The Power of the Press Release

What Makes You Unique?

More then 27 million People use Yahoo News and google News

Each month more then 27 million people in the US use Google News and Yahoo news to find the latest information about any topics that interest them. Yahoo News and Google News reach online audiences in excess of the off line CNN and BBC. A press release or news release is a condensed article that is written in a “journalistic” style. The sole purpose of a press release is to highlight what is interesting and newsworthy, about a company organization or industry. I highly recommend implementing a press release strategy for your restaurant marketing plan including new product releases, new services within your market.

Building Traffic vs. Back Links

As we will discuss below there is very strict rules to writing a press release. However do not let that scare you there are some great templates at www.docstock.com to help you find a template that works for your niche. Press releases have changed quite a bit from the old school versions. The search engines have created some opportunities to help us maximize our exposure. We will discuss strategy and Search engine promotion later in the article.

Press Release SEO

Send out press releases. Your restaurant marketing press release has to be news-worthy. If done right, you may get a lot of publicity in additional to links from authority web sites that will strengthen your positions in search engines. Media coverage may bring in a surge of traffic to your blog.

• An optimized press release will follow the same or similar rules and obstacles as articles.
• Best Case scenario we will be able to anchor link keywords directly to your pages, however many press release sites will only allow links to created within the bio section of the release.
• Incorporate as much optimized content into the release and bio section as possible.
• Always post releases to your sites “News” Page first.

“In the News” Strategy

Create an in the news section of your site. Link to and write about your competitors product or services, become a news authority.

• Set up a “News Press” page
• Set up a google news alert for your specific niche.
• Find ideas to write about the product or issue.
• Then anchor link and post the release to your site first, post link to the competitors site, then submit to PR sites.

Stand Out:

In the past, savvy PR professionals used press releases to hopefully bring their clients a little media exposure. The process was long and drawn out, with the ultimate goal being to get a journalist or news source to read your release. However, the days of a press release being used solely for a newsworthy announcement are long gone. The Web has changed what a press release can be. While not all press releases are going get your face on the nightly news, they can serve another purpose.

How to Reach New Readers and Improve Your SEO at the Same Time

Thanks to the internet, a  press release used for restaurant branding and marketing can now be seen by the general public without ever even being touched by a journalist. Sites like Google News and Yahoo News are constantly updating their search results with fresh press releases from sites like PRWeb. So what does that mean to you, the new online business owner, blogger just looking for a attention?

You can now reach thousands of potential new readers, overnight. When you distribute your release via a place like PRWeb, and hundreds of other sites to re-publish your release via the PRWeb, RSS feed. Not only does this mean more places for new readers to find your content, but it means more backlinks to your site (yes a press release can include links). And don’t forget, if you do it right your release will also appear in Google News, Yahoo News, Topix, etc… just to name a few.

A Restaurant Marketing Press Release is a different style of writing, in that it must be “news worthy” journalism. The part of the press releases that make them difficult is to be able to write them in third person. Write as a journalist. Well we are not all trained and or schooled as a journalist. So keeping a few things in mind will help us to format and write a better

news release.

The Basic Press Release

Includes Who What Why When and Where

The most interesting Fact(s)

Supporting Data

Business USP

Benefits to the Readers

Why is this interesting

Company name information etc

What a Press Release is Not

This is succinct news on how you can benefit the community and or market

The sole purpose is to provide news and information for your readers, customers

The lead Paragraph is the most important and should state the 5W’s The rest of the release supports these 5 w’s

Write as if you are giving instruction, advice, directions

Optimize SEO

Additional Press Release Guidelines

Initial Case –A journalism term which means every first letter in the headline should be capitalized, we do this with our blog titles and site headlines, this carries over to our press releases. Exclusions to this would be words with less then three letters long.

All Caps – It is a negative to have your press release and or headline to be entirely in capital letters, it is not professional and really detracts for the news.

