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Are You Making These 4 Keyword Mistakes In Your Online Press Releases?

Article Overview: Your press release marketing success hinges on several key things -- one of the most significant is your keyword choices. Online press releases can be a powerful tool in reaching new customers and building backlinks to your site -- but leveraging strategic keywords is a "must have" for success.

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Are You Making These 4 Keyword Mistakes In Your Online Press Releases?

Online press release submissions can bring an ongoing stream of traffic to your site. Moreover, the traffic will be targeted, which means your visitors are more likely to be interested in your products and services. The key is writing your press releases in a way that improves their chances of being ranked highly in the search engines' organic listings. You accomplish this by following the right keyword strategy. A lot of press releases are submitted with glaring keyword mistakes. These mistakes prevent them from gaining the exposure they deserve. With a few tweaks, a press release that might otherwise be ignored by the search engines can climb the organic rankings, providing your business with valuable exposure and traffic. Here are the four most important keyword mistakes to avoid.

#1 - Obsessing Over Keyword Density

It's important to have your primary and secondary keywords sprinkled throughout your press release, both the summary and body. But don't focus too heavily on meeting a specific density. While Google and Bing have occasionally given high keyword densities priority in their algorithms, the effects are temporary. This is one of the reasons pages rank highly for a couple of weeks, and then slip quickly into the depths of the search engines' indexes.

You'll find SEO "experts" claiming that certain densities are optimal, and guaranteed to help your press releases rank. Focus instead on keyword placement. Put your primary keyword in your title, and place your secondary keywords in your summary. Then, sprinkle your keywords throughout the body of your press release.

#2 - Anchor Text Oversaturation

Anchor text represents the keyword phrases you use in your press releases to link back to your site. Anchors are important because they inform the search engines about your site's theme. For example, suppose you have thousands of links pointing to your site that are anchored with text related to golf balls. In this case, Google and the other major search engines will presume your site is about golf balls.

The problem is, many people use the same anchor text in all of their press release submissions. This is known as anchor text link spam. While there's a good chance it will bump your pages higher in the index, the effect is (again) temporary. The search algorithms - particularly, those used by Google - are designed to identify link spam, and suppress its effects.

Avoid oversaturating the anchor text of your press releases. If 90% of your inbound links have the same anchor, there's a problem.

#3 - Targeting The Wrong Keywords

The keywords you're targeting may bring significant traffic to your site. But is the traffic converting? Are visitors buying your products? Are they opting into your email list? One of the most common misconceptions about keywords is that those that drive the most traffic have the most value.

In reality, it's not true.

You need targeted traffic. You need visitors who find your press releases by searching with keywords that suggest they are interested in your products and services. High-traffic keywords that fail to meet this litmus test are practically worthless.

#4 - Using Too Many Keywords In Your Press Releases

You probably have several keywords for which you'd like your site to rank. If you're targeting long-tail phrases, you may have several dozen. Resist the temptation to stuff as many keywords as you can into a single press release. Not only does it dilute the theme of your release in the eyes of the search engines, but it impairs its readability.

Choose a primary keyword. Pick one or two secondary keywords. Use the primary phrase in your headline, the secondary phrases in your summary, and both throughout the body of your release.

The right keyword strategy can be a powerful tool for gaining exposure and driving targeted traffic to your site. The wrong one will limit both. Take care to avoid the four mistakes described above in all of your press release submissions.

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