Unlock The Power Of Press Release Marketing For Local Business
Let’s call it the “Money Box”.
Being in the top 3 of the local search results box pays off in leads and sales for any local business. According to the Advanced Web Ranking:
…In fact, the first, second and third results receive 24.48%, 13.81% and 9.5% of clicks respectively, for a combined total of 47.79% of clicks, according to Advanced Web Ranking (statistics for mobile traffic, December 2017).
When you combine that with the fact that more searches occur on mobile vs. desktop , you can easily see how very important the Google 3 Pack can be!
As an example, here’s a screenshot of the 3 Pack for the keyword “Sarasota Chiropractor”:
Because this 3 pack appears just after the ads at the top of the Search engine page, and before the organic search results, these Chiropractors are guaranteed to be visible when local people are looking for their services. Other Chiropractors lower in search rankings will appear only when the searcher clicks on “more places”.
These results are triggered when people search for local intent keywords such as: “chiropractors near me” or “Sarasota pain relief”, and even just the search term “chiropractor” will likely be defined by Google as a local intent keyword.
3 pack results are somewhat dependent on the location of the searcher, but each business needs to work to increase the probability that they’ll always be ranked in this money box for relevant keywords.
The Hidden Power of Brand Journalism
One of the simple and powerful techniques for getting your business in the 3 pack is through what we call “brand journalism” – getting your business in the media through a series of articles – aka press releases.
Press releases are often overlooked as a marketing tool by local businesses who think that they’re only for the really big girls and boys.
Done correctly, it can catapult a business from low local rankings to the 3 pack. Here are some of the keys to a successful brand journalism campaign:
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- A properly written and formatted article about your business, syndicated to local, regional, and national media outlets provides high domain authority backlinks to your website.
- A properly written and formatted article about your business, syndicated to local, regional, and national media outlets provides high domain authority backlinks to your website.
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- Citations (Name, Address, and Phone Number) included in the article and posted on these same media sites show Google that your site is important for the search term.
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- Articles and headlines that include the right long-tailed keywords.
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- Consistent publication. One article per month for several months can create a snowball effect of keywords, citations, backlinks, and traffic, all working together to improve the local search rankings.
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- The reputation advantage and prestige that comes with broad national exposure generates leads.
You may be thinking that your business doesn’t have enough news to publish an article per month. Most businesses have more to talk about than they think. You can get our free report below – “106 Reasons To Write A Press Release” for some ideas.
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Brand journalism may not be right for every business, but it’s ideal for businesses like home contractors, medical treatments, real estate, tourism, auto niches, etc.
If you’d like to find out if your business is right for a brand journalism campaign, schedule a free 30-minute discovery consultation here.
Press releases, syndicated through authority websites, have proven to be an effective way to build local search rankings. And unlike “black hat” SEO tactics, Google rewards the related website with higher search engine rankings.