Businesswire visited our firm today to talk about the new press release optimization tool they are developing in conjunction with SEO-PR and Vocus. One thing I was struck by was the discussion regarding optimization and the potential impact on how we write.
As many in the PR industry have noted, the press release as we know it, is changing. Now it's time to educate clients about it so when we write a release a certain way, they know why we are doing it that way.
So expect that the classic pyramid style to be flipped on its head, for repetitive (and key) words to be more frequently used in the headline and first paragraph, and commonly accepted misspellings and grammar errors (i.e. Bachelors Degree) to be legitimized in releases. Expect too, that releases will contain hyperlinks and social media tags.
Also, if you have a cute or fancy spelling for your product, you may want to re-think that. Consumers, for instance, are more inclined to search for "basketball" than they are "BaHsKITbawLL". And while you are at it, start talking to your lawyers now about how trademarks can't go in a press release because a "razor scooter" will never be searched by consumers looking for a "razor scooter™".
The reason? More and more people get their news (read: content) from search sites than they do news sites, and when they search, they do so intuitively; they don't follow AP style.