Should You Put Keywords In Your Press Release Headline?
Keywords in your press release headlines are a must for several reasons. The reality is that keywords are an essential part of finding anything on the Internet or at a website.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Most people start any search on the Internet with a search engine such as Google. Google has an algorithm, or formula, for determining the top 10 pages on a particular topic to show them on the search engine results page (SERP). Google News also uses keywords to show top stories related to that keyword. If you write a keyword press release headline, you have a better chance of getting picked up by the media compared with a press release that has no keywords.
If you also include keywords in the body of your press release and the media that you will be including with it, these are also useful in relation to SEO. Publishing your press release on your website can also drive free traffic to your site or blog thanks to SEO
Journalists Looking For Information
Journalists visit top press release distribution services such as Newswire in order to find stories that are worth writing about. They use the distribution search engine, typing in keywords. The results are delivered in terms of relevance. In most cases, the headlines that will appear highest on the result page are those that have the keyword they are looking for in the title, in the same way that the top pages on Google will usually have the exact keyword in their page title.
Semantic Search
Another reason for using keywords is what is termed semantic search, or contextual search. Words can have more than one meaning. You can often only tell the intended meaning of the word in relation to the other words around it.
Let’s take the word panda. It can have several different meanings. It could refer to the black and white animal that eats bamboo and lives in China. It could refer to the latest album by hip-hop and rap artist Designer. It could also refer to one of Google’s own formulas for ranking relevant content.
Panda is also an app that links with Twitter to allow you to follow your favorite sites and blogs all in one place. Pandas, plural, is a tool within the Python computer programming language.
If we say, “Panda essential for mobile,” we can probably rule out the giant panda, but we might not be able to rule out the others unless we get other keywords to help us.
“Panda essential for mobile get it on iTunes” (album)
“Panda content penalty axes thousands of ‘junk sites’ from Google” (search engine formula)
“Panda essential for mobile-log into the app with Twitter for quick site updates in the palm of your hand” (app)
If you want your press releases to be found and read more easily, be sure to use relevant keywords in your headlines. Also, be sure to use contextual keywords related specifically to your niche in order to clarify meaning. Then see how many media pickups you can get.
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