News Release #3

By A. Writer

The Shalls and Shall Nots of Content Writing and SEO

Optimizing content both to be placed more quickly in front of a target audience through a top search engine and be well interpreted for that audience means speaking the language of whomever one is trying to reach. Steps to follow to ensure that one does so can be achieved by doing the following:

* Snag Them with The Headline - The headline is deemed the most important feature for getting the attention of site visitors. Their prominent display not only acts as important visuals, but also helps let users know whether the content that follows is worth their time.
* Paint a Good Mental Picture - The most persuasive copy allows readers to see themselves in what is being said. That is, they can identify with some aspect of the story or offering.
* Choose Your Words - Too many words is never a good thing. Keep the message as too the point as possible, or offer additional links to more in depth or detailed writing on a topic for those left wanting more.
* Be Able to Answer “Do You Have What I'm Looking For?” In the Affirmative - Prospective clients or customers need to know that you can deliver on providing them with the product or services relevant for their needs. Remember, they came to you for a reason, not just to chat.
* Be “Customer-Centered” Not Self-Centered - Prospective clients can appreciate your talent, skill, and all you have to offer, but presenting these qualities in what may be interpreted as bragging tends to take the focus off of your understanding of their needs.
* Hyperlinks Matter Too - Making a call to action with hyperlinks, or placing important keywords within these items can go a long way in your overall sell.
* Don't Be Passive - Verbs used to help persuade readers to act are more effective in active voice.
* Reformat - It may be necessary to reformat copy for better online readability, due to the tendency of many readers to skim page content for information they find relevant.
* Check Your Wording Everywhere on the Site - Wording must appear professional, easy to understand, and relevant to the reader in every area of a website including in video, design, audio, images, and other places.
* Evaluate Your Final Product - It is a good idea to make a checklist of goals you want your website and content to achieve, or guidelines to follow that can be used as a checklist for review upon product completion. Good points to focus on include, whether the reader will find value in what you have said. Remember, there is always room for improvement.

Press releases are available from a wide variety of sources. They provide an excellent source for quality content and can be edited to meet your particular requirements.

For some niches you will find an abundance of free press releases available. This is particularly true of the technology industry, but many other market places also generate significant volumes of news.

Sometimes you will find press releases on individual company sites, other times you may find an industry body that distributes news releases to all appropriate parties, and usually they will make them freely available on their web site.

Usually news releases come in a format that allows you to edit them. This can be particularly useful if you want to include some of your chosen keywords and phrases. Obviously, it is not ethical to change the meaning of the press release by adding inappropriate words and phrases, but it is fine if the words and phrases you add do not change the press release to the point where it is no longer accurate.

In addition to using other people's news releases you can also generate your own. These can be used on your own site and also distributed to third parties via services such as prweb.com.

One important point to note is that news, being time-sensitive, can 'date' your site very quickly so it's important not to place too much emphasis on the timings/dates unless you are prepared to commit to refreshing this part of your site regularly. For example, if you were to publish a page on your web site entitled "Today's News" and the date of the release was six months earlier, visitors to your site would draw obvious conclusions about the freshness (and overall quality) of your site.

Having mentioned time-sensitivity above, it is not true that you can't feature older news items. If you start to accumulate a lot of older or out-of-date news items you may wish to feature them in a 'News Archive' section of your site. You could split your releases into sets of sub-pages, grouped by month, with a parent page for each month. This allows you to recycle your old news content into a longer-lasting section of your site, with very little effort. 

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