The Power Of Press Releases

Publicity can be one of the most effective ways to raise the visibility of your business. When you manage to have your business or product / service featured in the mainstream media then you can be assured of increased visits to your website, or your phone ringing of the hook with new orders.

If you can get it right then free publicity can be of enormous benefit to small business owners.
The problem is many small business owners have tried to gain publicity in the past by sending press releases to media outlets with little success.

If you put yourself in the shoes of the media for a moment you can imagine what it would be like to have hundreds or even thousands of poorly written press releases land on your desk everyday. You need to have an exceptoinally good press release to get their ATTENTION.

Today with online technology though there are new doors open for small business owners. The press release you wrote that was ignored by mainstream media can become a valuable marketing tool online.

Lets first look at the structure of a good press release then I will tell you how to use it as an online marketing tool. First click here to download a copy of a recent press release I wrote for our business.

Notice firstly that the structure and appearance of the press release is very similar to a traditional press release. There are however a few key differences.

1/ Keywords – When doing an online press release the first thing you want to consider are the keywords that are important to you and your business. In this example my main keywords are ‘Attraction Marketing’ and secondary keywords are ‘Small Business’. So the first step is to get clear on what keywords are important for you.

2/ Place Keywords In Heading – Next you want to write a heading for your press release that includes your keywords. Notice that the first words in my heading are in fact my main keywords. This is important because search engines like Google will rank your press release based on these keywords and one of the first places they look is your headline.

3/ Place Keywords In Body – Next of course you want to ensure that you have your keywords threaded throughout your press release.

4/ State A Problem & Solution – The body of your press release then needs to state a specific problem that your TARGET MARKET faces, and how your product or service is the SOLUTION to that problem.

5/ Make It Newsworthy – If at all possible link your press release to current news. Notice this press release was written at the start of the global economic crisis and is linking to the likelyhood of a global recession. The more newsworthy you can make your press release the more likley it is to be picked up and published by different media outlets.

6/ Make An Offer – In your press release you want to make an IRRESISTIBLE OFFER. Have a call to action with some offer to attract people to your website where you can capture their contact details. When sending out press releases online you will find that not only will media outlets read the release but so to will people in your target market so create a compelling offer for them.

7/ Distribute Your Press Release Online – Today there are many online websites that you can distribute your press release through. The two main sites we use are Free Press Release and PR Web. Visit these sites, set up accounts and start distributing your press releases through them,
When you distribute your press release through these online sites a number of things happen. Firstly the press release gets quickly indexed into the search engines. Secondly it creates backlinks to your website. Importantly these online press release sites have high Google Page Ranks so the quality of the back link is very high. This pushes your website higher up in the search engine results.

The other benefit is that your press release will be picked up by numerous online media and news sites, as well as blogs and other content rich websites out on the net. The end result of all of this is it will drive more of your target market to your website ultimately attracting more clients to you.