The last week in October, I attended a public relations professional development seminar and had a chance to hear an industry expert discuss the use of search engine optimization strategies in public relations. Having a background in Internet and website development, I understand SEO and its importance with search engine results, but it didn’t occur to me that optimizing press releases can yield the same benefit.

How important is an optimized press release? According to Lee Odden with Top Rank Marketing, it is very important. A survey of journalists by Top Rank showed that 91 percent of journalists use the Web and online search engines for background research. Lee presented a list of SEO tips for public relations professionals. I don’t plan to repurpose Lee’s entire list here, but what I learned was that an optimized press release isn’t necessarily a social media press release. Some simple practices easily implemented can help journalists find your content, and it doesn’t require any additional funds out of your marketing budget.

Hyperlinks
This is the most fundamental tool to optimize the content in your press release. Part of an SEO strategy is having relevant content linking to more relevant content. Most press releases are received and posted directly to online news media outlets. Embedding links will increase the probability that a journalist or anyone reading the online release will click and link back to your website for additional information.

Keywords
The information you are providing in your press release is important, right? If it wasn’t then why bother sending the release? You want people to find it. Use identifiable words in the headline, lead and body text of your release. Think about the terms journalists would use in a search box to find the information they are looking for. Then incorporate those terms into your release. Do not use industry jargon or fluff. While it is important that you position yourself or client as industry experts, using jargon that is unfamiliar to journalists will only guarantee that your release won’t be found.

Multimedia
Now we are getting into a social media press release territory, but multimedia is the talisman for SEO. Most standard search results include links to images and video. An embedded video or a link to one on You Tube can be the most important item you can add to a press release to give your company or client’s website a huge boost. Also journalists love video. A picture is worth a thousand words, but video is priceless. Having video that other journalists can embed or reference can make it easy for them to post something on their site, linking their content to your content.

Also consider an online newsroom for optimized press releases and multimedia. Traditional tactics of distribution and pitching to journalists are still a must, but an online newsroom provides an additional landing page for journalists to find information. All these steps are easy to implement and can drive your audience to you.