Getting lucrative media coverage for the cost of a stamp or a phone call is a process I described in my 1994 book, Six Steps to Free Publicity. Gradually I've also learned numerous ways to get the word out online for no cost at all. But nothing has made me as excited as the potential of a new online publicity method I've been studying for the last several months. Search engines increasingly charge for inclusion, and press release distribution networks charge hundreds of dollars to distribute your news. But I've come up with a way to legitimately let other people shoulder the time or effort for your news to show up in search engines.

The lightbulb went off for me when I was searching for very specialized software and came upon a press release for such a product posted at another site, not that of the company producing the software. Of course that release led me to the company's Web site, which was itself nowhere in the search engine listings.

I therefore went looking for sites that welcome free posting of press releases and found more than 100 of them. I posted my own press release at more than 20 of them and now, two months later, a Yahoo search on the phrase "free syndicated business content," which was the theme in the headline and the body of my release, turns up three of these in the
first 20 listings, including in position #1. If I type in "attract repeat business visitors," which is an exact quote from the headline, eight of eight items that come up are instances of the press release.

Search Engine Optimization and Free Press Release Distribution

Here's how to profit from this strategy, in six steps.

1. Decide on a keyword phrase that ties in to the product or service you are promoting and that people actually search for. You can research this conveniently at Wordtracker.com.

2. Place this phrase into your press release headline and repeat it around three times within the body of your press release.

3. Unless the proper name of your product or service is already well-known, emphasize its generic description rather than its name. For instance, write "proposal writing software" rather than "PropWritePro."

4. Likewise, substitute keyword phrases for pronouns like "it" or "its" to increase their overall frequency in the release.

5. Post your completed press release at sites that allow free posting, such as prweb.com, pressbox.co.uk and dozens of others that turn up in searches on phrases like "free press release submission."

6. Wait a few weeks and check your standing in search engines for the phrases in your release. Positionagent.com works well for this. Then repeat the whole process for another message, another keyword phrase or another product or service.

Assuming you've chosen your keyword phrases wisely, enjoy the increased visibility and traffic that the free press release posting sites have worked hard to obtain for you!

Marcia Yudkin is the author of a new special report, PR For the Internet Age, as well as of Six Steps to Free Publicity, Persuading on Paper and eight other books. For more information, visit http://www.yudkin.com/printernet.htm or contact marcia@yudkin.com.