Tag Archives: social content optimization

How to Write Press Releases that Work

Posted on September 11, 2012 by | 5 Comments

Yesterday at the Ragan Communications Best Practices Summit, Ruth Sarfaty of Spark PR and I gave a presentation on the subject of press release best practices.  This particular discussion is one I have often, and the answer is ever-evolving.   I say “ever-evolving” because we operate in a fluid environment today.    The algorithms that dictate what we see in social networks and search engines can change dramatically day-to day,  rendering last week’s best practice a worthless tactic today.

“Releases have changed and so have we,” noted my co-presenter Ruth. “While press releases may be intended primarily for journalists, let’s not forget the long tail who tweet and retweet your news!”

Here is the most current iteration of my “best practices” deck, along with the case study Ruth presented of our work together on the study of press releases and social media we did with CrowdFactory.  It’s long and comprehensive.  I’m not going to re-type all the details here (you can easily access the whole thing via Slideshare, just click on the image at the top of this post) but a couple points are worth emphasizing.

Their house, their rules.

It’s important to remember a few things about the search engines and social networks that drive so much visibility for our messages today:

1) Google does not exist to promote your press releases.  Many people forget that the reason Google exists is to return a profit to their shareholders.  They do so by selling ads.  Those ads are effective because of the immense utility most of us derive from using Google to search for stuff.    It’s very important to Google that people find their search engine useful. Ergo, the best way to get visibility in Google? Publish useful and interesting stuff.

2) Social networks are social.  Not commercial. Not advertorial (for the most part.)  People go on to Facebook to hang out, for example.  Twitter, however, is often about the exchange of information, especially niche info and breaking news.   Point is, if your message doesn’t fit the context of why people are using a particular social network, you’ll have difficulty gaining traction there.  You’ve heard the adage “Horses for courses” – well, the same applies for content and social networks. Content that plays well on Facebook won’t necessarily work on LinkedIn.

A lot of time and energy is spent on the optimization of press releases.  Without a doubt, some of the best practices outlined in the deck above will help improve message visibility.  However, at the end of the day, the best way to ensure your message is to provide content that is interesting and useful to your audience.

Author  Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

Related reading:

4 Essential Tips for Writing Effective Press Release Headlines

Rethinking Press Release Tactics to Meet Evolving Audience Preferences

Press Releases Shared More on Facebook, But Twitter Drives 30 Percent More Views

Writing Press Releases that Get Results

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Google Webspam Update Means Opportunities for Great Content

Posted on April 25, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Google has started rolling out some of the algorithmic changes geared toward reducing the amount of webspam encountered by internet searchers.  Though this algo change will only affect about 3% of searches, and though the vast majority of press releases submitted to PR Newswire do not run afoul of the rules, there are still some key take-aways for PR from this change in search.

In a nutshell, what this means to the content creators and press release writers out there is that there is one set of rules for developing content. Worrying about keyword density and exact match anchor text links and packing page metadata with keyword have gone by the wayside into the dustbin of SEO history.  Instead, Google is advocating an approach that is heavily focused on providing value to your audience.  Google offers a succinct view on their Inside Search blog today (Another Step to Reward High Quality Sites):

“White hat” search engine optimizers often improve the usability of a site, help create great content, or make sites faster, which is good for both users and search engines. Good search engine optimization can also mean good marketing: thinking about creative ways to make a site more compelling, which can help with search engines as well as social media. The net result of making a great site is often greater awareness of that site on the web, which can translate into more people linking to or visiting a site.”

Professional communicators should be rubbing their hands in absolute glee. This is awesome news for the content creators amongst us, and the guidelines for success in search engines should look pretty familiar:

  • Listen to your audience. Know what’s on their minds and what challenges they are encountering.
  • Speak the language of your audience.  Kill the jargon.
  • Make being interesting and useful key goals for the content you develop. Does the content offer something that the reader can really use?

