How to Boost Local SEO Using Press Releases
Do you want to use press releases to build top-quality links for your brick-and-mortar business? Read on to discover the simple steps you can take to boost your local SEO with press releases.
Press releases are a great tactic for boosting your local SEO. All you need to do is to write a press release, put in links to your website, hire the service of a press release distribution service, and get approved. Once approved, watch how the press release improves your search engine rankings and how other legitimate websites post your press release with links to your website.
Incorporating a great press release strategy into your SEO activities can help you outrank your competitors on Google My Business. As a business owner, your business needs to be discovered in voice search results; this can be achieved by optimizing your business for Google My Business. Here is where a press release comes in.
Importance of Press Release Distribution
In case you’re wondering about the connection between press releases and SEO, press releases help businesses to get media coverage and also provide numerous SEO benefits.
Here are some benefits of press releases:
Press releases attract new customers
Today’s online press releases have created a new audience that you can write for (apart from the media). The majority of the new audiences that you’re writing for comprise your potential customers. So, it is important to consider your customers when you’re writing your press releases.
Press releases increase visibility and help businesses to earn customers’ trust
As the number of people that read about your business increases, the more the people that know more about your business. Press releases can help you build authority by motivating media houses to cover your brand story; thereby encouraging prospective customers to buy from you and create more awareness about your product or service.
Press releases boost sales
When you build your marketing strategy on press releases, you can use your website’s credibility, authority, and likeability to inspire prospective customers to buy from you. You are likely to notice an increase in your sales when you use a press release to promote the launching of your new product or service (even if your goal is not to increase sales).
Press releases improve SEO efforts
When your press releases are published by many media outlets, valuable backlinks will be generated to your website. This can help in increasing your website’s visibility and also making your content discoverable on the internet.
Press releases portray you as an authority in your industry
Press releases help you to build trust and credibility in your niche. Launching a great press release campaign will allow you to brand yourself as an industry expert and outline the uniqueness and benefits of your products and services.
Components of a Good Press Release
Irrespective of your industry or the type of business you run, your press release must include the following elements if you want it to improve your local SEO:
Headline
When you are writing a press release, it is important to pass across the right message to your readers early in the content. Don’t forget that your press release must be easy to read and should not exceed 400 words.
Hence, you need to have an engaging and attention-grabbing headline; this is the most important component of your press release. The best approach is to use active verbs in your headline.
Summary
This is an easy component of your press release. The role of the summary is to give readers a brief description of what the press release contains without talking about the whole story. All you need is to give brief information to capture their interest, so it shouldn’t exceed a paragraph.
Introduction
This is the first official paragraph of your press release and it must cover the “Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How” rule.
This component must showcase the main components of the story and must also give your readers a clear understanding of what your press release is all about.
Conclusion
The concluding paragraph is a short paragraph that comes at the end of your press release. The paragraph contains the essential details about your business’s background and the contact details that will make it easy for prospects to get in touch with your company.
How to Use a Press Release to Improve Your Local SEO
Set up your Google My Business Profile page
When you want to use SEO to enhance your business’s growth, you are most likely to focus on using content writing and keyword optimization to rank your website in Google’s SERP. This is similar to Google My Business. However, you need a Google My Business Profile page to rank for keywords such as “chiropractors near me.”
When you search for this keyword on Google, you will find a big map (at the upper side of the screen) with the information of the business. The information includes the name, address, website, phone number, and customer reviews. The information will be picked from the business’s Google My Business Profile page.
Hence, if you have not set up your Google My Business page, you are hindering yourself from getting in front of your customers.
The Google My Business page is also important for your press release distribution.
Include relevant keywords
It is important to associate your press release with a specific area. You ensure you include relevant keywords such as “Chiropractors in Dallas” in your press releases. Let the search engines know the area that you want to dominate with your business. However, don’t make it spammy.
Although there is no simple ratio that the keywords should be. However, if you are writing a 300-word press release, mention your primary keyword about 3 to 4 times.
Also, you can use LSI Graph to find and incorporate keywords that relate to your main keyword. This will have a positive impact on your SEO. It will also suggest other strategies that keywords that are connected to your primary keyword.
Citation
Press releases play a significant role in citation (an important ranking factor for local SEO). A citation refers to the mention of your NAP (i.e. Name, Address, and Phone Number) on another site. It is a signal that allows Google to know that your information is credible and correct.
