Press Release for SEO Purposes in 2024: How to Use It Right?

By Raj Vardhman

February 6, 2024

Putting out press releases for SEO has become an industry standard in recent years. However, since companies started abusing this short form by preferring backlink stuffing over text quality, the SEO effect of press releases has decreased dramatically.

That said, press releases are still a powerful SEO tool when used properly. Below, we explain why and review several tips and tricks to get the most out of them.

Keep on reading if you want to boost your traffic today!

Why Are Press Releases Still Relevant for SEO?

By avoiding strategies that no longer work, such as link stuffing, press release SEO can do wonders for your business since its main benefits are still yours for the taking. Let’s cover a few direct and indirect SEO benefits of a well-written press release.

1. You generate brand awareness

You can only attract customers that are aware of your business, and one way to do that is by having a reputable news distribution platform disseminate your press release.

Your media outreach will ultimately reach a broader audience that will navigate to your site to check out your products and services. Once there, chances are they will also consume your other posted content, such as your blog, and follow you on social media.

The goal is to have your name recognizable to the public and stay top-of-mind with subsequent press releases. That way, customers will mostly look for your solutions.

2. You help your content get discovered

Once your links are featured on reputable sites, Google will index your pages faster since it will quickly find your new links. You will also leverage the existing audience of other major sites that publish or talk about your press releases to gain exposure for your content.

However, to increase your chances of getting the right exposure at the right time, you have to find the best online destinations visited by your target group. The best way to do that is by using a PR syndication service puts out your press releases to wide audiences.

3. You get more backlinks and referral traffic

Every marketing expert is obsessed with getting as many backlinks as possible since they testify to your expertise and relevance. On top of that, they are the best way to boost your organic traffic since visitors will think they found your site on their own.

Once you start climbing the SERPs, you’ll also see a boost in referral traffic since visitors will start seeing the value in your content, products, and services. They may even share your content across other websites and social media platforms.

4. You build trust in your products and services

Concise and informative press releases researched and backed up by companies themselves nurture trust in whatever they offer to the public. After all, if they are perceived as thought leaders in the industry, customers will start taking their word for granted. Then, your new-gained credibility will start catching the attention of new visitors.

However, to maintain high trustworthiness, your press releases must be transparent about everything your business does, and you have to stay true to your promises.

Moreover, they are an excellent tool for protecting your new-found online reputation. If there’s a false review circulating on the internet that paints your business in a bad light, a well-worded press release denying the rumors does wonders to restore your standing.

Press Release SEO Best Practices

Since press releases are seen as unofficial endorsements of your brand, you must follow certain writing guidelines and practices to get the most out of them, especially if you are enhancing them with the latest SEO techniques before publishing.

1. Write a killer headline

Concise, catchy, and informative headlines attract readers to open and read through any online article (or at least skim through it). With the global attention span decrease brought on by today’s fast and busy living, consumers lack the patience to spend time reading, despite how good and helpful a piece of writing may be; videos are typically preferred.

Once you capture their attention, you can provide them with all the SEO goodies you want. But SEO is effective within the headline, too: you must include your main keyword and ensure it’s around 55-60 characters long to have it displayed properly in the SERPs.

2. Satisfy the user’s curiosity at the start

While your on-page SEO should be optimized across the page, the first 250 words are by far the most important since most readers won’t even go past them. Therefore, you should provide the main piece of information or answer the user’s query at the start.

Also, it makes it easier for Google to crawl through your page, identify and understand your press release’s contents, and provide an answer in the SERPs.

3. Don’t overdo it with the linking or the keywords

Too many interlinks hurt your content and SEO goals since stuffing a short press release with interlinks is considered a black hat SEO tactic that forces Google to take action and penalize your website by pushing any content you put out to the bottom.

That said, you should focus on a couple of high-authority pages that expand on your topic and provide a clear destination for your readers from the anchor phrase. You get two main benefits from this: your users will trust you more, and your release will rank better.

While SEO needs keywords, stuffing the text with them is another cardinal sin since it will lose its readability flow and will gain an AI-like quality. Try to use your main keyword at the start and end of the press release and add one more secondary phrase.

4. Have something important to say 

You must have something newsworthy to share with the public instead of reporting every mundane change that happens. Moreover, you must see and show the value of your story to the public—readers must feel like the time spent reading your press release is time spent wisely. Unless they can take something away, they won’t bother reading.

With that in mind, always strive to produce concise, informative, and interesting press releases and articles that can educate and/or entertain both the press and your audience, after which they will start relying on you to provide them with industry updates—free traffic, right? Also, don’t forget to answer the five Ws: what, who, where, when, and why.

The most impactful press releases you could release talk about topics such as:

• Special promotions and giveaways,
• Company achievements,
• Charitable initiatives,
• Awards ceremonies,
• Organizational changes,
• New product or feature launches,
• Other special events.

5. Add a compelling call to action

Last but not least, you must also interest readers in your business by offering them a way to engage with you or take any sort of action. The best place to put the CTA is after sharing your main news; you can do that via anchor text or graphics elements.

Bottom Line

Press releases can be a powerful tool for SEO when used correctly. If you apply our tips and tricks, your press releases will be informative and effective in improving your ranking and driving traffic to your business. Just ensure they are newsworthy, contain the relevant keywords, and are submitted to all relevant newswires and social media sites.