Watch for red flags and be demanding

If you’re the listener in chief for your brand or organization, it’s imperative that you share with your organization the intel you glean from social networks, web analytics and search results.  If the marketplace is clamoring for information and your organization is studiously silent on the subject, it’s time for a candid chat with the PR team, because chances are good that the silent treatment will eventually stop working. Likewise, if you wind up trying to use content to gloss over a bad product, it’s time to have a candid chat with the product team, using data and conversations from social channels to back up your point.  There’s only so much lipstick you can put on a pig, and let’s be realistic here – even if you do manage to wrassle a hog and keep it still long enough to actually apply the lipstick, the chances of the makeup lasting are nil.  This analogy, awkward as it is, holds true when it comes to trying to use content to mask larger, underlying business problems.   The glossy sheen of the content will soon wear thin.  This is nothing new.  The advent of social media has created an era of transparency unseen previously, and has brought the customer into many internal processes. With this change, Google is upping the same ante.

More changes are coming from Google.  The update announced today is not the “over-optimization” penalty.  However, the signals are clear.  Google is starting to do the same thing the millions of people populating social networks around the world have been doing for a while now: surfacing the most interesting content, which in effect rewards the creators of interesting and valuable information with increased visibility.

Related reading, if you’re interested:

SearchEngineLand: Google Launches Update Targeting Webspam In Search Results

SEO Round Table:  It’s Live: Google Over Optimization Algorithm (3% Of Searches Affected)

Beyond PR: What Google’s Over-Optimization Penalties Mean for PR

Modern PR: The Art & Science of Integrated Media Influence (white paper) – ideas, examples and advice for developing content (and the framework that supports its creation) that will have lasting traction with your audiences.

Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

Image courtesyof Flickr user Sean MacEntee.

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Public Relations – the SEO Weapon

Posted on February 29, 2012 by | Leave a comment

It’s been hard to miss the bevy of articles and blog posts (see below) over the last few years about how public relations is an integral, effective and (relatively) inexpensive means to augment a marketing or advertising campaign.  You can now add SEO to the list, as leading SEO blog SEOmoz ran an article offering 92(!) tips for getting press coverage, in which the SEO benefits of doing so are emphasized.

I’d like to drill into those benefits a little more, and explore exactly why coverage in media and credible blogs is important in today’s landscape; over and beyond the obvious benefits of building public awareness due to visibility in a publication or blog post.

Links: 

Any search engine optimization pro will tell you that inbound links are an important factor in getting search engines to put your web site on the first search results page. Simply put, if other authoritative web sites post relevant links to your web site (“relevant links” meaning that the content on both sites is strongly related), search engines will consider your site to be more credible, and chances are good that your site’s position in the rankings will improve.   And generating solid links from media web sites and blogs within your organization’s areas of interest is an important derivative from PR activities.  And if measurement is a challenge, talk to the people who handle the SEO and web marketing for your site.  Traffic from inbound links is very quantifiable, and could become an important new metric for your PR team.

Social amplification:

Here at PR Newswire, we’ve nicknamed the reverberations your brand generates when content earns attention in social networks your “social echo.”  That echo really starts to reverberate when a credible third party initiates the discussion, which is exactly what happens when you earn coverage for your organization on a media site or blog.   And while many of our bosses still desire coverage in the Wall St. Journal or New York Times, when you think about the focused audience an industry- or subject-specific site or blog has cultivated, and then you overlay that audiences’ influential collective social graph, well, in terms of digital impact, it’s fair to say that social conversations reach far beyond the social networks themselves.

The impact of social media on search:

A quick search of Google on almost any subject will most likely return results from a host of different web sites and social networks.  As the engines become better and better at delivering highly relevant and authoritative results, we’re seeing more and more links from discussion groups and forums, blogs (and their comments), and links shared within social networks.  Search engines are clearly giving the personal recommendations that are implied when people share links some weigh.  The relative size of an individual’s social graph may be included in the calculus, as well. For these reasons, many people – myself included – consider social media to be integral to a brand’s overall search engine visibility strategy.   Because PR is integral to a good social media campaign, in reality, the three are inextricably linked.

An excellent discussion on link building and the role social media plays from SearchEngineLand offers an array of tips for identifying the sort of connected and influential social audiences that are instrumental in developing more visibility – in search engines and in networks.

