So in your arsenal of link building tools I would say the press release is one of the most powerful weapons. The problem is that most people get intimidated but press releases and this are reluctant to use them.
Let me shed some light on the proper way to use press releases and what you need to think about when creating them.
First and foremost you need to get a familiar with PRWeb.com which is the distribution service we recommend you use for your releases.
You will hear a few different things about press releases but I will give you come cliff notes on the basics you need to know. First and foremost a press release is not as hard as it sounds but you have to consider your audience….reporters and bloggers!
There are a lot of resources out there to help you write as well…in fact PRWeb builds a template for you to work from: http://www.prweb.com/writing_release.php
A press release is a news story and should be structured as one. The BEST releases are ones that have a spin to them which would entice readers such as a new product or service (including a new website), an award your site has won, an interaction with a charity or charitable foundation or even a major milestone in your business’s growth such as time of operation.
From an SEO standpoint this person is missing the main opportunity regarding SEO. There is no clear indication on what the main keyword they are targeting in the title or intro and there is NO anchor text linking at all showing up in the body of the PR.
As this release gets picked up and listed on other websites there will be no benefit transferred to their website via backlinks.
Based on this I would assume this website wants to rank for “betting on sports” and “sports betting odds”. If you actually go deeper and check out those links you will see that they went as far as pointing the anchor text links to deep links on their website WITH content relative to the anchor text:
Betting on sports – http://vivamacau.com/sportsbook/getting-started-betting-on-sports.html.ht
Sports betting odds – http://vivamacau.com/sportsbook/understanding-sports-betting-odds.html
There are 28 pages showing up with this exact title meaning that currently in Google 28 pages are republishing this release WITH those backlinks pointing to their website!
The kicker…this release went out a few minutes ago. Imagine these numbers tomorrow, or next week or next month. There will be more reads meaning more traffic meaning more potential backlinks for your website.
Since you know how hard it is to get quality links think about what it means to be able to build quality links (especially from topically relevant websites) and what that means to your SEO plans.
The catch? It’s not free.
The most complicated thing for most people is getting past this screen and deciding what to pay so I will make this simple… go with the $200 dollar release!
It will give you the option to include anchor text linking which the others do not and will result in more reads and increase the chance of bringing in more backlinks. Also new PRWeb accounts will give you a free upgrade from the Social Media Visibility to the SEO Visibility package (basically you get the $200 release for $140).
Make sure you release has your main keywords in the titles and body copy as well as anchor text linking to the pages you want to rank for those pages for the most effectiveness. Keep in mind news does not have to be ground breaking…this group put out a guide and submitted a release.
For competitive keywords think about using a press release for that additional push because it works!