Publishing your press releases online can release a flood of traffic to your website.  The key is structuring your news item properly.

First, be sure your topic is newsworthy.  If at all possible, tie in the press release to something that’s a hot topic in the news or in social networking sites on the internet.  Visit trends.google.com and buzz.yahoo.com to find the most-searched-for terms and what people are interested in right now.

Second, write down the keywords that relate to the product or service you’re announcing.  Rather than sitting down and writing out what you thing people are searching for, use a tool with proven statistics.  One of the best free tools can be found at

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.

Enter in your main keyword and find related keywords.  Select one that receives more than 10,000 searches per month and has a medium-range level of competition.  Be sure to select a keyword phrase that has more than one word; you will use that phrase to focus your press release on your target audience.

Third, write a compelling title that combines your keyword phrase with a hot topic.  Your headline should, if at all possible, include a benefit for the reader.  Structure your title so that your keyword phrase is the first thing a search engine spider “sees” when crawling your press release.

Fourth, create a summary of your press release that includes three or four of the other keywords your found when doing your keyword research.  That does not mean just list the keywords one after another, but use them in natural sentences to summarize what you’re announcing.

Finally, create the main content of the press release.  This content must answer the who, what, where, when, why and how for the reader.  Write the news item in the third person, include quotes from yourself and other experts, and keep your content to between 300 and 500 words.  As with all of your marketing efforts, be sure the content includes:

•    Benefits for the reader
•    Why they should listen to you
•    Call to action with a compelling reason for the reader to act

In the body of your press release, include at least three well-placed links to your website.  Think about this carefully so that you place them in the most natural locations.  If at all possible, send the links “deeper” into your website.  That means you don’t have to link only to your home page.

Ideally, your links to your website will be keyword links.  That means you’ll publish your press release so that what the reader actually clicks on is your keyword phrase and the url is not displayed.  The exception is in the call to action.  You need to have your full website addressed included in the call to action

The links to your website will cause the search engine spiders to follow and index your site.  Since press release sites are spidered very frequently, your site will likely be indexed quickly.

Follow these five steps and submit your press releases to the online distribution services, then monitor your vistor statistics and be sure your webhost’s server doesn’t melt under the tons of traffic to your web pages.