The power of earned media in digital environments is undeniable.  Links from third party sites boost search rankings, and social conversations build awareness and likewise populate the results search engines deliver.  Within these outcomes PR pros can find new opportunities to influence audiences and measure campaign results.

Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

Related reading:

A sampling of the aforementioned bevy of articles/posts about PR effectiveness versus other communications disciplines:

http://blog.prnewswire.com/2011/02/16/twitter-traditional-media-and-seo-the-power-triangle-for-pr/

http://timdyson.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/is-pr-more-effective-than-advertising/

http://marketography.com/2011/02/04/pr-is-the-new-ethos/

http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/pr-chiefs-shift-center-marketing-departments/139140/

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LinkedIn Unveils New Follow Company Features

Posted on February 27, 2012 by | Leave a comment

LinkedIn has embedded more opportunities for users to follow companies.

LinkedIn, the original (and still, many feel, consummate) professional social network, has slowly been making the site more conducive to communications from brands.  Long a recruiting and hiring powerhouse, LinkedIn has evolved into a powerful information hub.

However, brand voices have been muted until mid 2011, when LinkedIn enabled a raft of new tools for brands, including improved brand pages, and the ability for brands to issue updates to their followers.    This week, they’re going a step further, with a new set of options to “follow” companies on LinkedIn.

In addition to the “Follow” button appearing on company pages, LinkedIn is rolling out a new Follow button companies can embed on their web sites, and embedding the follow functionality throughout LinkedIn, including from company mentions in member profiles.

While the secret to brand success on LinkedIn, in my experience, still revolves around employee interaction and engagement on the network, the improved ‘follow’ functionality makes it easier for people to take the next step – if they’re so inclined – to follow a company that piques their interest.

As always, brands won’t be successful on LinkedIn in acquiring – or keeping – followers unless their interactions are genuine, useful and interesting.  But for savvy brands, LinkedIn’s new follower functions will result in potent user engagement among focused and relevant groups.

Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

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New Edition: Unlocking Social Media for PR

Posted on January 17, 2012 by | Leave a comment

We’ve updated “Unlocking Social Media for PR” with new information about LinkedIn and social content, we’ve made downloading the new version easy and seamless.

Download Unlocking Social Media for PR

We’re already working on the updates for the second quarter, which will dive into Google+ , the new analytics from Facebook and various other topics.   However, this seems like a good time to ask YOU what you’d like to see in the next edition.   Let us know in the comments below!

 

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Writing Press Releases that Don’t Sound Like Advertisements

Posted on December 21, 2011 by | 7 Comments

Today’s communications strategies hinge upon content, and the press release release is an important part of that content mix. However, to be successful, a content marketing strategy needs to serve the needs of the audience first. Traditionally, press releases have been geared toward telling an organization’s story. Can press releases be made to fit into the content marketing paradigm?

According to the members of the Public Relations Professionals on LinkedIn, the answer is a qualified “Yes,” depending upon how the press release is written. Tips sourced from the conversation include:

  • Plan for and encourage online visibility by using multimedia in press releases – a tactic that we know generates more views and wider sharing of messages.
  • Make the obligatory quote in the second paragraph really work. Instead of a canned quote in which the quoted exec notes how excited he or she is about whatever is being announced, use this space to address – and answer – key marketplace questions, or to clearly describe what is special about today’s news.
  • Instead of a press release, write the news story. Eliminate jargon and hyperbole, focus the message and substantiate the claims just as you would if you were submitting the final work to a ruthless news editor. Paying attention to the readability of the message is important and will produce a better final product.

To these tips I’d also add the imperative to write from the audience’s perspective – which (I will concede) is a little counter-intuitive when it comes to press releases. Here are some ways you to bring this important point of view into your writing:

  • Develop an ongoing understanding of what your customers and prospects are talking about online. Use frequently asked questions and unresolved marketplace issues to frame your communications, including press releases. Make the answer to a key question the focus of the announcement, not the fact that XYZ Co. is Today Announcing Something.
  • Highlight actual people – customers, production staff, design engineers – in your writing. Involving a variety of people will surface more stories and angles, and help you create content that resonates with your readers.
  • Speak in the language of your marketplace, not your marketing department. Present information and quantify data using metrics that are actually meaningful to the people you’re hoping to influence. You’ll need to do a little market research, but there’s no better way to give your content a boost than to ensure that it’s contextually relevant to your audience.

