Legal Internet Marketing Blog
At our most recent tweetup, the SLS Consulting team discussed press releases, and how, although the Internet has changed since they were first implemented, they still play a critical part in every legal Internet marketing strategy.
These days, attorney press releases have to be carefully optimized, though not excessively, in order to rank well in search engines for relevant keywords and terms. Having an optimized press release gives a website valuable backlinks for credible news sites, which only serves to further increase the ranking of the website for those keywords. Press releases also have long-term SEO value since they are indexed and maintained on third-party sites. It is an important distinction to make that press releases are not blogs; rather, they are more extensive and focus more on unique, newsworthy items, while blogs tend to be more general interest and information pieces.
We also talked about what makes a press release bad, and conversely, what makes a press release good. The following were a few tidbits that were shared:
- If a press release is stuffed with keywords, it’s not readable, and therefore less likely to be shared and distributed.
- If a press release has too many links, it seems like spam. Two links per 500-600 words is a good goal to have, and it focuses search engines on relevant terms.
- It is vital for a press release to have a social element; as in, ways for people to comment/Like/tweet or otherwise share with their networks, otherwise it won’t go anywhere.
Several other helpful tips regarding press releases were discussed, including what should be done once a press release has been submitted. One suggestion is to share the press release on popular bookmarking sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon. According to a recent Mashable article, StumbleUpon now drives over 50 percent of social media traffic.
To read more of the discussion and to learn more tips about press releases, you can read the full transcript of our tweetup, “The Do’s and Don’ts of Press Releases,” on our page on Facebook. You can also send us a direct message on Twitter-our account is @LegalBlogs.
We’ll be taking a break from our weekly tweetups for the Labor Day holiday, so the next tweetup will be on September 9. We plan to discuss Facebook fan pages, and how attorneys can best utilize them in their legal Internet marketing campaigns. If you would like to participate, find us on Twitter at 10 a.m. on Fridays, and include #knowSEO with your tweets, or send us a direct message for more information. Talk to you soon!