Media relations has gotten a lot more interesting--and a lot harder--in recent years in part as a result of the impact of the Internet and supporting technologies. readMe is an ongoing series of tips, tricks and advice aimed at helping PR and marketing professionals stay on top of the trends, understand the implications for their day-to-day needs and learn to utilize the new technologies effectively.
Recent Articles
- What to do if You Are Not Getting Pickup
- How to Get Your Boss to Let You Play by the New Rules of PR
- How to Write a Great Press Release
- The Next Revolution in PR
- The New Rules of PR
PR Tips
- CAPITAL Punishment
- Your Audience Is Listening
- Follow Through
- The KISS Principle
- Worth 1,000 Words
- Ten Commandments For The PR Professional
- Make Headlines
- Five And Dime
- Heads Up
- Be A Keyword Master
- The Missing Link
- Big News Vs. Small News
- Let Your News Sell You
- Take Aim
- Filtered Out
- Beating The Buzzer
- Charted Waters
- Get Recognized
- One Size Fits All
- Long-Term Storage
- Error Proof
- From The Horse's Mouth
- Tech Talk
- Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
- Tip Of The Iceberg
- Writing for Robots
- Photographic Evidence
- Closed Captions
- Easy Access
- Hit The Nail On The Subhead
PR Tools
Writing for Robots
Thousands of press releases are found online every day as a result of people using search engines. But how do the search engines find the releases in the first place? Search engines use automated programs or “spiders” to search websites like readMedia’s Breaking News page. These spiders examine the words and phrases found in online releases and rank each page using criteria such as how often a word is used and where it is found on the page. As you write releases, there are a few things you should keep in mind to make them more appealing to human and machine readers:
- Use proper names and carefully chosen keywords in your headline
- Make sure the first three paragraphs of your release contain essential keyword rich content.
- Place your keywords well. Use them at the beginnings of sentences, and the ends of paragraphs.
- Use your most important keywords at the top of your release, but
- Don’t overuse your keywords. Your release will be kicked out altogether if it smells of spam.
For more information on Keywords, readMedia recommends these articles: http://www.talentzoo.com/website/columns/ColumnContent.aspx?Id=2074 http://www.talentzoo.com/website/columns/ColumnContent.aspx?Id=2106
Did you know: you should choose your keywords BEFORE you write your release? Come up with a list of 10 or more words and phrases that a web surfer might search for. Use combinations of those keywords and phrases throughout your release.