Summary – the initial paragraph is a summary for the entire news story. Just as I writing an article in the newspaper. We understand that most newspaper articles are written in this format because not everybody reads the entire news story. Your summary needs to be “hard hitting” and grab the reader’s attention. Including one to three sentences long

Date line – Your release should begin with a dateline, this is dependent upon the news release source you are submitting to. And example of this is

City, State, Month, Day, Year, the city and state is optional yet will be affective if you are submitting to sites that offer geo submissions

Spacing – Each paragraph should have natural line wraps, one line in between paragraphs. You do not need to include dashes, asterisks, or other symbols to separate sections

Grammar – Need I say more?

HTML – Most of the press release submission sites will only allow HTML with certain upgrade practices

Link Spamming – Again your press release may be limited to a certain number of links back to your site. For instance PR Web the largest of the press release sites allows only 3 links per 100 words of content.

Ticker Symbols – The use of company ticker symbol, corporate name and mention must have permission to do this. Many of the sites will require expressed written permission.

Lists – These work well for content on your site however do not read well for a press release nor are they acceptable form the journalism world.

Length – First of all if you can not write more then a paragraph the submission sites will considered your release not news worthy. Shoot for 300 to 800 words in a paragraph format.

E-mail – Do not include your e-mail in the press release. Add it in the with your bio and contact information. There are reasons for this and is has to do getting your self spammed

Facts – Tell the truth avoid fluff hype or advertising. If your story sounds to good to be true you are probably hurting your credibility.

Jargon – Limit your use of industry jargon. Again speak plain English a limited use of jargon is appropriate.

Proofread – Of Course

Again Do not hesitate to jump into writing press releases to help build back links however just remember at the end of the day actually doing it and making mistakes, correcting them and moving forward is far more productive thinking about it.

Do I Have to Pay to Submit Press Releases?

Back in the “old days” pre 2007, that is how fast things change on the net, right? One could submit press releases to www.prweb.com for free. However once the press release SEO angle became mainstream the largest submission site had to adjust their strategy to keep press releases and to continue to cater to being the number one press release site on the net.

Yes the Laws of Supply and Demand do apply to press releases. PR Web had to begin charging for press releases to keep the supply under control. It has actually been a good thing. We have experienced increase competition and the ability to test and find sights that will produce more traffic for the dollar invested.

PR-Web still is the leader for press release submission, however what do you do if you are just starting out and are a bit leery of the $40.00 to $360.00 and more price tag for one submission?

You search for “Free” (my favorite price for bootstrapping a business start-up). Now I understand that you get what you pay for however what a great way to begin writing and submitting your press releases to get your feet wet and help develop your writing and maybe typing skills.

Through much scouring I have come across a list of “Free” Press Release Sites that meet the criteria mentioned below.

Free Press Release Site Criteria.

1. Be Indexed by Google, this sounds obvious but how do we know and when we are searching for the best bang for the buck submissions for our time and money this would be some great information to have access to.
2. Have a page rank of 4 or more however one of the exceptions is listed below with a page rank of three-ish.
3. An Alexa ranking of over 300,000 ( within the top 300,000 sites on the web)
4. Must be free of course but also offers upgrades.

Below are some sites that meet the criteria; These are in alphabetical order and not by ranking.

24-7pressrelease.com

Bignewsbiz.com

Clickpress.com

Ecommwire.com

Exl.com

Express-press-release.com

Freepressrelease.co.uk

Newswiretoday.com

Powerhomebiz.com

PR-inside.com (UK)

PRlog.org

PRUrgent.com

Theopenpress.com

Usprwire.com

Remember the focus is to be able to submit to the top 3 press release sites,

PRWeb.com

24-7press release.com

PRNewswire.com

These are some good places to begin to submit your press releases. In addition, be sure your analytics tool is installed to begin tracking effectiveness from the press releases. Without tracking and testing we are just wasting our marketing time. Set up your accounts track your accounts and slowly move into the paid upgrades.