Script

Jenny - Hi I’m Jenny, this is Danii and this is Sarah, and we are the Content Writing Team at Creare.
Over the next few weeks we will be discussing the purposes of writing and distributing Press Releases. This will include How To Write A Successful Press Release, How To Incorporate SEO Into Your Press Release and lastly How To Distribute Your Press Release for successful online marketing.
We will begin by discussing how to get the most out of your online content marketing with How To Write A Successful Press Release.
Firstly, the two main reasons for writing a press release are to expand your presence online and improve your brand through online communication.

Danii – So, what is a press release? Well, many people know it is an industry specific piece of writing that is newsworthy and promotional.
A press release considers the following points:
Industry Specifics – This applies to your company or your industry as a whole.
Newsworthy - Your release can take two approaches:
Current events that are relevant to your companies promotions, products or services.
And current affairs. Look at what is recent in the press that applies to your industry and explain how you can provide solutions to these current situations.
Following these points, you can research and write your press release, with what you want to achieve in mind.

Sarah - So, now that Danii has covered what a press release is, I will inform you how to kick start writing your press release starting with one of the most important aspects for attracting your readers; your title and sub headline.
There are three things to remember when devising your title;

1. Must be attention grabbing and concise. More people are proven to read headlines that are short and snappy than those that contain too much information.
2. It must be relevant.  This is particularly important for releases to receive good responses. Readers dislike being deceived so make sure you give in your main body what you promise in your title.
3. Make it key word rich. This is vital for SEO purposes for both the title and main body and we will cover this more in our next blog.

Jenny - Thanks Sarah,
So, the bulk of your Press Release will be incorporated into the main body. When planning the structure of your press release there are a few things to need to consider.
Starting with the first paragraph, you need to lay down your 5 W’s – what, where, when, who, why.
Next, give a concise overview of the products and services you offer and how this is beneficial to your consumers.
Finally make your release punchy. Avoid any jargon that may not be understood by people out of your industry, being careful not to sound patronising.  It is important to cater for a whole range of audiences.
By following a structure you will never miss important factors that come together to make a successful press release.

Danii -Other elements to add into your Press release are quotes and statistics.
These can give you more authority when people read your press release. Readers will see that you have taken the time to gather facts and figures BUT ensure these are from relevant sources not just opinions from blogs.
Quotes also add a human element that readers can relate too. Ensure you have quoted someone in a senior position or someone that is a specialist in the subject you’re referring to.
Quotes and statistics give more substance to your Press Release and often make it seem more credible than simply an article that is trying to pass for something more.

Sarah - So, if you put together everything we’ve discussed today, you will not only find your press releases easier to write, but should find they receive the recognition they deserve.
Next week we will advise you on how to make your written press release SEO friendly to help you get to the top of the search engines.

We have recently had a client penalised for duplicate content, Our clients sites content had been too similar to a different client in a similar area. What this meant was that the site was removed from Google‘s listing for the phrases we were optimised. We are proud to say we took the following steps and the site was quickly re-listed and the client is now receiving good results and traffic.

5 Ways to avoid duplicate content issues….

1. IP Address -  If you have two sites that you feel potentially can have duplicate content issues the first point of call is to ensure that the sites are hosted on seperate IP addresses, this means that Google will note the imediate differeniation between the two sites.
2. Website Build – Do not use a templated sites, i.e. a bespoke design and build will mean that imagery and CSS will have different properties.
3. SEO / Keywords – Ensure that the key phrases are not the same across the two sites. The closer the key phrases are, the more potential of the sites getting penalised.
4. Networking – Try not to network your customers sites i.e. Reciprocal links, 3 way links, links back to your company website.
5. Content – The most effective way of ensuring your sites do not get penalised is the use and writing of good quality content. You can use http://www.copyscape.com/ which is an excellent tool that searches your specifoed URL and any indexed pages in the popular search engines.