The press release is a format which is most strongly associated with traditional media formats such as newspapers, radio and television. However, press releases have found new life and new purpose on the World Wide Web. If you’re in the internet marketing business (or really, any business, since the emergence of the web as a marketplace has made almost every business owner an internet marketer by necessity), writing press releases for the web can build backlinks to your site, generate traffic and of course, lead to coverage in traditional media and by websites which cover your industry.

You can get started with this by first writing and submitting an article to one of the article directories. Then you can repurpose that article into a press release by simply turning it into an announcement. Answer the who, what, where, when, why, and how questions and make it sound exciting. I like to think of it as a kindergarten student coming home from the first day of school and giving his family a detailed account of exactly what went on at school that day. If you can incorporate the excitement of what you are announcing into your press release, it will bring you lots of interest from the media and others on the internet.

Press releases, even the ones you submit to the free press release sites, will give you increased visibility and rank high in the search engines for your keywords.

The first line of your press release also needs to capture the reader’s interest. You have a very short amount of time to engage the reader, so make the most of this. If your headline and the first line of the body are strong enough to make them want to read further, you’re halfway there.

Traditional journalists are now searching the internet for information to include in their stories. The press release services will help you to get media exposure by releasing your story to Google and Yahoo News, allowing journalists and editors to receive your story quickly. Even the Wall Street Journal has stated that at least 75% of its contents come originally from press releases.

The way to make subjective statements in a PR is with attributions. These are quotes from a company spokesperson which can convey a more personal point of view again though, it’s a mistake to make this an outright sales pitch. However, attributions are a valuable way of putting a more personal spin on your release, something which does have an effect on readers and with a online PR, your readers include potential customers as well as members of the media.

Now as for making your PR SEO friendly, you’ll want to make the headline a link to your site; you can also include a link at the bottom of the release, following the body and one link within the body of the release as well. Don’t overdo it with the links though, as this will be distracting to readers.

Your keyword use matters here too. Use the same kind of SEO best practices as you would on your webpage. Use keywords in your headline and naturally throughout the body of the release. Don’t make the mistake of packing your release with keywords; this can lead to it being ignored by search engines and makes it difficult to read remember to write for human readers first and search engines second.

If the purpose of the press is to make people want more information, then the contact person must be able to answer all of the forthcoming questions. Otherwise, the press release, the company behind the announcement and the writer (you) all lose credibility. And, in the business world, that’s usually your most important asset.