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Designing A Keyword Strategy To Boost The Visibility Of Your Online Press Releases

Guest post by: Christine O'Kelly

Article Overview: One of the advantages to using online press releases to build your business is that they give you valuable exposure on the search engines. With this exposure comes traffic. With traffic comes conversions. And conversions are what drive your business toward higher levels of profitability.

Designing A Keyword Strategy To Boost The Visibility Of Your Online Press Releases

One of the advantages to using online press releases to build your business is that they give you valuable exposure on the search engines. With this exposure comes traffic. With traffic comes conversions. And conversions are what drive your business toward higher levels of profitability.

But this entire process is dependent on the keywords you choose to target. Choose the wrong keywords, and your press releases will be destined to fail before they are even distributed. The right keywords, however, can help you dominate the search listings, and attract targeted traffic that leads to higher conversions. Below, we'll help you create a profitable keyword strategy that improves your visibility in the search engines.

Heads Versus Tails: Refining Your Keyword Focus

You have likely heard of long-tail keywords. But you may be unaware of the context in which they exist along the search path. Understanding this context is important for appreciating the reason some keywords drive higher conversions than others.

For any given market, prospects follow a predictable search path. They begin at the head of the market's keyword inventory, and use broad phrases to find more information. To use golf clubs as an example, a prospect might search for "discount golf clubs" or "quality golf clubs." These phrases represent the beginning - or head - of the search path.

As the prospect edges toward making a purchase decision, she travels further down the search path, and approaches the tail of the keyword inventory. For instance, she might use phrases, such as "purchase discount golf clubs with graphite shaft" or "buy titanium Calloway women's driver." These are long-tail keywords.

Note the long-tails suggest the prospect is getting ready to make a purchase. Thus, targeting these phrases increases the likelihood of converting the search to a sale. Your online press releases should follow this keyword strategy to give your business exposure to the right audience.

Continue The Conversation Occurring In Your Prospect's Head

It's easy to become so immersed in the mechanics of link building through a targeted keyword strategy that we forget what occurs after the initial click. Once a searcher clicks through to visit your press release, it is critical that the page on which they land provides a seamless transition from the search engine. This requires understanding the conversation occurring in his or her head.

Continuing our example, suppose your company sells discounted golf clubs. You're using SEO press releases to gain exposure and drive search traffic. Further, suppose you have targeted the long-tail keyword "purchase discount golf clubs with graphite shaft." If, after clicking on your search listing, the prospect lands on a press release that is relevant to the keyword searched, she is likely to keep reading. She is also likely to visit your site.

But if the news angle of your press release is irrelevant to the keyword, the prospect will lose interest and leave. The angle is inconsistent with the conversation in her head. She is much less likely to visit your site, and thus unlikely to convert to a sale.

Conversions Trump Search Traffic Volume

Here, we arrive at one of the biggest misconceptions in using SEO press releases to gain visibility on the search engines. Search traffic and conversions are different aspects of search marketing. More to the point, they are often inversely correlated. Broad keywords (those at the beginning of the search path) tend to deliver a higher volume of search traffic than long-tail keywords. However, because prospects at that end of the search path are usually in the information-gathering stage of the sales cycle, they convert less often.

Those who are drawn to your SEO press releases via long-tails are more inclined to make a purchase decision. While long-tails deliver less search traffic, the traffic is highly targeted. As a result, conversions are more likely.

We have merely scraped the surface of leveraging search engine traffic with online press releases. Realize the process begins with choosing keywords that deliver the right audience when they reach a particular point in the sales cycle.

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Article Tags: press release distribution, SEO copywriting firm



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