Are There Too Many Links In Your Press Release?
Chances are you have several goals for your press release marketing campaign. In general, to achieve each goal you are probably inclined to include a link or call to action. For example, if your goal is to get more shares on Facebook then you may ask people to share your press release on Facebook and include a link to your Fan Page. If your goal is to drive traffic to a webpage then you would include a link to your webpage and invite readers to visit your webpage.
Unfortunately all of these goals and links can cause serious problems for your press release. Let’s take a look at why you shouldn’t include too many links in your press release and then talk about linking best practices.
Too Many Links Makes Your Release Read Like a Sales Page
Too many embedded links and calls to action within your press release makes journalists turn away. It makes your release read like a marketing piece rather than a newsworthy and credible piece of content.
Search Engine Disdain
Another reason you want to avoid too many links in your press release is that while search engines don’t pay direct attention to press releases, it can impact their syndication effectiveness. Should somebody reprint your release, search engines will notice an abundance of hyperlinks within the body of the press release and will give it less credibility. This of course has negative effects on your search engine results. Google, for example, looks at too many links as an attempt to artificially influence rankings and could view your press release as spam.
It’s Overwhelming Your Audience
Finally, one of the most important reasons to avoid embedding too many links within the body of your press release is that it’s just overwhelming to your readers. They don’t know which action to take or which link to click.
It’s distracting and it makes your press is difficult to read. This impacts the effectiveness of your release. When people are confused or overwhelmed they generally click away, which means that nothing happens.
How Many Links Should You Include In A Press Release?
The general rule of thumb is to put two to three links within the body of your press release and that does include your call to action at the end. Keep in mind that within a social media press release you will have videos and images and social sharing buttons that are potentially clickable, and that’s fine. These links are different than an actionable link.
Make sure that you have goals for your press release and that every embedded link or call to action directly reflects your goals. The links in your release need to provide clear value to your reader and help guide them to the next best action to take.
