Despite how you envisioned a press release (PR) to be in the past, in today’s internet age the press release is a powerful promotional tool that should be a part of your internet chiropractic marketing strategy to help drive more traffic to your website and hence have more people calling your office. The benefits of press releases include:
Direct traffic from those who read your PR and click on your blog or website link
Building your ‘brand’ in your local community
Increasing your credibility and authority
Improving your search engine ranking by providing more backlinks for your website
Potentially land you in an interview with a local newspaper or magazine
The main benefit that small business owners, including us chiropractors of course, will get from a press release is improving their local search engine ranking.
Most of us understand the benefit of popping up as one of the first few results when someone does an online search for a chiropractor in our area. The good news is that submitting press releases is definitely an important and legitimate part of helping you accomplish that goal of ranking your website as number one on Google.
To help ensure you get the biggest bang for each release you should try to make sure it is
1. Distributed via a ‘credible’ PR distribution site
2. Newsworthy
3. Search engine optimized
There are several PR services that can provide you maximum visibility and credibility on the internet without breaking the bank. As a matter of fact, some are free.
Without going into the Alexa and Google Page-Rank details or search engine optimization (SEO) reasons of why I like certain services over others, suffice it to say that I have used several and I like the following in no particular order: PRLog.org, Free-Press-Release.com, PRLeap.com and PRWeb.com. The first two will allow you to distribute your PR for free while the other two are paid sites.
Whether you go with a cost or free service depends on how you feel about what you read in their sales pitch to you on their site and if you think it is worth the expense or not.
Once you get signed up with a service to distribute your press release through, it’s time to step up to the plate and write it. Basically you are just going to write about something that has happened in your business that is ‘newsworthy.’
Have you added a new service to your practice such as spinal decompression, weight loss or laser?
Have you added new staff that will have a significant impact on the clinic? Hired a new PT or DC perhaps?
Have you been featured or quoted in a blog, newspaper, or magazine?
Have you added any enhancements to your website to better serve your patients and community?
Are you running or about to run a food drive or other event to help the community?
Have you or your company recently earned any awards or accolades?
Writing a press release is where most people get stuck. They freeze up at the thought of having to craft one and then submit it for the world to see. However, don’t let that be a stumbling block. The key to a great press release is just a few main essential elements in addition to ensuring it is search engine friendly, i.e. can be found by the search engines.
First you need to ensure you have a great headline. Don’t get pulled into trying to be clever as search engines don’t understand puns or play on words so keep it straight forward and try to include key search terms for your area when possible.
You will also need to write a summary. I recommend that you do not just paste in the first few sentences of the body of your PR. Write an original summary that makes your release sound like it’s going to be interesting. As well, this is a great place to insert any keyword phrases you can’t squeeze into your main headline.
The body of your PR should just be a few paragraphs, and remember you are announcing something factually; not trying to obviously promote it. State what it is about and the benefits it will have to your patients and the community
Throughout your release try to include anchor text when you can. For example, if your PR is about your new associate chiropractor, then have his name set up as a clickable link that will take the reader back to the bio page on your website that introduces this new addition. Any PR service that allows anchor text will have instructions on how to include these in your release.
At the end of your PR is where you can and should have information about you and your clinic including location, phone number and website/blog links. Just like anchor text, this is a critical part of building your backlinks and improving search engine rankings so don’t forget this step. Additionally, it gives details on how to reach you in case a local new organization wants to follow up with you about your release.
Some services will allow you to add search term tags to your press release or upload photos. I recommend that any photo you upload showcases what your PR is about. If you just got a new laser, then get a crisp looking picture of it off the website for that product and add it to the PR. If you just added a new staff member, add a picture of him or her.
There is absolutely no reason for you to not be able to fully utilize the great advantages of submitting press releases as part of your online chiropractic marketing. The best way to get started is to spend 20 minutes at one of the websites noted above and read a few of the press releases to get a good feel for how they are written.
My recommendation is to send out a few at the free level just to get your feet wet and save the paid and supposedly better search engine optimized submissions for after you are more experienced at writing them or when something bigger happens at your clinic that truly is newsworthy.