When your citation is posted on links from other relevant and authority websites, it will improve your website SEO and will also make Google’s local ranking algorithm favor your website. This implies that while it is important to have an optimized Google My Business page and citations, you also need to focus on getting quality and relevant links.
This requires you to invest some effort because it is not always an easy process. However, you can achieve it by distributing your press releases to credible outlets such as Yahoo and Reuters with your NAP information.
So include your contact information in your press releases and ensure your NAP information is consistent with what you have on all web pages that have the contact information of your business.
Embed a Google Map in your press releases
If you want to use press releases to boost your rankings and your local SEO outcome, you need to embed a Google Map in your press release. So you need to consider this when looking for a press release service.
Embedding a Google Map in your press release offers some benefits; it convinces the local search algorithms of the increased prominence of your business when it is mentioned on authority news websites. It also links to your Google Map listings ethically and drives more targeted traffic to your map profile.
Create more awareness for your press release
After publishing your press release, you also need to maximize the ROI of your press release. You need to look for ways through which you can drive your audience’s attention to your content and get other relevant and authority websites to talk about you and also link to your website.
You can do this by sharing a press release about a recent discount that you are offering in your business. As more people keep sharing and liking your content, Google will see it as a positive signal and will improve the rankings of your press release and your website.
Tools You Can Use to Create SEO-Rich Press Releases
HARO
If you are interested in media coverage opportunities, then you need to consider using HARO. HARO is an acronym for “Help a Reporter Out.” It helps journalists to meet deadlines (by connecting them with useful sources) and enables businesses to tell their stories effectively.
SEMrush
This is one of the best tools for conducting keyword research. It is also loved by public relations professionals because it helps to analyze rankings, backlink profiles, and ad content. It also helps in tracking the activities of competitors.
SEMrush helps you to see how your website ranks for keywords and how they perform compared to the keywords your competitors use. The tool also helps you to assess your SEO strategy and directs you on what to do to get more traffic to your website.
Moz
You can use the Moz dashboard to track, measure, and enhance the onsite and offsite SEO of your website so that it can be more visible online. The tool also has a comprehensive collection of free and premium SEO tools that you can use to enhance your website’s SEO. These include:
Moz Keyword Explorer
This is a research tool that provides suggestions, updated search volume data, and SERP features.
MozPro
This helps with SEO site crawl checkups. It also helps in tracking competitors, page rank, and SERP features.
MozBar
This free Google Chrome extension provides metrics that you can use to improve your website’s local SEO.
LexisNexis Newsdesk
LexisNexis Newsdesk is a premiere media monitoring tool that gives businesses (such as legal professionals, corporate communications, and marketing brands) a detailed view of news and insights that are relevant to their industries.
You can use this tool to track important events that can impact your company, create reports using sentiment, SOV, geolocation, and also share useful market intelligence data across your organization.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs helps you to watch specified domains for changes in certain metrics such as crawability, accessibility, metadata violations, and the number of keywords that your domain ranks for. The tool can alert you daily, weekly, or monthly through email for the status of your backlink and the overall health of your domain.
Are Press Releases Effective for SEO?
When you implement press releases correctly, they are effective for SEO. Despite the belief of some people that press releases are obsolete, the fact is that a press release is an important tool for public relations experts. It is a cost-effective option that businesses can use to boost their local SEO instead of investing in paid adverts.
However, when you want to enhance your brand’s reputation through media coverage, you may not get the results you want by writing a press release. You need lots of skill, patience, and creativity to perfect your SEO strategy. The SEO strategies about press releases that were discussed earlier will help in improving the performance of your content on the internet.
Always ensure you consider the needs of your readers while creating your content, and you will get the results you desire from whatever you publish.
Wrapping Up
I have just walked you through how you can boost your local SEO using press releases, as well as the tools you can use to create SEO-friendly press releases. Through the techniques and tips in this post, you can transform your brand’s story into a message that reaches a wider audience and improves your business’s conversion.
You need to be focused and must also be consistent if you want to maximize the ability of press releases to boost your SEO. It is also important to send press releases the right way and here’s a recap of what you need to focus on:
- Include industry-specific, area-specific, and LSI keywords.
- Use your primary keywords as anchor texts that redirect readers to your website.
- Include your name, address, and phone number in your press release, and ensure they are consistent.
- Use a press release service that allows you to embed Google Map in your press release.
- Drive attention to your press release, and
- Monitor your target keywords to analyze your results.