5 Best Practices for Tying Press Releases Back to Your Site

by | Jun 24, 2016 | Business Feature

How to Display Company News Onsite

Press releases have been a staple tactic in the online marketing world for more than a decade. Relatively inexpensive and easy to submit, a single news announcement can instantly promote your brand on hundreds or thousands of online publishers. There are tons of articles dedicated to how to write an ideal press release, or how to find a newsworthy topic, but even a well written press release can suffer from compromised effectiveness if it doesn’t tie back to your site properly.

The Benefits of Press Releases

There are tons of benefits to press releases, but they can ultimately be grouped into three categories, all of which require that your press release tie closely into your core domain:

  • Getting featured on lots of different publishers exposes you to tons of new readers, but that won’t do you much good if they don’t know where to find you, or if they want to learn more about your brand.
  • Exposure to your brand can help build your reputation, but your main website serves as an anchor point for your online reputation, and demands support.
  • Backlinks pass domain authority (for SEO) as well as referral traffic, but you need to implement these links properly if you want either one.

Tying It Back to Your Site

Now let’s take a look at the strategies you’ll use to maximize the relationship between your press release and your domain:

  1. Include both a homepage and internal link. One of the biggest benefits of press releases is your opportunity to link back to your site. You’ll almost always get a homepage link to cite your brand (provided your brand is the main subject), but it’s also worth considering including an internal page link. This will help you increase the page authority of a particularly valuable page of your site, but will also help send referral traffic just a little deeper into your domain. The key is not to force in an internal link; make sure it’s natural. For example, you could make your company announcement on a dedicated news page, the way Dunkin Donuts does, and then link to that announcement as a citation for your external release.
  2. Incorporate media that shows off your brand. There are a few ways to do this. First, if you have any media that specifically calls out your brand or website, include it. An example of this is an infographic with a watermark that features your brand name and website. Also, if your story is featured prominently in a visual format, like an image or video, you can show that off on a dedicated page of your site, the way Monder Law does in this example.
  3. Showcase a truncated version on your news page. It’s not a good idea to copy and paste the entire press release onto your news page, as this may register as duplicate content for Google’s search crawlers and may force users to read the same press release twice. However, you can feature a truncated version of your press release on your news page, or an alternate version that you’ve modified specifically for users on your site. For example, Moz maintains and regularly updates its news page, regardless of any external coverage it receives.
  4. Highlight your latest news on your homepage. Let’s face it—not a lot of people immediately jump to the “news” page when they visit a brand’s website. If you want some extra visibility for your latest press, it’s a good idea to include some highlights on your homepage. Many restaurants and local businesses do this with a “what’s new” section on their homepage, like with Melt Bar and Grilled, which may link to a dedicated news page.
  5. List all the major publishers you’ve been featured on. This is a key way to show off the new reputation and authority you’ve gained in the news arena. Gather up all the logos and brand assets of major publishers your press releases have been featured on, and showcase them on your website, preferably on your homepage. Leading with “as seen on,” or some similar phrasing clues readers into the fact that you’ve established relationships there, and can make you seem more trustworthy long after your original press releases stop being relevant news.

Most of these strategies don’t demand a considerable amount of time or effort. If you have a dedicated news page on your site, you’re already halfway to completing most of these tactics. Anytime you have a newsworthy event to share, you need to make the most of it by submitting a widespread press release and making sure it locks in closely with your core online presence—do so, and you’ll see far greater visibility, traffic, and reputation among your target audience.