How to Draft Powerful Press Releases For Online Publishing

Press releases can help drive targeted traffic to your website almost instantaneously. But you need to know how to use them correctly. Otherwise, it's just a waste of time and resources. Here is how you can maximize the results of your press releases.

A good press release, when properly drafted, can help attract the right target audience. Here are some tips on how you can create an effective press release.

Tip 1: Use keyword based headlines for your press releases.
Traditional press releases don't care about keywords. That is because the releases are meant for the print medium. In a newspaper, a news agent would be more concerned about the news angle.

Press releases on the Internet are quite different. Sure, a headline with a great news angle will help attract more eyeballs. But on the Internet, having a news angle just isn't enough. Your headlines must contain popular keywords that you know your target visitors will use.

For example, let's say you want to issue a press release about a new piece of treadmill equipment. This new treadmill has got a new motor that is so quiet that you won't even notice that it's running. Unfortunately, the new motor has got a name that nobody knows about (yet). It's called "kazoom motor".
Since no one has heard about "kazoom motor" yet, it's unlikely that they will use these words when searching for information on treadmill motors.

Here are two headline options:

(A) New Kazoom Motor - Quietest Motor in the Market

(B) Quietest Treadmill Motor Tested to Run Silently in Home Treadmills

Which headline do you think is a better headline? Option (B) would be the better headline because your press release will be more likely to show up when visitors use keywords such as "quietest treadmill", "silent treadmills" or "quiet home treadmills".

Your primary goal is to attract targeted traffic. You achieve that by using keyword based headlines. If your press release doesn't show up in the search results for those keywords, it doesn't matter how you write the press release. Nobody is going to read it.

Tip 2: Use a brief but powerful summary for your press release.
This is of utmost importance - never attempt to write a lengthy summary for your press release. On the Internet, most readers just scan the content. If you have a lengthy summary, you end up chasing away the readers.

The best summary has at most two to three short sentences. Here is the difficult part. Within those two to three sentences, you must sum up what your press release is about. One way to do that is to just focus on one issue.

For instance, your press release body may contain three or four important points. Of those points, pick the most important one and use that as your key message. The job of the summary is simple - to get the key message across. If it fails to accomplish that, you may have just lost a potential customer.

Tip 3: Keep your press release body short.
Sometimes, in the course of my work, I encounter clients asking for lengthy press releases. I try my best to give them what they want, but I also try to give them the correct advice.
My advice to them is that having a lengthy press release may not be the best thing to do. Figures from my web stats software tell me that most visitors spend less than a minute on a web page. In other words, 90% of your readers won't read the entire press release. You are much better off with a short and concise press release. The ideal word count is about five hundred words, which takes about a minute to read. Anything more than that, your press release is too lengthy.

I know that it's kind of counterintuitive. After all, how can shorter be better? But it's true. You want your press releases to be effective. That means you are shooting for measurable results. The results have, time and again, proven that a shorter press release works better.

Five hundred words will allow you to explore just three to four ideas within the press release body. So pick your ideas very carefully. To make sure that you convey your messages clearly, you may wish to employ sub-headers. Bold the sub-headers for a clearer presentation style. When visitors scan your press release, the bold texts will be more likely to catch their attention.

Tip 4: Remember those anchor texts!
A press release can get you valuable back links from many well respected authority sites. These are websites that have been around for years, and many of them have high page rank.
Sure, you may be after the initial traffic rush, which will last for about two weeks or so. But what happens after the initial surge of traffic? Well, you can always rely on organic search traffic.
Like articles, press releases also remain online indefinitely. Since you are allowed to choose your desired anchor texts when you issue paid press releases, why not do some off-site SEO in the process?
Choose your anchor texts wisely and reap the SEO benefits that come with the back links. The links will help boost your search engine rankings. When that happens, you will be receiving organic search traffic. Organic search traffic will become your source of long term traffic.

As you can see, drafting a press release for online publishing can be very different from drafting a release for print publishing. That is because the Internet is a completely different medium, so it requires a very different approach. Keep the above tips in mind and profit from your next press release!

About the Author: Darren Chow is a full time article marketer. He founded a successful press release distribution service. Press releases are published on high page rank sites, including the brand new latest breaking news website.