A Bone to Pick: Press Releases Are Not for SEO

Posted on by Rachel

I have a bone to pick with SEO experts: press releases aren’t really one of your tools.

Let me back up. My degree and background is in public relations. In fact, you could say PR has my heart. The strategy, problem solving, and messaging are enough to make my heart skip a beat. Well, that’s a bit of a stretch. But, let’s just say PR is my passion. I may come across as a bit of a PR purist (yes, content marketing and SEO also have a place in my heart), but press releases are a public relations tool.

Press releases, at their core, are for alerting the press (and the public) of a newsworthy event, not for sneaking links onto high-quality distribution sites to boost search rankings. Click To Tweet

What Press Releases do Best

Press releases have a very specific function, and that’s to deliver news. The Museum of Public Relations says this about the first press release ever written:

“While Ivy Lee represented the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1906, a train derailed off a bridge in Atlantic City, causing more than 50 deaths. Instead of hiding the facts from the public—as was common those days—Lee invited the press down to cover the accident first hand. And in order to assure the press had accurate information, he wrote up a statement about the event—the forerunner to today’s ‘press release.’ This first release, written by Lee—himself once a Times reporter—was run verbatim by the Times.”

Interesting, huh? So, for more than 100 years, the press release has been an invaluable tool for PR professionals as they work with the media to tell stories. They are used to share information, send updates about crises, invite people to events, and in short, share news. But, in the age of Google rankings, SEOs have started using them to build links on high-quality distribution sites as well as any media site that publishes press releases from those distribution sites.

But, for a press release to be relevant, and get the attention of the media and the public, it needs to be newsworthy.

Any journalist—or PR pro for that matter—can tell you that for something to qualify as newsworthy, it must meet at least some of these criteria:

  • Proximity
  • Prominence
  • Timeliness
  • Conflict or Controversy
  • Human Interest
  • Impact
  • Novelty

If the topic for your press release doesn’t qualify as newsworthy, I hate to break it to you, but you don’t have the content for a press release. A blog post? Definitely! A social media post? Sure! But, not a press release.

What’s the problem with running a press release just for SEO? You’re damaging your brand and your rankings.

It won’t happen with the first release you publish, and it might not even happen for years. But, eventually, as your business and online presence grows, those old, spammy press releases will catch up to you. You won’t look like an expert, your audience will find that low-quality content before they find lead-generating, valuable content, and you’ll find it harder to run a legitimate public relations campaign.

In fact, Google now penalizes sites that abuse press releases and some distribution sites even started using nofollow ranks to discourage this practice.

The Right Way to Use a Press Release

I frequently run into situations where a business is dead set on publishing a press release on a top distribution site like Cision, PR Newswire, ReleaseWire or BusinessWire, but they don’t have any news. The topic they want to cover doesn’t fit the above criteria, or worse yet, they know they want a press release, but don’t know what they want it to be about.

Tip: if you decide to do a press release before you know what you want to say, you probably don't need one. Click To Tweet

Distribution sites are designed for businesses to connect with journalists. It’s where PR pros can get their messaging out and where journalists can find stories to cover. They weren’t really made for SEO experts to use as a link-building tool.

But, that being said, you can—and should—still add SEO value to a press release.

Press releases are still a very strong PR tool, and good PR can lead to SEO links. SEO expert Jenny Halasz explains:

“So if you have done something noteworthy (changing the color of your carpet does not count), using a press release and a newswire amplification service to distribute it is a great way to generate interest. That interest can lead to stories, interviews, and ultimately attention and links.”

Optimization should be the finishing touch on every press release you publish. It should bring some added value and take advantage of linking opportunities, without taking over and bringing down the content’s quality. Here’s how to create a press release for its intended purpose, as well as some added SEO benefits:

  1. Start with a newsworthy topic. The news should precede the idea to write a press release. In fact, press releases shouldn’t even be your SEO team’s responsibility. They should come from the public relations team.
  2. Use press release format and AP style. This should be a press release first, and a link-building tool second. Follow proper formatting and style, and work with an expert if you aren’t sure what that means.
  3. Answer the five Ws and H. A good press release answers “who, what, where, when, why and how?”
  4. Use a boiler plate. Part of press release style is a boiler plate at the end, which is an optimal place to include a call to action and link.
  5. Link where helpful and don’t overdo it. Don’t add links until you have the final draft. Then, only add them where it’s helpful to the reader and avoid keyword and link stuffing.

To my SEO friends, I’m definitely on board with using content to build rankings, but it needs to be done with high-quality, legitimate content. Let’s all get along and use press releases for their intended purpose, but continue to leverage them for SEO in a way that doesn’t diminish the content or damage businesses and brands.

Do you need help with a press release or SEO content? Contact me!