SEO PRESS RELEASE HEADLINES

How to write SEO Press Release Headlines to rank on Google & with reporters. See sample of headlines, tips, bloopers & 70 verbs to power your press releases.

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SEO Press Release Headlines are powered by a common denominator: verbs. Call it verb power. The most successful press releases use this power to the max. In fact, in writing any news headline, the slogan is: Power to the verbs!

Writing headlines? Verbs rule. Think about this: a verb is the only requirement for a complete sentence. A complete thought can be conveyed without a noun, pronoun, adjective or adverb: Go! Look! Enjoy! No other part of speech is this important.

When creating your press release headline, verbs rock and rule. Empowering your headlines with verbs is a simple two-step process:

1. Find the Verb
Find the verb by answering this question: "What is your business or nonprofit organization doing?" Are you presenting, creating, developing, forming, incorporating, positioning, protesting, reacting, releasing, responding, showcasing, or thwarting?

2. Write Present Tense
Change those verbs to the simple present tense and you have headlines for your news releases. Here's a baker's dozen:

ABCD Company Strikes Collaboration Deal with Yahoo
ABCD Company Creates New User Experience
ABCD Company Develops Distributor Opportunity
ABCD Company Displays at EFGH Convention
ABCD Company Forms New China Subsidiary
ABCD Company Incorporates Web 2.0 Tools in Website
ABCD Company Positions for Spring Fashion Show
ABCD Company Protests Government Announcement
ABCD Company Reacts to Market Developments
ABCD Company Releases WordPress Add-on
ABCD Company Responds to Competitor IBM Complaint
ABCD Company Showcases New Video Technology in Dallas
ABCD Company Thwarts Rogue Software Distribution

News Release Frequency

At a minimum, you need 4 press releases per year, each with an impressive, verb-based headline. Major, successful companies send press releases daily or weekly. (Why do they do that? Because they know what they're doing and that's why they're successful.)

More Power Verbs for SEO Headlines

Need more verbs? Here's a supply for the rest of the year:

advances
blogs
brings
broadcasts
collects
composes
conducts
connects
contributes
designs
determines
discovers
enables
enjoys
entertains
envisions
garners
hires
honors
hosts
innovates
invests
partners (with)
posts
presents
produces
promotes
publishes
receives
recognizes
recoups
represents
shares
signs
sponsors
tests
trumps
visits
wins

OK. You now have 52 verbs for creative, press release headlines: one a week for an entire year.

Want more verbs? Read any sports page or sports website for action-packed, attention-getting verbs, i.e.,

braces

challenges

fields

dunks

hits

picks

plays

rams

rattles

recruits

retrieves

sacks

scores

shakes

shocks

slams

smashes

upsets

ad infinitum . . .

Visit news sites and collect the headlines that hit you in the gut, pulling you, forcing you to read the story. Collect headlines that are so cute that you already have a smile on your face when you click into the story. Collect the unusual, the profound, the nostalgic and the impressive. Analyze the headlines, note the verbs, and copy the writers' techniques.

One last tip here: don't ever use the verb announces. Unless you're Google, Inc., you won't impress any editor with this time-worn, press release verb. If your press release headline doesn't jerk the head of an editor, it won't see the light of day in print nor online.

Remember this: Collect verbs. Verbs are your single, most effective Press Release Headline writing tools. If the headline doesn't grab the reader and pull him into the article, your release will be unread. The headline, powered by verbs, will make or break your press release.

Now, You'll Need Nouns

And not just any nouns. In this, the age of Google, you're gonna need keywords.

The true story of the Tribune Company's turnaround due to using keywords in headlines is legendary. In 2008, the Tribune Company, owner of such famous online news sites as the Chicago Tribune and the LA Times, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from its $13 billion debt load. Tribune employee Brent Payne assumed the position of the company's Director of Search Engine Optimization and turned the company around, almost overnight. As company SEO evangelist, Payne explained the concept to his journalists:

"Consider the newsstand of today. Even though you write a great article, if no one sees that article it doesn't really matter. Online you can take a news stand and put it in the middle of Times Square by doing good SEO, or you can take your news stand and stick it in the middle of Kansas by doing no SEO. It's your choice.

"I said to them that although it may not be perfect for you guys journalistically to put a full proper noun in a headline, it makes a huge difference to the number of people who read your quality content.

"Every time the stories from that 25% [of employees who accepted his advice] hit the top of Google, an email went out not only to them but to their bosses as well. I sent a short email which said great job, your story got the first page of Google, you have driven this much traffic to our site – and that reaffirmed to them that this [SEO] was the right thing to do."

Payne's efforts increased online readership on the company's web properties from 14 million per month in 2007 to 34 million in 2009.

Your company or organization name is a keyword. Beyond that, what you place directly after the lead verb are your main keywords and keyword phrases for search engines.

Here are the sample headlines used for verbs above. Look at the same sample headlines with the keyword nouns in bold:

ABCD Company Strikes Collaboration Deal with Yahoo
ABCD Company Creates New User Experience
ABCD Company Develops Distributor Opportunity
ABCD Company Displays at EFGH Convention
ABCD Company Forms New China Subsidiary
ABCD Company Incorporates Web 2.0 Tools in Website
ABCD Company Positions for Spring Fashion Show
ABCD Company Protests Government Announcement
ABCD Company Reacts to Market Developments
ABCD Company Releases WordPress Add-on
ABCD Company Responds to Competitor IBM Complaint
ABCD Company Showcases New Video Technology in Dallas
ABCD Company Thwarts Rogue Software Distribution

Keywords catch the eye of the correct, target audience online, and also attract reporters. One of the purposes of your news release is to catch the attention of a reporter who might consider doing an in-depth article or broadcast about your news.

Every day, reporters all over the world plug keywords into search engines looking for fresh ideas. Putting the right keywords in press release headlines is one of the best ways to reach this influential audience and garner priceless, free publicity.

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1. Keep your headline within about 70 characters, including spaces. The press release distribution service you use will have its own guidelines for headline length.

2. It's always a wise idea to run your headline by a second pair of eyes just to be sure it doesn't include an unintended double meaning. Consider this newspaper headline blooper:

Here are two headlines from a newspaper in the U.S. town of Big Ugly, West Virginia:

Big Ugly Woman Wins Beauty Pageant
Big Ugly Woman Killed

Here are some all-time favorite headline bloopers:

Iraqi Head Seeks Arms
Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers
New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group
Teacher Strikes Idle Kids
Kids Make Nutritious Snacks
Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors
New Vaccine may Contain Rabies
Miners Refuse to Work after Death
Woman to drop suit for sperm
Coach sells wife on move to Dayton
Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead

Distributing SEO press releases provides an excellent source of traffic to your website. It's not rocket science and, yes, you can develop the skills to write effective headlines for your news releases.

Learn search engine optimization in this free guide:

SEO TUTORIAL

Learn how to write for the Web:

WEBSITE CONTENT WRITING

Find out about the Google Panda algorithm and how to avoid a penalty:

GOOGLE PANDA SEO

Learn about the Google Penguin algorithm and what to do if your site is penalized:

GOOGLE PENGUIN SEO

Find out how to avoid the Google penalty for duplicate content:

DUPLICATE CONTENT PENALTY

Read over 100 quotations about the World Wide Web:

QUOTES ABOUT THE INTERNET

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