Rafe Gomez is a principal at VC Inc. Marketing which provides SEO B2B lead generation, content marketing, and PR services to businesses across the U.S.
Sending out news releases using Vocus or PRWeb tools featuring news, updates, and developments about your company is a great way to build marketplace awareness of the solutions that you offer.
Implementing a search engine optimization plan that enhances your website content with the right keywords is a great way to attract business and potentially increase your company’s search rank.
Unfortunately, most companies don’t realize that if they combine these two tactics, they could make each of them even more valuable.
They could also achieve long lasting results that deliver measurable benefits with tremendous return on investment.
The merging of these two disciplines is sometimes called SEO public relations, or SEO PR for short.
SEO PR unites the craft of news release writing with the metrics of keyword research. It allows you to tell a compelling story that attracts immediate attention and creates clicks to your site both now and into the future.
Not only that, but your releases have the potential to become 24/7 siphoning machines that can – oh, let’s just say – “tap” your competition’s potential sales.
Here’s how to do it:
1. Write it.
The first step in building an optimized news release is to write your release. Focus on one single message that you’d like your readers to remember and keep your information simple, factual, and brief.
2. Research it.
Research the keywords that your customers would use when they’re looking to gain information about, or to buy, your products/services.
These “bling” keywords could be found organically by consulting with your sales team – especially the folks in the field – who would ask their clients the exact words, phrases, and strings that they type into a search field when they’re in buy mode (you could also ask your customers directly, if you work with them one-on-one).
3. Add bling.
Compile a list of the blingiest keywords – let’s call them your “uber-bling” keywords – and sprinkle them (where appropriate) throughout the body of your news releases.
You now have an online news release that can deliver value and benefits far beyond the usual news cycle of five to seven days that most news releases have. Your release will generate backlinks to your site from the sites that post the release and can potentially help to increase your search rank.
Your releases will also appear in listings when the uber-bling keywords that you’ve inserted are searched – which could potentially reroute traffic from your competitors’ websites (that happen to include the same uber-bling keywords in their site copy) directly to yours.
Clear, concise, and convincing news releases that feature information which is valuable to the marketplace can deliver huge benefits for your organization. When optimized with the right uber-bling keywords, these same releases can also turn your competition’s prospects into your customers.
Rafe’s work has been featured in a variety of media outlets, including Fox News Channel, MSNBC, PBS, Gawker, Brandweek, CBS Moneywatch, Adweek, the American Express OPEN Forum, FoxBusiness.com, Yahoo! Small Business, Entrepreneur Magazine, Direct Marketing News, and The New York Daily News. He recommends the Vocus Marketing Suite to all of his clients. Follow him @vcincmarketing
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