Tips For Optimizing Your Next International Press Release

The time has come! Your company landed that big project in Europe, you opened a brand new office in South America, or you’ve partnered with a new vendor in Asia. But, now what? Wait for people to find you? Not if you partner with Big Footprint!

International press releases are an effective way to publicize your new venture and ensure your news is discovered by your industry (and search engines). In general, content does not rank overnight. Leveraging a press release service will help your news get in front of a larger audience by utilizing the industry partners of each service. These partners will share your information and link back to your website, providing valuable earned links.

An added benefit of an online press release is that it helps to monopolize a search engine’s results page for targeted keywords. Indexation of the release on PR Web, PR Newswire, BusinessWire, or other services will expand your digital footprint. By taking up more “real estate” you make it more difficult for your digital competition to rank as well.

Here are a few tips for optimizing your next international press release:

Selecting a Service: Becoming a “member” of some wire services can be free and instantaneous, while others can take up to 24 hours to process and approve a paid application. Some services that we utilize here at Big Footprint are:

• PR Web: A great outlet for distributions in the United States. It is not expensive (and can be even cheaper if you buy press releases in bulk). However, they do not have international targeting options. You can also attach content. See an example.
• BusinessWire: While BusinessWire does not have a membership fee, you do need to apply to become a member. International press releases have an extra $85 fee on top of your rate for the first 400 words, so the costs can add up.
• PR Newswire: Annual membership is required for PR Newswire. While they state their membership is $249, you can negotiate the price down. This might seem expensive, but if you are doing multiple international releases a year, the cost will be worth it. International targeting is easy and you can hyper target your desired market or region. Also, there is a $50 discount for pre-translating your release (if you can).

If you are an agency, you may need to have your client(s) email the distribution service to grant permission to distribute a release on their behalf. Make sure you allocate time and budget for this!

400 Words: Write a press release in English that is around 400 words. Most services charge a fee (as much as $300!) for each additional 100 words after 400. When calculating the cost, word count is based on the English version of a release.

Targeting: Select the countries you need to target, but also look at region packages of different countries. Many times selecting specific countries is more expensive than a region. For example, a client now offers services in Spanish and they want to target South America… pick a package that is targeted for only Spanish speaking countries in South America.

Translate: Leverage your employees to translate your press release, if you can. This will save you a translation fee from the press release service and give you peace of mind that the translation is correct and uses local vernacular.

Rich Media: When sending out your release you can improve your SEO by attaching assets to your press release. Optimized assets, like a PDF with meta data and links, will be distributed and picked up by different syndications when the release goes out. For international releases, these assets should be translated into the native language of your target market.

Add to Your Blog: Finally, once you have distributed your release, talk about it on your blog and your optimized social channels. This will help to give your release more longevity and more opportunities to earn links. In your blog you can utilize internal linking to provide resources to other translated language pages and also provide a link to read the official press release.

If you have any questions on international press releases or want more information on how they benefit SEO, leave a comment below or contact us!