How To Use Press Releases To Scale Up Your SEO Backlinks

Building backlinks is one of the surefire ways to improve your visibility on search engines. And the best SEO agency capitalizes even on the most underutilized strategies to give you the upper hand. These include publishing press releases (PRs).

This content tells you:

• The five essential tips to generate high-quality backlinks using PRs
• Top reasons you should never skip this method in the first place

Read on to unlock the best search engine optimization (SEO) PR strategies.

Want to learn more about the Digital Authority Partners approach to SEO? Watch this video!

How Can PRs Help Build Backlinks?

Building backlinks takes time. Having high-quality ones requires even more patience and determination, so you better make use of all the available tools to speed up the process. Writing PRs is one of them.

Here is how these content pieces help you accomplish SEO goals:

• Media outlets may feature your PR, thus boosting the number of high-quality links.
• A PR gives you control over what appears in the search engine result pages (SERPs). This content piece might outrank other pages if it contains relevant keywords and phrases that describe your brand.
• Publishing press releases increases brand awareness, thus bringing you more organic traffic and leads.
• Optimized pages consistently create high-quality backlinks that increase your Alexa ranking. Now, you have a better chance of getting published on huge PR platforms, such as Help a Reporter Out (HARO), which connects thousands of journalists worldwide.
• It makes SEO more efficient because you let others prove that you are credible and trustworthy and publish relevant and valuable content to your niche.

5 Solid Ways to Optimize PRs for Search Engines

PR SEO is similar to optimizing other content types, such as blogs. But, of course, you should pay attention to a few notable exceptions because press releases have a unique set of demands.

Here are five tactics to help you create SEO-friendly PRs:

     1. Include Your Keywords Strategically

The heart of any SEO plan is the keywords. After all, these are the terms people use to find information and discover you.

A trustworthy SEO agency does extensive keyword research to find the right words or phrases that:

• You can dominate quickly, such as long-tail keywords with less competition but a good search volume
• Match user intent, whether your target market is trying to get more information, make a purchase, or contact you
• Describe what your business does and the services it offers

While these digital marketing firms can take care of all the guesswork that comes with keywords, you should still know two vital points about using them. These include keyword placement and density.

Where should you add these phrases?

• Headlines and subheadlines
• Meta tags, such as your title and descriptions
• Alt tags, especially for your images
• Body text

As for your keyword density, its importance has faded over the years. In fact, it is no longer a ranking factor. However, it still remains an excellent tool to remind you to add related keywords to your article.

Contrary to popular belief, no one concrete rule about keyword density exists, but consider 1% to 2% of the article. In other words, if your PR is 1,000 words, introduce a targeted keyword every 100 words.

Keep in mind, though, that placements and densities should never supersede quality. At the end of the day, write for your audience first and search engines second.

     2. Add Your Hyperlink Correctly

PRs help enhance your SEO strategy in two ways:

• Letting you get a backlink
• Passing on the “link juice,” which means your linked page also benefits from the high domain authority of the PR site

That is why you need to include a link pointing to your pages in your press release. But how you write it equally matters:

• Avoid using your targeted keywords as the anchor text all the time. Otherwise, search engines will think your link-building methods are unnatural or even spammy. Instead, make it more topic-oriented.

Do This: top SEO PR strategies for marketers

Not This: SEO PR strategies

• Implement descriptive text accessibility. User experience (UX) is becoming more important to search engines, so your content, including PR, should be easy for a wide range of people to find and access. Descriptive text accessibility allows people using text-to-speech to easily figure out what the link is about.

Do This: Read this guide to learn more.

Not This: Click here.

     3. Create a Compelling Headline

Your headline is the first element readers, media sites, and search engine spiders see. How do you write it to ensure that it encourages users to click? Use these tips on developing irresistible headlines and add the ones below:

• Tone down the exaggerations or hyperboles. Press releases are not sales copies, newsletters, or ads. These function more like pieces of news that inform bloggers, journalists, and readers of significant events and milestones about your brand. Keep the headline specific and straightforward without revealing too many details.

Do This: XYZ Company Launches Revolutionary Product Line

Not This: XYZ Company Is the Best in the Industry

• Keep track of the character count. You want the full title to appear on the search results to ensure your target audience fully understands it. Strive to stick to a 55-character limit. This way, the headline also works well on social media.

     4. Choose Your Media Distribution Channels

Your PR’s success depends on your media distribution choices for a couple of reasons:

• Bad ones, those with low to zero DAs and Alexa traffic, are more likely to be link farms. Getting backlinks from them can do more harm than good.
• The best PR distribution sites often have the widest reach. With their help, you can reach a broader audience and amplify your content quickly.
• These channels implement strict criteria or guidelines for pitches, formatting, and content. But it also means your PR becomes more suitable for indexing and ranking.

Some of the best PR sites with their features and pricing plans:

Research your options and narrow your list. Not all offer the same services, packages, or audience reach. But make sure that whatever you choose is compatible with your SEO goals.

     5. Go Beyond Online

Creating press releases is not just about pitching and publishing. The best ones involve the relationships you build with the media.

So make sure to secure your presence offline as well:

• Contact reporters, editors, and bloggers you want to cover your news.
• Participate in events related to your industry or attend conferences and conventions.
• Build relationships with key influencers in your company.
• Encourage your following to produce user-generated content (UGC).
• Make your PR department accessible to questions, comments, and feedback.

Summing Up

Press releases can do more than broadcast updates. They can support your SEO strategies by being an amazing source of backlinks.

However, writing and optimizing PRs can be challenging, especially if you have not previously tried this tactic. Digital Authority Partners (DAP), a leading Chicago digital marketing firm, is here to help you get started. Our team of experts can make content that is interesting and share it on the best PR distribution sites so that it has the most impact.

Schedule a consultation with our SEO professionals today to learn more.