As you plan your next press release, try to incorporate a couple of these tactics. Pay attention to the results your press release generates – and look beyond simple page views as you do so. If you dig a little deeper into the results from your press releases, looking at the number of times the content was shared in social networks, and the number of people who clicked links embedded within the release, you’ll start to understand what sort of messages actually inspire your readers to action. That’s intel you can use to fine tune future press releases and improve their results.

Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR, which we’ve updated for 2012.

Image courtesy of Flickr user barto.

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Photo SEO: Use Photos to Multiply Your Search Effectiveness

Posted on December 7, 2011 by | 19 Comments

Images related to search terms are included in search results, and are visually appealing to searchers.

We know that multimedia content drives better press release results and in this post, we’re going to tackle photo optimization, and explain how photos can help you multiply your opportunity of getting your content displayed in Google search results.

Photos find their way into four of Google’s properties: universal search, news search, image search, and even Google Maps.

Images, search & buying behaviors

While most people rarely go to the second or third page of results when they do a text search on Google, the behavior is markedly different for image search.  Eight ‘pages’ worth of photos are displayed on the first page of results enabling searchers to go deeper and see significantly more results for their query.   Each ‘page’ has an average of 20 photos resulting in over 160 photos served up in the first set of results.  With a single click, 24 more ‘pages’ of search results are displayed.  If you follow some simple photo SEO tricks, you can easily increase the visibility of your photos.

Most users are browsing photos with intent; some are intending to buy a product, some are browsing for entertainment purposes and others are doing research. In terms of merchandising a product, the photo is a key way to catch someone’s attention and then make that person feel a sense of comfort – something that can help initiate a purchase.  Would you buy something on eBay if you didn’t see a picture?

How Photo SEO Works

Google’s search bots  see the HTML tags of the images including the image source markup (img src) and the ALT Tags.

Google then pulls the image, indexes it and classifies it.  Some of the classifications include:

  • Is it a photo?
  • Is it in color or black and white?
  • Is it a person?
  • Is it safe or should the safe search feature filter out the photo?

Google clusters duplicate and similar images like it does for text.  It then renders one of the images in the search results.

Optimize Your Photo

It should go without saying but quality is important.  The image should be clear and crisp and the content in the image should be engaging.  While cameras on mobile devices are getting better and better, you can’t beat an image from a properly set digital SLR camera.

In terms of image file formats, the most popular are JPEG (,jpg), PNG, and GIF.  Avoid obscure file type and those not optimized for web viewing.

Whenever possible, include a caption.  The caption should be descriptive and mention the 5 W’s you learned in grammar school: who, what, when, where and why.  Always put important keywords at the start of the caption and keep the entire caption less than 2,000 characters. You should use the same keywords in the name of your image as well (keyword-keyword-keyword.jpg).

Photos that are taken with most cameras have EXIF information embedded within the image including the camera manufacturer and model, the date and time the photo was taken, exposure settings, and even geo-location.  You can embed your own metadata in the photo’s IPTC and XMP fields by using one of the many free and paid applications out there, like PhotoShop.

There are conflicting accounts on whether Google actually looks at the information embedded inside the photo itself for indexing purposes however, it is prudent to embed the key information including the caption, location and photo credit in the image itself.  This will add context to photos that are found separate from their related content as well as enable the photographer to be identified which is important for rights purposes.

There are a number of measures you can take on your own website to ensure photos are optimized for search engines and user consumption.

To guarantee the webpage loads as fast as possible, you should resize the image to fit the size that will be displayed on screen, resizing the image at the time of the page loading will slow down the user experience.  While thumbnails will make pages load the fastest, you need to make sure people can see the image in a larger format. For best results, the image should enlarge to no bigger than the browser size.  Photos less than 60 pixels by 60 pixels and those that have crazy aspect ratios will most likely be passed over by the search engines.

