Help visitors find precisely what they want
These days, web visitors don’t search for simple terms like “LAX flight delays.” Instead, they’re more likely to ask a longer, more conversational, more precise question: “Will Flight 457 on XYZ Airlines be delayed out of LAX?”
Indeed, most searchers use three or more keywords in their searches, according to a study of 10 million U.S. internet users by Experian Hitwise.
These so-called long-tail searches — which include three or more keywords or complete questions — help visitors find exactly what they’re looking for in single search, without clicking or additional searching.
Google is making the transition from providing generic results that match strings of keywords and to becoming a knowledge engine that understands the relationships between ideas. With its Hummingbird algorithm, released in 2013, Google focused more on long-tail searches.
So how will this affect SEO for writers?
Long-tail or short-tail search terms?
To choose keywords and phrases for your release, decide whether to go broad or tight:
- Choose long-tail search terms for precision. The more specific your subject or targeted audience, the more precise the language on your webpage, post or other online piece should be.
- Choose short-tail search terms to cast a wider net. But if you’re trying to reach as many people as possible or if your story has a broader subject, you may find that short-tail search terms work better.
Long tail or short: Which search terms works best for your webpage, blog post or release?
Optimize for Google and Humans
Master SEO for releases
Optimizing your release can increase the audience for your news by 538%, website visits by 1,900% and tweets by 800%, according to five side-by-side case studies by SEO-PR and Rutgers CMD.
The good news is, news release optimization takes only a few simple steps. The bad news is, few PR pros know what those steps are. Even some of the best-intentioned pros use SEO techniques that get penalized — not rewarded — by Google.
Learn the latest best practices for optimizing your release.
At NOT Your Father's News Release — your team members will learn the latest best practices for optimizing your release. Specifically, you’ll learn how to:
- Avoid Google’s wrath. Avoid best practices from last year that Google now treats as gaming the system. The penalty: lower rankings.
- Link for SEO. Learn where to link, how often to link, how to write a release link (it’s different from every other kind) and what you must add to your links to avoid being penalized by Google.
- Optimize for semantic search. Now that Google’s gotten smarter, as well as tougher, keyword stuffing can’t help, might hurt. So what’s a writer to do?
- Write for search engine results pages. Help readers click on, as well as find, your release.
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