Optimizing Press Releases for SEO: Add to the power of media

For the past few years, Press Release has steadily evolved as an effective tool for distributing content to the media and consumers. Not only does Press Release prove to be a “direct–to-consumer” communication tool, it can also be easily syndicated creating an excellent opportunity to attract incoming links. Press release not only promotes your company/brand but raises your online profile as well. It increases targeted traffic by helping with your SEO - gaining visibility in the web search results and the news search results and boosting your own site's rankings by building quality back links. When preparing press releases for online distribution, there are a number of factors that should be addressed with regards to search engine optimization.

• Write a sententious (80 character or less,) descriptive headline that includes important keywords. Utilizing important keywords in the headline and throughout the message reinforces the relevance of your message for those important terms.

• Furnish detailed contact information including your website’s URL. If you are hosting the Press Release on your site try to optimize the URLs to be search engine friendly and consider incorporating keywords within the URL

• Use the jargon or the language your audience use when searching for or discussing topics related to your product or industry.

• Link your strategically important keywords to relevant pages on your site, preferably to deep pages rather than the homepage. If they don’t exist, create appropriate landing pages and place content on them that is specifically relevant to the keywords

• Consider using blended search wherein you can include an optimized image with your press release

• Add a link and RSS feed to a del.icio.us page containing relevant historical, trend, market, product and competitive content sources. Keep it up-to-date so that it continues to be a resource to the people who subscribe to this content source.

• Insert a syndication call-to-action (e.g. "News Releases" RSS feed)

• Include a multimedia call-to-action (e.g. "download white paper", webinars)

• Add an audio link such as a podcast or a product announcement into your press release. There are several audio aggregators on the web which spider audio-links and make them keyword searchable.

• Choose a newswire which will allow external multimedia content hosting. For example, YouTube for video or Flickr for photos. These sites are spidered by the major search engines.

Remember that SEO is really the art and science of being found by your audience. Optimize your Press Release and measure how successful your release has been; not only by how much was written about it, but also how well it ranked in the search engines and how well it drove traffic, sales, or other actions from online visitors to your website.

Mastering the Art of Proofreading

Why proofread?

After putting in effort, you would expect maximum readership for your written document. Does that always happen? Well, the answer is sadly NO! And many times well-crafted content and elevated ideas experience oblivion and neglect. The reason is that we often load our documents with sublime ideas to make it grand but forget the basic elements of comprehension - grammar and vocabulary.

A technique that can be really helpful in overcoming this readership challenge is proofreading. Unfortunately, most people find proofreading to be either a job of low order or one too difficult, to leverage its full potential.

Discussed here are best practices which can be instrumental in helping you master the art of proofreading.

Best Proofreading Practices:

• Step- by- Step approach: Don’t try to cover the entire distance with one giant leap. Break the paragraph into independent sentences and analyze them separately for small but critical errors. Modular approach towards proofreading can be effective in comparison to reading the entire paragraph at one go.
• A focused approach: A focused approach of looking at one kind of error at a single point of time is helpful in proofreading. Scan the document first for spelling errors, then punctuation errors, and so on rather than indulging in a simultaneous review of things.
• Backward Reading: Backward reading might sound claptrap but it helps in removing the focus from content flow to surface elements of grammar and vocabulary. Read the last sentence of the page first and then move upwards to discover small but significant errors like inappropriate usage of punctuation, inconsistency of plurals or tense, and rest of the ilk.
• Avoid Spell-Checkers: You may have been wowed by the automation of manual tasks but remember that spell checkers are software programs with limited dictionary, capability, and intelligence. For example, both words “effect” and “affect” would be right according to spell-checker but choosing the relevant word for a sentence is something which the automated software cannot make. Thus, intervention of human mind is required for better proofreading results.
• Overcoming personal loopholes: We all know that to ‘err is human’. You too may have your own restrictions in terms of punctuation or spelling. Instead of glossing over your drawbacks, take out extra time exclusively for your shortcomings; scan the document particularly for your often committed errors so that the final document is error-free.

Writing involves passion; proofreading demands precision. It is only when writing is followed by proofreading that a piece of document becomes publishable. Mastering the art of proofreading is not a herculean task; it’s all about a structured and disciplined approach.