How to write a press release in 10 minutes

Writing a press release is both a great way of attracting highly targeted visitors to your website and a 100% ethical method that will help improve your website’s rank in the search engines – this is one of the key reasons why we are including PR submissions into our Rank Mover SEO package. Sadly, many business owners don’t benefit from the usage of press releases because they don’t know how and what they should write about; this article will give you several ideas that can be implemented easily.

PR Title

Let’s start with the title of your release: keep it short (under 62 characters if possible), make it punchy and include the main keyword that you are targeting in the title – here’s an example:

XYZ Enterprises now Offers Small Business Loans for Students

We can see that the title includes the company name, the main keyword we’re targeting (“small business loans”) and presents the company’s offer clearly. With this title, I’m pretty sure that many of the students that see your PR and want to start their own business will be interested in reading it.

Leading paragraph

The opening paragraph is crucial; if you don’t get it right the visitors will stop reading your press release for sure. This means that you should dedicate a lot (and I mean a lot!) of time to the creation of the leading paragraph – here are a few pointers:
- What makes your story interesting? Is it relevant for the audience that you are targeting? Does it relate to a hot topic, in other words is it newsworthy?
- Does your story have an emotional hook? Does it make your readers identify with the person / case study that you are talking about in your PR?
- Can you offer any proof to your readers? They will be much more likely to take action if you can show verifiable proof.

Basically, the leading paragraph should be short, including your company name / website link and revealing a summary of the press release content, but without covering all its aspects – that’s the role of the text body, which usually contains 300…600 words.

PR Body

Ensure that the body of your PR keeps your readers engaged; don’t use complicated, technical jargon, but short sentences written in plain English. Use the text body to create hyperlinks that point to the proper website pages that promote your products and / or services. As an example, if your PR talks about small business loans, you should turn one of the “small business loans” occurrences into a link that points to yourwebsite.com/small-business-loans page – this will help it rank better in the search engines for the “small business loans” keyword.

And I know that it might sound obvious, but make sure to add your keywords to the text body only if they fit in naturally and don’t forget to avoid link stuffing; many press release submission sites discourage that, so try and keep the maximum number of links per PR to 3 or 4.

A good tip is to use the press release as an instrument that tells a story about one or several of your customers; go ahead and contact them, asking if they can provide a good testimonial. Another important tip: always write using a 3rd person voice (“According to Mr. Samuel Jackson, CEO of Fortunate Cookies Inc…”) even if you are writing about yourself, and avoid addressing to your customers using “you” (“the website visitors will benefit from free consultations” is much better).

The body should also include an image or a video that showcases your new product or service. Finally, don’t forget to add a powerful call to action, giving your readers a reason to click that link and visit your website. The closing paragraph can summarize the key points of the release, offering your company’s contact information and website address close to its end.

PR Ideas

What happens if you don’t have any newsworthy content, and you still want to write a press release? It might sound surprising, but launching a new website, opening a new office, securing business funding, launching a contest, offering free consultations and / or product samples, winning an award, reaching a milestone (the 1,000th client?), partnering with another company, giving away a free e-book, local event sponsorships, having a company anniversary, hiring a new staff member / CEO, and so on are all valid reasons to write a compelling press release.

But how can you write a press release in only 10 minutes? I recommend that you should take the time and come up with your own PR template, but if you don’t have the time to do it, simply use the template below, editing it according to your needs. Make sure to apply all the tips and techniques that you have learned by reading this article.

PR Title

Leading paragraph – Business Name now offers / is pleased to announce / will launch / is proud to offer / has teamed up with / etc  - make sure to list the key points of your release here.

PR Body – Give the readers more information: details about the event, new website features that will make the visitor experience more rewarding, client benefits, etc. You can also include a quote from the CEO, using something like this: According to Mr. James Black, CEO of XYZ Enterprises, “Our new product will help the American entrepreneurs…”. If you’ve got a case study, make sure to include it here.

Boilerplate – describe your business, stating your company’s offer, experience, etc. Include a powerful call to action (or at least a website link) at the end: “Visit http://www.xyxyz.com for more information / to download / to get / etc”.