Using Press Releases to be a Trusted Expert
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In my previous posts in the Trusted Expert series (Starts Here), I’ve mentioned the importance of press releases and how they can help you become a Trusted Expert. Well, today I’m going to talk about them some more. That’s how important press releases are to you and your business. If you haven’t been taking advantage of them yet, you need to start. Now.
Press releases have a two-fold purpose: they give you the opportunity to reach your buyers directly with news about you and your business, and they are fantastic for improving your standing wit h the search engines.
The first thing you need to do is add a press release/latest news page to your website. This will be where you put all the press releases after you send them out. Not only does it give your customers a chance to find all the latest information about your company, but it also indexes like mad and the search engines love it. Just make sure that you keep updating it regularly – it won’t look good if the ‘latest news’ on your website is more than six months old.
A lot of people don’t send out press releases because they don’t think they have anything to write about. Here are some easy ideas that anyone can use to base their press releases on:
- You’ve added a new product to your site
- You’re speaking at an industry related conference
- You’re sponsoring something or donating something
- You’ve written some Trusted Expert content
- You’ve found a new use for your product
- You’re targeting a new segment.
Once you know what to write about, you need to start thinking about how you’re going to write your press release. When press releases were only written for the traditional press, all you had to worry about was making it interesting enough to be featured. Now you still have to try to please the news outlets, but you also need to make sure that your press release resonates with your buyer personas. One of the best ways to do this by including a special offer that appeals specifically to your personas and will compel them to take action, whether that’s going to your site, signing up for a newsletter, or buying a product.
So, to recap, here’s what you need to do to get started using press releases to make you a Trusted Expert:
- Add a press release/latest news page to your website.
- Come up with a list of reasons to write a press release.
- Figure out what offer you’re going to use to compel your buyers to take action.
In the next post in the series, we’ll go over the more technical details of an online press release, like keyword targeting and density, optimizing the press release for search, and the social media release.
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Any suggestions on whether press releases sent to free directories are at any disadvantage to those sent to paid? Such as PrWeb’s paid submissions.
[...] Using Press Releases to be a Trusted Expert on Making Money Online by Milking the Internet – John Cow dot Com from 33 minutes ago [...]
Great post. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.
You haven’t used yours since July.
Nice post…
Press release is a very good way to create backlinks as well as to spread a word about the major updates of a company.
Hi John,
This post is very helpful and I look forward to the next one.
I’ve heard and read about press releases but I also read that they need to be in a different format than regular posts. I need to learn about the differences.
I like your suggestion about using a dedicated page for press releases on my site.
I’m a bit unclear about it. Should the page just list the headlines or the full text releases?
Vance
Hello John
As usual great post. I too have same queries as mentioned by Al @ Las Vegas n Vance Sova. but i also want to know say if i modify just top paragraph of an article on my site then can it be used as a PR? Will it create duplicate content issue?
Regrds
Mahatru
Thanks Jason, Took the first step with a gvo news page
I am now working on the other two steps… Which are new ones for me!
Dymphna,The Chinese are disciplined and business minded people. ,
excellent post very informative on press releases, i need to start using this info.
Excellent Article, I am looking to get a press release done soon for my new up coming company/ network of websites.
As said in some previous comments, are there disadvantages to free PR directories? I assume you get a lot of rubbish PR’s on their, and your professional press release could get mixed with some very poor quality and irrelevant ones
Press releases are good if you use them on a regular basis to make the public aware. If you dont, a one time shot wont help much if people are not looking for them.
I use press releases to promote affiliate products, but now, I will start to use them more often for my own business.
Franck Silvestre