You can increase the chance of pickup by search engines, by placing the image at the top of the page and as close to the headline as possible. At the very least, make sure the image is above the fold so users don’t have to scroll down for it.

The search engines will look at the content around your image to get a better understanding of what’s in the image so keep your image inline in your content.  The text around the image should be descriptive.  Always utilize the HTML ALT tag for the image and use a 3-4 word descriptive phrase for the image.

If you have an image gallery on your website, to increase the likelihood of Google finding your images, you should look at creating a Google image sitemap and a Google News image sitemap.

Author Dan Hennes is PR Newswire’s vice president of distribution products.

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More SEO tactics for PR: The keywords & content connection

Posted on November 23, 2011 by | 3 Comments

Improving the SEO of your PR or content marketing programs means getting organized.

Common press release SEO mistakes were the subject of my blog post yesterday, and in that post I paid a lot of attention to keywords (select search terms people use, not jargon) and linking (link from those carefully selected search terms, not throwaway words.)  Today we’re going to go a little further into content optimization, into the essential connection between keywords, content, and your web site’s SEO objectives, with the goal of incorporating your organization’s SEO strategies into your content marketing and PR plans.

This discussion is not about optimizing a press release for the press release’s sake.  Certainly, you can do that, and improve the visibility of a press release or other single piece of content.  But search engine optimization is really about improving the rank of a company’s web site (or, more specifically, a specific page on that web site) for search terms the company has targeted.   As developing content becomes more and more important to public relations, brand journalism and content marketing, we miss key opportunities to deliver real benefit in terms of search rank if we neglect to optimize the content we’re creating — and map it back via embedded links to relevant content on the web sites we’re promoting.  The good news is that a program in which content like press releases, white papers, case studies, articles, blog posts etc. is duly optimized and linked will pay dividends for both the PR department and the web site team.  As the company builds more authority for certain keywords, the visibility for discrete messages will improve.

Last Friday, Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz defined the importance and broke down the basics of mapping keywords back to web site content.  The blog post on SEOmoz titled “Mapping Keywords to Content for Maximum Impact” includes video, and is a must-watch.

In it, Fishkin offers some key tactics, which I’m going to ennummerate below, and to which I’ll add PR-specific advice.  The video in the link above is still worth watching, however!

  • Establish a full list of keywords – and the target URLs to which they should be linked.  Doing this in conjunction with your organization’s web marketing team will quite literally put your departments on the same page. So armed, you’ll know the terms your audience uses when looking for information related to what your organization promotes, and you’ll have a list of corresponding pages on your web site to which you should link to those terms from the content you publish.
  • Target user intent.  As Fishkin says, “..this means not just thinking about whether the page is relevant for the keyword, but thinking about, “What does the user want when he gets to this page?”  We probably don’t think enough about user intent when we are producing press releases and other PR content.  Keeping your audience desires firmly in mind and focusing on answering the questions they might pose as you develop press releases and other content will improve the value of the information you publish to your audience.
  • Think about (and support) the conversion goal.  What is the outcome you want to produce?  Or,  alternatively, if your goal for a press release is media coverage, is there a secondary call to action you can offer for customers and prospects?   Press releases are widely read and shared.  Failing to include a call to action for an interested potential buyer to follow means you could miss out on creating real bottom-line outcomes as well as diminishing SEO impact.  After all, calls to action are links too, and search engines reward content that is widely shared.
  • Organize the content you publish thoughtfully, keeping the objective of promoting key web pages in mind.  It’s easy to develop content in support of a campaign.  However, if that content isn’t linked in a relevant way to the organizations’ web site (and I’m not just talking about a “for more information visit” link) it essentially exists in its own little universe, and doesn’t do anything to influence site rank.  Worse, it could siphon some search engine juice from key pages on your web site.    Getting the content organized won’t be that difficult, if you acquire – and rigorously use – the list of target terms and related URLs mentioned in the first bullet point.

