Press Release-Breathe Life into your Jewelry Business

I'm reprinting this article with permission because this old tool,the press release , can breathe some much needed life into emerging and established handcrafted jewelry businesses!

A New Look at an Old Tool
The press release was long considered the workhorse of the public relations trade, now smart marketers are breathing new life into this tool.

It used to be that PR folks would create tightly formatted press releases to distribute a your company's story to the media. The hope was that these releases would catch the attention of a journalist and spark a mention or interview.

While PR firms still pump these documents out, they no longer have the impact they once had. However, smart marketers have discovered new ways to breathe life into the press release and use it a way to communicate directly with prospects as well as journalists.

Most journalists will tell you that they go online when researching story ideas and looking for sources to interview and quote. Creating press releases with an eye on search engine optimization has become a powerful way to get your story told while enhancing your overall web presence.

The trick to employing the press release as a search engine tool is to focus on creating quality content that features basic optimization techniques.

Why optimize

A press release that focuses on your company's primary keyword phases can often bring page one search results for very little cost.

Press releases distributed through the right channels can bring your web site hundreds of back-links in a very natural fashion (very important factor for the search engines)

Targeted press releases can bring very targeted traffic to your site when done on a consistent basis.

Tips for formatting

• Create strong, keyword rich titles and subtitles for your release - don't get spammy with this keep it strong and short
• Keep it short - aim for somewhere around 500 words tops
• Cover the most important details in your lead paragraph
• Add quotes from customers or executives and write in 3rd person
• End your press release with a concise paragraph about your company an don't forget contact information

You can use my free Instant Press Release tool to walk your through this and format the release for you.

Tips for optimizing

• Make sure you have your list of important keywords and phrases
• Try to work a phrase into your title, subtitle and several times in the body of the release but make sure that it looks natural - consider saying it several ways
• If you link to a page on your site, use the keyword phrase as your link text instead of click here - this is very important for long-term effectiveness
• Create an RSS feed (you can create a free WordPress.com blog and write your releases and use the RSS feed) and repost the content back to a page on your site.
• Make it easy to bookmark your release by adding social bookmarking tags

Now that you've created a well written, well optimized press release it,s time to get it out there on the Internet and in front of some journalists. (Don't worry if you don't get a call from the New York Times, the real value is what doing this on a monthly basis can mean to your web presence - if you get a story or two, that's great.)

There are many press release distribution services such as PRNewswire, MarketWire, and BusinessWire, but I think that PRWeb.com is the best small business tool.

For $80 PRWeb will distribute your press release to thousands of journalists and with its Online Visibility Engine much of the task of SEO and adding social media tools is done for you. The $80 level assures that your release makes it to Google and Yahoo News.

Related article - Minor PR Story Starters

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John Jantsch is a marketing and digital technology coach, award winning social media publisher and author of Duct Tape Marketing. He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing small business marketing system. You can find more information by visiting www.ducttapemarketing.com