the news and what they would publish to their readers. Now your prospects and customers choose what they are interested and what they will read. And you can deliver to them what they want.

News releases are also an important part of your online strategy.  Releases need to be carefully written. They need to be rich with keywords and phrases that are used by your customers and prospects. These keywords and phrases must be highly relevant to the content. Do not add keywords for the sake of having a lot of keywords. You want these releases not only to rank highly in searches on Google, Yahoo or Bing but you also want the release to read well. Remember, the news release represent you and your credibility to your market.  When placed on trusted news sites such as ThomasNet News, these releases can also appear on news portals such as Google News and Yahoo News.  This allows your release to reach prospects wherever they are and however they access news that interests them. Always add a URL back to your site on these releases. Preferably to a page that is directly related to the content of the release. Make it easy on your prospect. Lead them right to the page that provides the information they want.  You can use both your home page as well as a link to the internal page on your site, often called a ‘deep link’.  These links will allow the reader to easily navigate to the pages they want as well as provide you with search engine value.

These news releases should also be posted on your site.  For many companies it is often the only new content that is added from month to month.  These keyword rich documents will help your site be found on search engines.