The good news is that most of what we’re talking about here is about getting organized – integrating efforts with other departments, committing to use search terms your organization is targeting in press releases and other content, and linking to the URLs on the web site that the organization wants to promote. Best of all, following these guidelines will improve the effectiveness of your PR program, increasing readership, message traction and measurable outcomes.

Author Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

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Common press release SEO mistakes

Posted on November 22, 2011 by | 7 Comments

One of the most common press release SEO mistakes: long headlines that bury keywords

Developing and implementing a search engine optimization strategy is usually the domain of the web marketing team.  However, as other departments climb aboard the content marketing and brand journalism bandwagons, and accelerate publishing content online, opportunities to improve the organization’s rank in search engines for key terms increase significantly.  It’s important that the entire enterprise builds some coordination and understanding about keyword targeting, use and linking.

The “Agile Engagement” construct we’ve been talking about begins with listening, and in this context, listening is a pretty broad term.  Sure, keeping tabs on social conversations is crucial.  However, another form of listening is paying attention to your audience’s preferences and behaviors when it comes to content and search, respectively.  You can learn a lot from your web site’s analytics, the search terms used to find your blog, and what content on your site and blog is most popular. Given the connection between search and social, SEO and the practices that comprise it (keyword research, linking, content optimization) need to be part of an agile and nimble approach to communications.

Mistakes many press release writers make:

From my vantage point here at PR Newswire, I have the opportunity to see a few press releases.  Here are the most common mistakes I see that prevent organizations from taking full advantage of the search engine visibility press releases can deliver.

  • No links.  Most press releases do not include anchor text links – those embedded links which take the reader from a word or phrase to a related web page on the issuing company’s site.
  • Too many links.  On the other hand,  I see many companies go overboard when they decide to use links, and wind up looking spammy to search engines.
  • Irrelevant, or as I like to say, “stupid” links, which are links drawn from throwaway words that have no bearing on the issuer’s business, such as “click here” or “contact” or “for more information.” (See How to add embedded anchor text links to press releases for more advice.)
  • Ponderously long headlines groaning with jargon, and contain no keywords.  Search engines don’t index more than the first 65 characters or so, and no one wants to read a long headline anyway – our eyes start to glaze over.
  • Use of jargon, not the actual terms people use when plugging search terms into Google et al.  In my business, an example would be an “end to end monitoring solution for social conversations,” rather than the popular search term “social media monitoring.”   In the same vein, organizations slavishly cling to more formal language, rather than the language of their audience.  You can see lots of good examples of this in the automotive arena, where companies use words like “pre-owned automobile” (versus “used car”) and “automotive window film” (versus “car window tint”).  Do you say “I have to take the auto in for an oil change?”  I didn’t think so.
  • Too many stories in one press release.  Trying to appeal to all vertical markets or tell three key stories (Company A Announces Launch of Product X, New Customer Portal  and Hire of Joe Schmoe) in one missive just doesn’t work – for either search engines or readers.  Specificity and relevance are the hallmarks of effective communications.  Stay on message in your press releases, and write another if you have separate stories to tell.  Long, multi-message releases are almost impossible to optimize, and present challenges for targeting media and bloggers, as well.
  • Over-optimization of the content.  Five years ago,  keyword density (the number of times your keywords were used in relation to the overall length of the press release) was an important SEO factor.  Today, search engines are more sophisticated, and wooden-sounding, keyword-stuffed content runs the risk of being labeled as spam.  Natural writing – including keywords and related acronyms – is the way to go, and happily, it’s also what real people prefer.  Content optimization today is very much about producing readable and relevant messages.

I’m going to continue the SEO discussion tomorrow, with a deep dive into the specifics of using keywords and links effectively in press releases and other content to build visibility for the web site you’re promoting.  What other SEO-related questions do you have?

Author Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

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4 Essential Tips for Writing Effective Press Release Headlines

Posted on November 17, 2011 by | 5 Comments

The headline of the press release (or, arguably, any other content you will publish online) is some of the most important real estate on the page.  The headline is what journalists see first in news room wires, RSS feeds, and their email in-boxes. Search engines place extra weight upon the text at the top of the page, and it’s the first thing your reader sees.

