Top 5 Online Press Release Writing Mistakes to Avoid   

by Ted Kushner

Did you know that using online press releases is one of the most powerful ways for almost instantly driving hundreds or even thousands of potential targeted customers to your new product, web site or newsletter?

Within hours of having your press release distributed over the Internet your press release could be picked up by some of the major online news networks like Google News and Yahoo News.

And then within days or just a few weeks they will begin to show up in the natural search engine results of the major search engines.

Nowhere can you achieve so much publicity for so little effort. But let me explain what I mean by 'so little effort'.

Even though press releases are a powerful marketing tool that everyone should be using as one of their marketing methods you need to do a little research before just whipping one up.

As someone who uses press releases quite often in marketing of new products and web sites I have seen and learned how to avoid some common errors in writing my press releases.

Avoiding these errors can mean the difference in driving a few hundred visitors to your new web site or product to receiving thousands of targeted hits for the same amount of effort.

So what are these mistakes? And how do you avoid them?

Mistake #1- Not focusing on a main theme.

You need to determine what the key purpose of your press release will be about. You don't want to target multiple items in the same release.

If you just released 10 new software products this week you don't want to talk write about all of them at one time, pick one and focus on it and get your audience excited about it.

Once their curiousity is peaked they will click on your link to get additional information and that is what you want.. You can always do multiple releases for each product.

Mistake #2- Not researching the keywords you want to target before hand.

You want to do a little keyword research based on the concept of your press release. Why would you want to do keyword research for a press release?
Because you need to optimize your press release so that it will rank high in the natural search engine results once it gets picked up by Google, MSN or Yahoo.

I normally target a keyword that has a decent amount of monthly searches but has little to moderate competition from highly optimized web sites.

You can determine this by doing a search on Google and seeing how many web sites are competing for the same term. You also want to see if the keyword is being used in the title and if the web site(s) have the term in their top level domain name.

By targeting the keywords that are moderately popular but don't have many competing web sites that are not highly optimized for your keyword you will stand a greater chance of ranking in the top ten search engine results once your press release gets indexed.

Mistake #3- Not creating a compelling headline.

Just like an article or sales letter you need to create a catchy title to grab your reader's attention. Since press releases are normally only displayed for a short period of time when they are first released you need to get the most bang for your efforts.

Look at the following title which one grabs your attention the most?

"Bad Breath Resources at Bad-Breath-Cures.com" or

"Proven Little Known Secrets for Curing Bad Breath Fast at Bad-Breath-Cures.com"

I also always use my main keyword in the title. As your title will become the key factor in your rankings in the search engines.

Mistake #4- Not formatting your press release correctly.

Writing press releases is not rocket science. But you do need to take some time in formatting your release correctly so that you stand a chance of being picked up by the various news and web site outlets.

How careful you format your press release can determine your PR score with some press release services like PRWeb. The higher your PR score the greater chance of you being picked up by some of the leading news outlets.

For additional information how to correctly format your press releases go to:
http://www.prweb.com/pressreleasetips.php#template

Mistake #5- Using the wrong press release services.

You want the most coverage but at a reasonable price. Using the wrong service could cost your hundreds or thousands of wasted dollars.

Here are some of the press release services I have used and found to be effective:

http://prweb.com/

http://www.pressbox.co.uk/index.html

http://www.webwire.com/default.asp

http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/

While there are some free services out there I've found that paying a small fee to a few online press release services can afford you a wider coverage then using one who charges you a hefty fee just to submit your release for you.

By paying a small fee you get to track your stats online and target additional industries and groups giving you a wider coverage for your press release then if you went the free route.

So by using press releases effectively you can learn how to add this handy little technique in your marketing arsenal to drive tons of highly targeted traffic to any program or web site you choose in a matter of no time.

Copyright 2005 Ted Kushner