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Optimized Press Releases; the New Secret Weapon for Business

Optimized Press Releases, the New Secret Weapon for Business

By Rick Wahlquist

Internet users around the globe have surpassed 2 billion.  73 percent of adults and 76 percent of teens are getting their news online. Yahoo and Google News have larger audiences than CNN or BBC for that matter. The dramatic shift in online news consumption requires a shift in strategy to reach an audience.  A well written optimized press release has the ability to reach millions of interested customers almost instantly. 

Beside the sheer number of readers, another benefit of utilizing an optimized press release is the inbound links to your website.  Every time your optimized press release is posted on another website, it creates a link back to your site.  These inbound links have a tremendous effect in increasing your rankings in the search engines.  Your exposure can by multiplied as the press release is passed around social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.  50 percent of people in the U.S. now have a profile page on a social media site.  25 percent of frequent social networkers follow a brand or company on a social networking site.

With the exposure from a well written optimized press release, you will receive increased awareness for your brand.  Increased brand awareness equals more business.  Because those reading your release have come to it using certain keywords and phrases, they are an interested audience.  You now have a unique ability to share the value your product or service to that audience that has already expressed an interest in your offering.

For the optimized press release to be noticed by editors and reporters it needs to read like a news story.  If your release sounds or feels like an advertisement in any way, it will be dismissed very quickly.  Your story needs to be informative in the, who, what, when and where sense but also be interesting and informative. 

A major bonus of the optimized press release is the SEO factor that can be gained by building in key words and phrases that are part of your keyword strategy.  Submitting a monthly press release is a vital part of any SEO strategy.  Many companies spend thousands of dollars each month on SEO and PPC tactics and fail to utilize the “secret weapon” of the monthly optimized press release. 

The infographic, which is a visual representation of information, is an excellent way for your optimized press release to have added effectiveness and maintain longevity.  An infographic will keep a story in circulation much longer than a traditional press release.  This in effect multiplies the effectiveness of the release as it takes on a life of its own on the web being shared over and over again.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, an infographic is worth a thousand links.

The optimized press release is the new secret weapon in your arsenal for success online.  If you have not implemented a consistent press release campaign, you can be certain that your competitors have.  In today’s fast paced online world it is harder and harder to be top of mind and stay in front of your customers and prospects.   By establishing a strategic online marketing plan that includes regular optimized press releases you can stay ahead of the pack and beat out your competition.

Schools Are Hurting Our Kids!

I have recently become a fan of Sir Ken Robinson.  I was at a conference where he spoke and had one of those moments where you here someone speaking that you know what they are saying is profound and correct.  It will be one of those times when I look back and realize I had a paradigm shift in thinking.  As I have reached middle-age-hood, the more I realize that my perceptions and belief systems are in many cases the result of thoughts and circumstances that are not of my making.  There is nothing wrong with that per se, except now I seem to be reviewing many of those perceptions and deciding if they are indeed what I believe.  Ergo Sir Ken Robinson who points out that our educational system as we know it today, virtually around the globe, was put into place to serve the needs of the industrial revolution.  We heavily stress math and sciences above all else.  Art and creative subjects are relegated to second and third class status.  Up until recently I would have agreed with this "prioritization" of subjects.  Sir Robinson points out that there are many types of intelligence and each is significant and important.  We each learn differently and what is good for the goose isn't always good for the gander.  Where would the world be without Albert Einstein, Elvis Presley, Mick Fleetwood?  It was Einstein that said, "Imagination is more important that knowledge".  Imagination and creativity are knowledge.  And creativity is as needed and important as any other field of study.  We quite literally educate out of our kids the ability to be creative.  We want to punch out a robot that will get a good ACT score, become an engineer or doctor, these are good citizens.  I wonder what Jim Henderson's parents thought when he went up to them and said, "Mom, Dad, I want to be a puppeteer". 
If you would like to see Sir Ken Robinson speak on the death of creativity by the education system you can click this link.  He is engaging and very funny.  

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

A Tribute to My Unknown Mother

I can only imagine what panic and fear grips a young woman who realizes that she is in deep trouble, the kind of trouble that is a life-changer,  the "what will the neighbors" say kind of trouble.  This is bigger trouble than wrecking your dad's car or a bad report card.  Bigger than getting caught shoplifting that candy-bar when you where a kid and your mom makes you go confess your deed to the manager.  No, this is BIG kind of trouble. This kind of trouble that won't let you sleep at night because the questions are coming at you like a 90 mph brushoff pitch.  Questions like, "What am I going to do", "How did this happen", "What will my parents say, will they still love me", "Where will I go".  For a young woman from a small Utah town in the 60's, this kind of predicament is not allowed.  I wonder at times what she felt that first time someone she knew saw her with an unmistakable bump that is now too large to hide.  I wonder if she had someone who was nice to her and offered her an encouraging word, or just sit with her and hold her hand.  I wonder these things because I can only imagine.  But what I don't have to imagine is the fact that she loved me.  I know she loved me because I'm here.  I pay tribute to my birth mother who in spite of her own comfort, reputation and standing, sacrificed dearly so I could have life. How much easier would have been for her to quietly take care of the problem. I also can only imagine how much pain she went through in bringing me into this world only to have the much more intense pain of handing the little bundle to someone else, a stranger really, with the hope that she is doing the right thing.  She honors my with her unmeasurable sacrifice. She also sacrificed seeing me hit my first baseball, earn my first merit badge, my first date and my first child...her grandchild.  While there are lots of thing I have to imagine, you see, she also has to imagine, that was part of the deal.  I was given a gift, my gift was having two moms.  The mom I don't know but can only imagine and the mom that rocked my to sleep at night and put bandages on my knees when I fell and went to parent teacher conferences.  They both love me and I love them both.  One day in this life, or more likely the next, I will embrace my moms, thank them and tell them as I look into their eyes how much I love and respect them.

I love you mom, Happy Mothers Day.

Your son,

Rick