SEO Myth: Press releases for SEO

I was reading The Crowded World of Press Release SEO by Greg Jarhoe and noticed something odd. He wrote, “It signals that adoption of the innovation called search engine promotion in 2004, press release optimization in 2005, and press release SEO in 2006 has moved from the early adopters to the early majority.”

Hm. Well, I was reading Eric Ward’s Web site in 1998 and asking him for advice in 1999 and doing my own press release optimization in 2000. I know I shared information on press release optimization at Spider-food’s SEO Forums as early as 2001 (although all the old posts from before 2004 are gone, lost in a database crash or something).

While I would hardly consider myself to be a press release writing professional, I know what the five Ws are and I do my best to make my press releases short, compelling, and informative. Your mileage may vary.

Press releases are one of the most abused forms of search spam today. Google news is loaded with press releases that are clearly intended to create Web copy, not draw media intention. There are still ways to work with press releases but while I have been contacted by reporters on various topics through the years, none of them have ever come to me because of a press release.

Press releases should be viewed as formal statements about something newsworthy and useful. Most SEO firms use press releases to “announce” stuff: rollouts, launches, milestones, and other boring and uninteresting non-events that aren’t worth even a glance at the headlines.

People do read press releases online. People will read just about anything online. If you want to create a sticky Web site, just post a new (original, unique) article every day for a year. You’ll have tons of repeat traffic because people get hooked on copy.

Press releases are no different in that respect. If you write good copy, if you write good press release copy, people will enjoy reading your press releases. But you have to have something to talk about. I’d love to publish a press release every month. I just don’t have enough going on in my life to justify that kind of exposure.

Online press release optimization is not about search engines. If you’re writing press releases for SEO, you’re wasting your time. You’re doing it wrong. You’re cutting your own throat. You’re spinning your wheels. You’re using press releases in the most INefficient way possible.

Online press release optimization needs to focus on three things: Presentation, position, and performance.

Press release presentation is the meat and bones of the optimization. If you don’t have a compelling topic you’d better make string beans sound like a world-class recipe. You have to write the most interesting, compelling copy you can. String beans will only be newsworthy if you show people there is a new angle to string beans. Announcing your new string bean label is not news.

Press release positioning is also critical. If you think all you have to do is submit a press release to eMediawire or PRWeb, get out of the press release business. Online press releases need to be showcased, highlighted, emphasized, and studded up with as much power-punching presentation as you can put into them. You don’t really believe editors and reporters are scouring your online press releases for news ideas, do you? Put your online press releases in front of the people who want the news, not the people who decide what the news stories of the day will be.

Press release performance should be measured and adjusted meticulously. If you’re only writing one press release, you have to follow the Poor Hunter’s Creed: when you are hunting with only one bullet, you take your best shot. Where online press releases are concerned you only get one shot. Once it goes up you’re done. You either accomplish something or you fail.

Most people fail.

If you’re really serious about publishing press releases, you need to be conveying new and unique information. You need to do it regularly. And you need to look for flaws and mistakes that you can learn from (because you’re making mistakes no matter how great you are). You should be constantly striving to improve your copy, your placement, and your performance.

Press releases may be fodder for search engine indexing, but so are blog posts, free distribution articles, and plain old static content you can throw up on your Web site. There is nothing magical about online press releases. You should be publishing them only if can identify a group of people who actually read that sort of stuff.

Your online press releases are a menu item. Today you’re serving blog posts. Tomorrow you’re serving press releases. There are Web sites that will take and republish your press releases (I have republished press releases myself). Be selective about whom you give your press releases to. But also respect the major players in whatever niche you target. Make sure all the right people get your press releases. Don’t expect anything to happen simply because you hit SEND in your email client. Live with the fact that not everyone will want to redistribute your copy for you (but keep in mind that compelling and interesting press releases tend be redistributed).

Online press releases provide you with one of the few true viral marketing tools you can use in Web content promotion. Social bookmarks, DIGGs, and Technorati rankings are not viral marketing. Viral marketing is all about getting people to pass on your copy for you. Viral marketing is not about links, it’s about copy. Viral marketing is not about buzz or exposure, it’s about someone handing another person your words and saying, “Read this. It’s good.”

There is no such thing as “press releases for SEO”. There are “press releases for search engines” but press releases for search engines are just spam. They’re useless, worthless, wastes of time. If you don’t envision a real person, in fact a key influencer, reading your press release, you don’t need to be writing it. You should only write press releases with a very specific human audience in mind.

Search engine optimization does not require “press releases for SEO”. Web site market absolutely requires “press releases for people”.

Online press releases are most effective when they are written without the search engines in mind. A search engine should only be given consideration after the press release has already been sent to other distribution points. The only time you should be thinking of how a search engine looks at a press release is when you put it up on your own site (after you have allowed other sites to share it first).

When that copy goes on your site, you can do anything you want to it: bold it, italicize it, embed links in it, put big ugly H1 headers in it, put your keywords in the title, etc. You’re good. The search engines love copy and they love to work with indicators of what the copy is relevant to.

But if you have only been working with online press releases since 2004, you’re way behind the curve. You need to be thinking about why “press releases for SEO” don’t work and why “press releases for people” do work.

You need to understand that some ideas stand the test of time very well. The press release is not dead, but neither is it a tool for SEO. Online press releases have never been effective tools for SEO.

If you believe you have realized tons of success by creating press releases for SEO, multiply those results by 10. That’s what you should have accomplished. That’s why you wasted your resources. You’re thinking small.

Don’t ever write a press release for SEO. That’s just shooting yourself in the head. In fact, you deserve to be shot in the head if you ever say “press release for SEO” again.

‘Nuff said.