Press Releases for Web Site Promotion

Have you thought of using press releases to promote your web site or business? Many small business owners have but are not quite sure how to go about it. Press releases are tools like any other marketing tactic and can be useful in a variety of ways based on your objectives. Here are a few things to consider regarding press releases: 1. Write the release with keywords in mind - similar to an optimized web page. Use the most important keywords first in the title and 3-5 times in the body copy. Focus on no more than 1-2 keyword phrases. 2. Distribute the release through a wire service like PRWeb.com, PR.com, PR Newswire or Business Wire. 3. Research publications/journalists and blogs that might be interested in your news and send them a short summary of the news via email with a link to the full press release. You can use resources like www.woodenhorsepub.com and www.bacons.com for journalists and editorial calendars. Use Technorati Profile and blogsearch.google.com for blogs. 4. Encourage distribution and syndication of the release content via RSS. 5. Embed tracking ids in urls within the release and/or use a landing page to determine your success metrics. 6. Monitor pickups of the release with Google News Alerts, Yahoo Alerts and RSS feeds from blog search engines. When bloggers post about your release, be sure to comment. Here's an article that may be of use in case you want to write, distribute and promote the release yourself: "Lowdown on Press Release Optimization".