And when someone shares your press release in social networks, again, it’s the headline that is front and center – attracting more potential readers to your message.  For these reasons, I’m prepared to argue the headline is, unquestionably, the very most important piece of the press release, bar none, period, end of story.

Given the importance of the headline in attracting readers, search engines and social interaction for the press releases PR Newswire issues, I think it’s worth sifting through the current data to identify the tactics that will make press releases and other online content most effective.  In a nutshell, these are:

  • Length – Headlines should be between 90-120 characters.  (Characters, including spaces. Not words.)
  • Keywords – Put your most important keyword at the beginning of the headline – within the first 65 characters.
  • Include numerals in the headline.  Readers like data points.
  • Utilize a subhead to add more detail.

Length matters.

Our findings suggest that headline length plays in important role in both attracting readers and encouraging social sharing of press releases.   The ideal length is right in the neighborhood of 90 – 120 characters.

Why is length important?  First and foremost, the optimum headline length also happens to be perfect for sharing via Twitter.  We’ve long advised clients to write “tweetable” headlines. I’m pretty sure the fact average length of the most effective press releases happens to correspond with the ideal length of a Tweet (remember, you need to leave some room for handles and short links) is no coincidence.   Other research PR Newswire has done with Crowdfactory indicates that each social share triggers two more views of a press release.  Ensuring press releases are Twitter-friendly should be a no-brainer for everyone.

Headline SEO: the first 65 characters are key.

Headlines play an important role in informing search engines about on-page content, and as mentioned earlier, the engines put more weight on the content that appears at the top of the page.  Additionally, many web masters (PR Newswire’s included) use the headline in the title tag on the web page hosting the press release. The title tag is another important piece of SEO real estate.  Optimizing your headline for search engines can give the press release a nice visibility boost.

Headline optimization isn’t too difficult; however, it may require some organizations to re-think how they structure headlines, because search engines only index the first 65 characters of the headline.   To capitalize on the important real estate the headline occupies, it’s vital to put the most important keyword for phrase in the headline – and right the beginning – well within that first 65 character space.

One important note regarding headlines – it is not necessary to pack your headline with keywords. Search engines are good at recognizing natural language, and they are quick to bury keyword spam.  So don’t go overboard.  When it comes to keywords, you can definitely have too much of a good thing.  SEO tactics work best when you focus your press release on just one or two keywords.

Use numerals in the headline (when it makes sense.)

One of the most surprising facts to emerge from this research was the finding that press releases with numerals in the headline performed better than releases that were digit-deficient.  If your press release cites numeric facts such as survey results or performance data, or if it (like this blog post) offers the reader X immutable truths in [insert subject], tell your readers about that in the headline. Numbers in the headline convey either immediacy (such as  date) or facts, boosting your message’s credibility.

Use subheads to add more detail

Given what I see cross the wire each day, many organizations (my own included!) might find the recommended 90-120 character headline length pretty restrictive.  The solution?  Use a subhead to supply the additional but-not-quite-as-important details that you’d normally stuff into a long headline.  You’ll find that doing so makes your press release visually more appealing, and splitting long headlines into shorter headlines and subheads makes it easier for readers to scan the copy, giving them incentive to read on.

Rethinking the press release

We’ve talked a bit lately on this blog about the need to rethink some long-standing PR tactics, and the press release is no exception.  Today’s audiences – including the journalists and bloggers at the top of your pitch lists – consume content digitally.  They find it, share it and interact with it differently than they did just a few years ago. Social networks enable people to find and share content, opening up new opportunities for brands to communicate directly with their audiences.  And search engines are using social signals in their ranking algorithms, meaning that social sharing can have a lasting effect on the online visibility of a message.  In order to fully capitalize on these opportunities, we need to rethink how we write press releases – starting with the headline.

Related reading:

Rethinking Press Release Tactics to Meet Evolving Audience Preferences

Press Releases Shared More on Facebook, But Twitter Drives 30 Percent More Views

Author Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

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