Author: Jay Goldberg
The topic this month is online press releases. They are very valuable tools for all businesses because of the built-in SEO (search engine optimization) and because they can multiply all over the internet like rabbits. In the months that follow, I will write about topics for press releases for radio stations.
Before I get into the topic of the month, I want to ask stations that play alternative rock, mainstream rock, new wave, and/or adult alternative – who play or are open to playing songs by indie artists – that are interested in joining a station co-op to help make promotions at all member stations more valuable to send me an email at rockonneon@gmail.com. Hopefully, this will lead to more listeners and, possibly, revenue opportunities. I already have a company that has agreed to a $1,500 (possibly up to $4,500) promotion prize package for the winner of a cross-station indie song contest. And I will explore a release from the co-op with one song per station as an alternative (I will ask after I get the 11 to 14 other stations).
When I teach entrepreneurship, I recommend businesses send out at least two to three press releases a month and use at least 2 or 3 different online press release services for each release. Good press releases always have the name of the company in the headline of the release since that is what shows up as the clickable link in search engines. This means, worst case, people will see the name of your radio station in relation to the search terms they chose. In addition, most press releases have a subhead or summary and a body. The subhead or summary is the description that shows up in the search engine results. The subhead or summary cannot repeat the initial writing in the body of the press release. If it does, your press release will, most likely, be rejected by the press release service. I always make sure that my branding message is included in the summary as well as mentioning the station is a Live365 station. This way, when your press release comes up in a search, people will see the name of your station, your branding message, and know they can find you on Live365. As an example, the brand message for my station is, “some that you recognize, some that you've hardly even heard of” which is a quote from the song “Celluloid Heroes” by The Kinks.
My go-to press release service is prlog.org. They have a free service and paid services. I use their free service since I use press releases more for branding than sales. PRLOG has SEO built in resulting in a very good domain authority score so you'll find your press releases from PRLOG will do better in searches than most of your other listings. In the free service you can have two active links in the press release itself (for example, a link to listen to the station). And, PRLOG has a healthy majestic trust flow score that means having a link from them to your station will help your station's rankings in search engines over time. To ensure links are active in press releases, they have to be towards the bottom of the release. Their free service has a couple of other nice features, such as use of your logo and a free pressroom you can link to from your station's website. To give you an idea of results on this site, my press release for kicking off my station's shoutout song of the week has received 834 hits to date, and over 10,000 headline impressions (next level is 100,000, so the actual number is between 10,000 and 100,000). A hit means someone clicked through to the press release. An impression means a link to your press release showed up on a web page that was viewed by someone (think branding – why it's important to have your station name in the title of the press release). Oh, and over two years after the press release was issued, on May 28, 2023, the press release received 4 hits. And the numbers I presented do not include activity from other sites that picked up the press release, only activity on prlog.org. Finally, I wrote a press release on May 29, 2023 and within 5 hours there were 150 hits and over 1,000 impressions (next level is 10,000).
Rather than continue writing about the structure and content of press releases, here is PRLOG's page on how to write a good release. Good press releases get picked up by other sites. At one time I “owned” the search term “work readiness book” thanks to the spread of my press releases. My press releases had 14 spots in the first three pages of Google and only 4 of them were from the press release sites I used (which had the top 2 spots on page one). Keep in mind this represented many different press releases.
Here are two things to be aware of. First, press releases are not sales pieces. They are about news (next month I will start writing about press release topics for radio stations). Next, some press release sites reject new accounts that use generic email services. They want an address at a company's site. If that happens to you, just contact them and explain your situation.
My second go-to press release site is pr.com. They also have free and paid services. I use their free service. This site has fewer free features but seems to get picked up by more secondary sites.
And here is a site for music news. I just started to use this so I don't know about its effectiveness in terms of search engines and having releases picked up by other sites.
There are many more, especially if you want to use paid services. Now onto the music.
“Greenlawn” by Karen Sucher
This song is very personal to Karen. The song looks back at her good times growing up on Long Island, New York, The story is interesting, relatable, reflective, and touching. And the song is crafted to build to an ending that moves you. It works.
“Honduras” by John Scott Dreamin
John's inspiration for this song came from a friend whose daughter, studying to be a doctor, was going on a Church Mission to Honduras. This is the second song his friend's daughter inspired (“Doctor Doctor”). And John promised me an extended club mix for this song. I'm still waiting, John.
“The Angels Cry” by Annie Haslam
Two of my favorite bands in the 70s were Renaissance and the Moody Blues. Renaissance's Annie Haslam was one of my favorite singers; Justin Hayward of The Moody Blues one of my favorite songwriters. So how about an Annie Haslam song written by Justin Hayward. Here it is.
“Bad Reputation” by Al Stewart
Al Sewart is my favorite artist; new wave my favorite genre (I consider it a movement – radio station's taking control of songs played from record labels). So I loved it when in 1988 Stewart came out with this song that I felt could be played on new wave stations.
“Choices” by Uriah Heep
Uriah Heep is one of the most underrated bands of the 70s. I loved David Byron's vocals and Ken Hensley's songwriting. So why am I highlighting a post-Byron song, written by someone other than Hensley? Well, just listen. It has their traditional mix of ballad building to hard edge.
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