From Brad Shorr of Word Sell, “Don’t Forget SEO When Writing an Online Press Release“:

Online press releases are a fabulous way to promote your own business as well as clients. In the b2b space where I spend most of my time, they are underutilized. Furthermore, many of the releases that are distributed are poorly optimized for search, making them far less effective than they could easily be. Here are some quick tips for giving your online press release a little SEO punch.

• Use primary keyword phrase in the title, and early in the title whenever possible.
• Repeat the primary keyword phrases two or three times in the body of the press release. Too many repetitions can be interpreted as spam by search engines.
• Repeat a secondary keyword phrase two or three times in the body of the press release as well, if you have one.
• Write out industry specific terms in full. For instance, if I’m writing a release for a packaging firm that is promoting a new type of shipping container, I’ll want to refer to the products as “shipping boxes” or “multiple depth shipping boxes” rather than “boxes”. The latter term is too broad, whereas the former two might well be search terms used by packaging engineers and designers.
• If you have the option, customize your press release URL to include primary keywords. PRWeb allows this with an upgraded release, and it is well worth the cost.
• When linking to your featured landing page(s) from the press release, use primary or secondary keyword phrases in the anchor text of the link. For instance, taking the earlier example, “Learn more about multiple depth shipping boxes from ABC Company” has more SEO impact than “Visit the ABC website.”
• When using images, use keywords in the captions and ALT Text.

Many of these SEO techniques enhance the press release’s appeal to readers by making the information contained therein more specific and precise. In addition, repeating key phrases helps readers to remember the key points and associate them with your company or the client.

Brad Shorr lives in the Chicago area and is president of Word Sell, Inc. He helps organizations strengthen their online presence with business blogs, as well as content strategy and SEO copywriting.

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SEO, or search engine optimization, is not a new tool, and certainly not a new topic on Public Relations Blogger, but it can be a new tool for many new bloggers, business owners, and website creators alike. SEO takes some time and effort, but it shortly becomes second nature in your normal blogging or website writing. Search engine optimization is essentially the use of keywords and phrases (hopefully related to your blog or company) that can help increase traffic. When search engines send out “spiders” that crawl the web and record, in a sense, the information on your website, having more keywords and phrases that web users search for can move your website up the search results, in turn brining more traffic to your site.

One vital thing, and perhaps the most effective way of gaining new traffic, is to pay particular attention to the long tail of the keyword curve. Every day, new searches that have never been searched before are made in Google, while simple keywords that are one or two words long are repeated many times. While it may seem illogical to aim for these new searches, it is rather the opposite. When a consumer searches for something like “shoes”, there is going to be an endless amount of results, and your website or blog can very easily get lost in the sea of options. In order to differentiate your blog or website, focus on the long tail of the keywords. The graph below from Elliance is a great visual to explain the concept of the long tail.

The chances of your site grabbing the attention of users from the head (or front) of the curve is less likely to occur than capturing those of the long tail. The majority (~74%) of the traffic that comes to this blog comes from search engines. More than 75% of that traffic comes from a term or keyword phrase that was only made once, a single search of a more descriptive phrase that would put them into the long tail. Without much effort, I gather a ton of traffic and potentially new readers by focusing on the long tail searches. Long tail phrases can also bring more than one visitor from search engines. For example, “new public relations tools to benefit your business” has brought more than two dozen visitors in the last two weeks, but it still only accounts for 1.4% of my traffic. In the last month alone, 1,244 searches brought this blog traffic.

Try out different phrases, use Google’s keyword tool to get ideas, and experiment; marketing and public relations is all about figuring out what works and what doesn’t. If this doesn’t work immediately, don’t give up; it may take time for the search engines to record your site’s data. Keep optimizing, pay attention to the long tail, and offer great content.

Any other tips for SEO and the long tail? Leave a comment!

Here are a few things I do to help my blog:

1.) I try to post daily. Not only does Google reward sites (and blogs) that post regularly, but readers may be more prone to suggest your blog to others when the content is consistently fresh and mildly interesting. This can help your blog’s overall success. Building readership in the beginning is a step all blogs go through, and though it takes time, keep at it.

2.) Participate in other blogs. This could include commenting on posts (after you’ve actually read them, mind you). Rather than simply posting a two word sentence or congratulatory phrase, like “great post”, think about your comment and if it will add any value to the post. If it won’t, don’t worry about posting. Rather, comment about it on your blog if you found it to be interesting. This is a way to contribute to the blog in your own way, on your own blog. Another means of participating is posting guest articles on other blogs. Most bloggers welcome, or should welcome, guest articles, so long as they are relevant and in-line with the rest of the blog. You should also consider adding guest bloggers to your own. A guest article gives readers a new voice to read, and may also provide your blog with some information you may not have considered posting before. Most guest bloggers will also link to the article they wrote for your blogging, bringing more readers your way.

3.) Use Twitter, Facebook, BusinessExchange, etc., to announce your posts. Though it may seem a little “salesy”, it can bring some traffic to your blog. What’s even better is when someone uses the “TweetThis” feature and shares your blog post with the rest of the world. (With applications like TweetDeck, which can update your MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter accounts at the same time, a “TweetThis” option can really increase your reach.) BusinessExchange is brought to us by Business Week; it is a beta site, but it seems to be a great resource already. You can share your articles there with other members of the site.

4.) Optimize you posts. Though search engine optimization (SEO) can be a difficult thing to master, let alone grasp, it is easy to learn how to add more ‘search engine’ power to your posts. I was referred to a quick, concise overview of SEO. You can find it here.