Let’s be honest—most press releases are about as exciting as a wet sandwich. You know the kind: stiff corporate tone, vague declarations, a quote from someone with three job titles, and a few links thrown in like parsley. But if that same press release hits Google’s News tab before your competition even knows what hit them? Suddenly, it’s not just news—it’s strategy.
At Jambalaya Marketing down here in New Orleans, I’ve seen a lot of press releases float by, and most of them sink. Not because the news wasn’t important, but because the structure was about as SEO-friendly as a brick. So here’s the scoop on making a press release that doesn’t just exist—it ranks.
First Rule: Write for Robots and Humans
Google’s News tab isn’t run by editors in a smoky back room—it’s algorithms all the way down. These bots aren’t impressed by flair. They want structure, clarity, and content that reads like a real answer to a real question.
That means ditching vague headlines like “Company Announces Strategic Initiative to Leverage Synergies” and writing something more like “XYZ Corp Launches New Delivery Hub in Baton Rouge to Speed Up Shipping.” That’s an actual headline. It says who, what, where, and why—and throws a bone to the Google gods by mentioning a location and a benefit.
Keywords Matter (But Don’t Sound Like a Robot)
You’ve heard it a million times, but keyword planning really is the bedrock of a good press release. The trick? Think like the reader. People don’t search for “next-generation scalable modular platforms.” They search for “affordable roofing company in Slidell” or “new hospital opening in Lafayette.”
Find the phrases people are typing into Google and build the release around them. Drop those keywords into your headline, subheadings, and body—like seasoning a gumbo. Just don’t overdo it, or the whole thing starts tasting like spam.
Subheadings Are Your Best Friend
Big blocks of text are like crawfish shells in your mashed potatoes—nobody wants ‘em. Break it up. Use subheadings to guide both readers and search engines through the content. Each subheading should be descriptive and contain a relevant keyword. Think of it like making a parade route for Google’s crawler bots: clear, festive, and full of floats with your name on them.
Timestamp It Like It’s Fresh Bread
Google News loves fresh content. That means every release needs a clear dateline—city, state, and the day of the week it went live. And while it sounds technical, dropping in an ISO 8601 timestamp helps Google know when to serve your content.
Timing matters, too. Mid-morning on a weekday is the sweet spot. Post it at midnight and it’ll be buried under ten thousand AI startups announcing their new app before sunrise.
Schema Markup: Geeky But Powerful
Schema is like subtitles for search engines. You don’t have to use it, but if you want your release to show up looking sharp in the News tab—or even get pulled into voice search—it’s worth the effort.
Use the NewsArticle or PressRelease schema to tag the essentials: headline, date published, author, publisher, and the article body. It’s not glamorous, but it tells Google, “Hey, this ain’t just a blog post—this is news.”
Add a Photo, Not a Billboard
Press releases with images perform better. But that doesn’t mean slapping in a 6MB stock photo of a handshake under a sunrise. Compress the file, use descriptive alt text, and make sure the file name isn’t “Screenshot_2038-final-final-
If the image is newsworthy—like a ribbon cutting, groundbreaking, or someone standing next to a comically large check—mark it up with ImageObject schema. Bonus points if it actually relates to the press release instead of being decorative filler.
Make It Mobile, or Don’t Bother
More than half of people reading press releases these days are doing it from their phones—while waiting in line, dodging potholes, or pretending to listen during meetings. If your layout breaks on mobile, or the font looks like it was designed for ants, Google notices. And it doesn’t reward sloppy design.
Responsive design, fast loading, and clean fonts are the new basics. This isn’t a MySpace profile from 2005—it’s a press release in the algorithm age.
Link Like a Pro
Drop a link or two to a relevant internal page—something that adds context without screaming, “Buy now!” Google likes pages that are part of a thoughtful ecosystem, not random islands floating in digital space.
Avoid over-optimized anchor text. Say “view the full announcement here” instead of “click to learn about our innovative cloud-based solutions that increase ROI.” That’s not a link—that’s an infomercial.
Last But Not Least: No Wallflowers
Don’t just send the press release to a wire service and hope it finds friends. Publish it on a dedicated news page on your website. Make sure it’s crawlable. No login walls, no cookie warnings the size of a billboard. Clean HTML, good metadata, and a fast server.
If you’re serious, hook it into your Google Publisher Center. That’s how the big dogs play.
At Jambalaya Marketing, this is the kind of thing that gets us fired up. Not because press releases are sexy (they’re not), but because structured news content—done right—can outpace bigger budgets and better-known brands. It’s strategy wrapped in formatting.
So the next time there’s an announcement to make, skip the corporate fluff and build something Google actually wants to rank. Because if a press release hits the internet and nobody sees it, did it really happen?
