Let’s say you’ve finished writing your press release, and you’re ready to publish and send. You already focused on the key phrase you want to be found on search engines. You “peppered” those words into the content, the description, boilerplate, and inserted your chosen keywords near the top of the document where it counts the most, and applied all the SEO best practices you can muster onto this press release.
Now you’re ready to post that press release on the Internet, right?
You have 2 choices:
1. Save it as a .doc.
2. Save it as a PDF file.
You can then link it to your webpage somewhere. It’s fast, and it’s easy, but I don’t recommend just copying and pasting the press release contents onto your blog, although you can, and many choose to do it this way.
But there’s a third choice. It takes more time, but it’s worth it.
Blog Vs. Press Release
There are important steps to consider as to how you upload your press release to your website or post it anywhere on the web in a search engine “friendly” way. Remember the cardinal rule for what that means.
A blog that is human-friendly will be also SEO friendly. Search engines determine the quality of your content by the behavior of your audience.
The other choice is to not turn it into a PDF at all. Well, no, actually having a PDF or Word.doc version is great. Here’s why it shouldn’t be the only version. Write a blog about the press release itself, and use that to generate enough interest for the reader to then go ahead and click on that link taking them to the press release PDF or what have you.
To use an analogy, consider the blog version to be the cover letter that is meant to draw the recruiter’s interest enough to look at the resume (the actual press release).
Pique their interest first, so they actually READ your press release.
Conversational Tone Is Important
Here’s why blogs can be so powerful. If you’ve noticed one thing that all great blogs have in common is that they sound conversational, not stilted, or written in a dry, obtuse way. The press release just won’t cut it as a blog, because it’s only addressed to the news editor or reporter, not everyone.
You need a delivery method for your press release that is packaged for the lay audience or whomever you’re trying to reach.
You need something human to catch a human’s interest and deeper connection with your brand or the message you are putting out there. Using a conversational tone helps, and that makes the blog format perfectly suitable to be just that delivery device for your press release.
The Takeaway:
Once the content and the linking are done, upload it on the web just like it’s its own individual web page.
That means when uploading your press release, don’t just leave it as a PDF file. It’s ideal for the press release to become its own webpage on the organization’s website.
Search engines look for the site architecture, the content, and the linking. Having a “press releases” section on a navigation menu is a good idea.
Press releases should become their own individual HTML web page so that the search engines can attribute all of that content to a unique URL, title, and description.
