Press Releases for SEO – How Digital PR Is an Untapped Opportunity Share: Maps Of Arabia Date Published 28 September 2020 Categories Blog, Guide, Tutorial Reading Time 4-Minute Read Fifty years ago, press releases were exclusively used by big companies that could afford to pay thousands for a news outlet to deliver their news to the general public. Press releases were more like sales letter disguised within news articles, to get higher exposure and increase public awareness of their updates, partnerships, product launches and more. Press releases for SEO are still considered an essential public relations activity, but its importance from a local SEO standpoint should not be neglected by digital marketers. It started in the days of traditional newspapers, where the print is ready to publish with all the actual news articles, and paid ads, but there were always been a few blank spaces. Publishers realized that they can include local business news to get the papers fully filled with texts, and it turned to be valuable for businesses and less pricey than direct ads. Nowadays, you can publish a press release on 200 high DA news outlets for 100 USD! This serves the same purpose as traditional paper journals, yet laser targeting your audience, claiming more digital real-estate (pages), and getting more websites talking about your brand and services, which is crucial for local businesses in Jordan, also for international SEO and e-Commerce businesses. Citations Are Links for Local SEO Citations, digital references, and brand mentions describe the same term which is having your NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) published on webpages to increase your brand prominence, according to Google Local Ranking Factors: Prominence refers to how well known a business is. Some places are more prominent in the offline world, and search results try to reflect this in local ranking. Prominence is also based on information that Google has about a business, from across the web, like links, articles, and directories. Indeed Do-Follow links that get you traffic are the best signal you can give to Search Engines, if not, then a No-Follow. But still, a proper citation on a powerful relevant news source is a great signal. It’s unmeasurable the way links are especially if it’s an unstructured citation that you will get inside an article, but Google crawls everything, titles, text, images, and what is around the page! so why not getting your NAP indexed and increase your brand prominence. We have helped many Jordanian and Arabian businesses by covering their updates and distributing their news to regional and global news publishers. We saw a significant ranking improvement within months of publishing, but it has to be consistent, relevant, and valuable. Public Relations for Reputation Management Digital PR is an essential element of your Content Marketing strategy, getting more web pages talking about your brand, services, locations, and personnel will aid your brand recognition, awareness, authority, and credibility from an SEO, User Experience, and Social Media point of view. Are you seeking the blue tick next to your name on Facebook, Instagram, and Wikipedia? Press Releases for SEO the way to go. What’s better than credible news portals publishing content you provide to polish your brand? It’s much easier to get a Wikipedia article if you already have other local relevant news publishing your digital PR. Also, by publishing press releases for SEO on a regular basis, you will claim valuable properties. Imagine a client searching for your brand name outside your website, ideally, your website and social media pages should be on the first page, but for the 2nd pages, you can also claim it your own with news published on authoritative websites, instead of showing your competitors results! Topics To Cover in a Digital Press Releases for SEO Sure, you might run out of ideas for some blog posts, but there are thousands of topics to write about in a press release, showcasing products, new services, or new branch openings. New hires too, what would be better than writing and distributing press releases for a well-known figure in your business community, or hiring a key player that used to work for your competitor in the past? It’s better than having your competitors writing about you! Share the press release on their social pages if they have followers too. A few micro-influencers are debatably better than one high-level social media influencer. Our team understands the ins and outs of publishing on high DA websites. Their guidelines might be rigorous, but we have well-established contacts and trust to have our client’s press published. Reach out for a free consultation to help get your digital PR rolling out to the right publishers.