Using press releases for marketing purposes has become increasingly popular lately.

There has been an increase of firms springing up online offering optimized press release services for individuals or firms wanting to get word out about their web sites, newsletters, products or services.

Using press releases can be a very effective marketing tool if constructed properly. Learning to write a powerful optimized press release can often drive tons of targeted traffic to your web site.

The real secret behind writing any effective press release is to plan your release out carefully before publishing it.

A poorly constructed or planned press release is just a waste of your time and resources. You want to target message of your press release for purpose it was meant for.

So, first thing you must do before writing your press release is to figure out just what do you want to accomplish with it?

-- Do you want to create some brand awareness for your site or products?

-- Do you want to add additional subscribers to your newsletter or ezine?

-- Or are you trying to promote a new product or service you have developed or are marketing?

Once you've decided what most compelling reason is for your press release, you can then get down to business of writing it.

The first thing you may want to do is sketch out a rough draft of your press release to see how it flows. Does it provide needed information to get word out and has it been properly formatted?

Most press releases have a certain format that they follow. If you're unsure of how to format your press release correctly you can view a sample press release template here at http://www.prweb.com/pressreleasetips.php#template .

The number one most important aspect of your press release is your headline.

Get it wrong and you will limit effectiveness of your release.

Your headline is what search engines are going to pick up on first. So make sure you use it advantageously. List any key points here, using your keywords or a catchy headline so that it will grab your reader's attention.

Again planning is essential. If promoting a new site include URL in headline. If promoting a product or service then include some keywords in headline.

Some press release services use a summary box. I normally write a catchy one-paragraph recap of my press release using some of my targeted keywords.

Without being spammy, I will normally optimize my press release by using some of my targeted keywords in first and last paragraph. I will also include some of them throughout release for a keyword exposure of approximately 2-3% saturation.

One of questions I’m most often asked is how I perform keyword research.

In this article, I will explain how I personally perform my own keyword research as well as some alternative methods.

Let’s begin with an explanation how most people do it and why this is a BAD idea.

First, most people use Overture suggestion tool. This is a free solution which does give some useful info… if you know how to find it. I will explain this in a moment.

I do want to stress why I don’t personally care for this.

Keyword research is foundation for your search engine optimization efforts. These are VERY WORDS you are trying to have engines rank you highly for. In my mind, this leaves little room for error, and by using Overture suggestion tool, you are certainly leaving room for error.

Let me explain…

Overture assigns a search count to each one of terms in their database. Unfortunately, these numbers are skewed. When ANY automated keyword search tool is used to query their DB for keywords, their numbers for that search term also increase. By inflating these numbers, it’s giving keyword searcher false data. You see, goal is to get data on searched terms from search engines, not by people researching them.

Another downfall to Overture system is that search terms are often mixed up from originally searched term. For instance, if I were to search for ’24 hour fitness’, I may actually get a result that shows ‘hour fitness 24’. If you optimized a page for mixed up term, and you wonder why you’re getting little traffic (but have a number 1 ranking on that term), it’s because that term is very rarely searched for, despite what Overture may show.

There are other negatives associated with Overture keyword search tool, but two I presented should be sufficient to warrant you to look for alternatives.

Before I proceed, I do want to tell you that some innovative entrepreneurs have come up with solutions that use Overture database in a fashion that’s MUCH better than using database directly.