Written By Barbara K. Mednick, Online PR Expert

When I started my career as a PR professional in the late 1980’s (after working first as a print journalist), my primary goal was to write and distribute a compelling news release that the media would open, read and either write an article on or run a radio or TV story on. The rapid growth of the Internet, however, has changed that.

Now my new goal is to make certain that when a journalist types a specific key word(s) into a search engine related to the business or organization I am promoting, my news release appears online and pique’s their attention. Another goal is to grab the attention of other key target audiences I want to influence directly – something that I couldn’t do before the advent of the Internet.

What Is Online PR?

Online PR is made possible due to the rapid growth of the Internet, which the media increasingly rely on to research topics and gather information. It involves activities focused on influencing the media, communities and audiences that exist solely on the Internet using online channels, which include:

• Search engines

• Blogs

• News search

• Forums

• Discussion threads

• Social networks

• Online newsrooms

• Other online communicate tools

Offline PR involves activities focused on influencing offline print, radio and TV media by contacting them directly and pitching story ideas. A mix of online PR tactics with offline PR tactics can be very powerful.

Online PR Tools

There are a number of online PR tools, which include:

• Online news releases

• Wire services  (i.e. PR Newswire, BusinessWire and PRWeb)

• Online media kit

• Pitching bloggers

• Good search engine optimization effort (SEO)

Power of News Releases

Newsworthy, well written online news releases are one of the most powerful online PR tools because they can drive traffic, particularly from search engines. Map keywords to the press release like you would map keywords to a web page, using keywords in the title, subheads and body of the release.

News releases also put you online where journalists are looking for story ideas, sources, trends, statistics, etc. In 2009 Arketi Group study journalists were found to use the web in the following ways:

• 95% search

• 92% reading news

• 92% emailing

• 89% finding story ideas

• 87% finding news sources

• 75% reading blogs

• 64% watching webinars

• 61% watching YouTube

• 59% social networks

Here’s more proof of their effectiveness. A recent case study from PRWeb involved a firm that typically sees a boost in search engine rankings and a 50 percent spike in web traffic after they issue a news release. In fact, for one release in particular, the firm saw a spike of 400 percent on two different Web sites, and the firm doesn’t believe they were from the same users. They also incorporate social media tools like Twitter to extend the “shelf life” of press releases, which they say drives additional traffic.

Writing Online News Releases

Following are top tips for a great online news release from VOCUS and PRWeb:

• Decide on your topic

Focus on a tight group of relevant key phrases (2 – 3)

• Write great content

Your news release will attract more well-targeted clicks if it is compelling.

• Get the news release out on social networks – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

• Optimize the news release for search engines

Headline

First sentence or two of body copy

Add video or images

• Make your backlinks work for you

Targeted anchor text and landing pages

More content = more links