Following these simple tips is the difference between a successful release that gets a reader's attention and a release that does nothing.
What to do
- Decide what your goal is. Are you trying to get visibility for your news, show up in Google search results for targeted keywords, or get the news out to social media?
- Think of your target market. Make sure your release provides information that is useful and that people care about. Too often a release is written about a website that offers dozens of services or products, and ends up all over the place. Concentrate on one specific service, product, or topic.
- Use headline keywords. Within the headline of your release, add a keyword phrase (3–4 words) you want to rank for. You want people to find your release on Google when they search for something relevant to your announcement.
- Ride trending topics. Where it fits, tie your release to a trending topic — Google loves anything trending. Use tools such as Google Trends to find them.
- Use multimedia. If you have images and video associated with the release, use them. A video will keep readers on your release longer.
- Respect the 5-second rule. The same rule that grabs a reader's attention on your website applies to your release. Your headline, summary, and opening sentence have to grab attention immediately.
- Write professionally. Whether you write it or hire a copywriter, make sure the release is professional. No one wants to read a spammy release full of exclamation points, slang, all-caps, or excessive hype.
- Use plain language. Don't limit your audience with technical jargon. Use words anyone will understand.
- Link to your website. Use hyperlinks on keywords (maximum one link per 100 words) that point back to a relevant part of your site. Don't put links in the headline or summary.
- Use every feature of your release. Make full use of what's available — images, logos, anchor links, social profiles, website URL, tags, and contact information.
- Tag it correctly. Tags categorize your release with simple keywords. Search engines, social bookmarking sites, and RSS feeds all rely on tags to find relevant content.
- Share, share, share. It's called a social media press release for a reason. Most people who submit a release never share it on their own networks. Add it to your website, send an email campaign linking to it, and post it to Facebook and Twitter. That's the difference between 30 pageviews and 5,000.
What not to do
- Don't use all capital letters. All-caps reads as shouting and looks spammy. Capitalize the first letter of each word in a title if you like, but never the whole thing.
- Don't write a long headline. Keep it under about 75 characters including spaces; Google only reads the first 60–65. Too-long headlines can keep you out of Google News and turn readers away.
- Don't put a URL in the headline. A full website URL in the headline reads as a sales pitch and can keep you off Google News and other sources.
- Don't skip targeted keyword phrases. Use a search term in your headline that your audience is likely to type, and repeat it in the summary and body. A title with no purpose means searchers won't find you.
- Don't write a long summary. Keep your summary to about 175 characters — it should be a short description of your story.
- Don't add the date and region to the body. The submission form already has fields for these; adding them to the body just duplicates the information.
- Don't lose focus. A release should focus on one specific topic so you can target your market with relevant keyword phrases.
- Don't use uneven spacing. Space your release evenly. Don't use forced line breaks or symbols to separate sections.
- Don't paste your boilerplate into the body. Add your About Us / boilerplate to the boilerplate field in your newsroom, not the body of the release itself.
- Don't over-link. Rule of thumb: one link per 100 words, and no more than six links across the entire release.
- Don't hyperlink the same URL repeatedly. Link your URL once. For additional links, use anchor links on targeted keywords instead.
Follow these tips and you'll reap the rewards of a social media press release that actually gets attention — and loads of traffic to your website.