In today’s digital age, submitting effective online press releases can be a remarkable method to climb to the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) and increase your online visibility. Press releases should definitely be a major component of your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns.  The distribution of press releases is a fantastic way to market your company whether you are announcing major news, sales, promotions or accomplishments.  Since numerous sites, journalists and bloggers are constantly searching for newsworthy content, press releases are a highly effective link building technique because they have a tendency to be syndicated all over the web.  Furthermore, quality releases will get you quality links from sites with high authority and will ultimately drive traffic to your site.nThere are a few different ways to go about distributing press releases.  After writing a release in the proper format, you can try to distribute it to websites, media outlets, blogs and any other relevant content providers yourself.  While that may be a cheaper option, you will have more success using a distribution service such as PRWeb or Send2Press.  These services are relatively inexpensive, offer different pricing plans and will get your release to an abundance of relevant sites, search engines and news outlets.  They work hard to ensure that your story is syndicated throughout the web and gets in front of the right audiences.nSome reasons to write a press release include newsworthy stories within your company, such as the hiring of a new CEO.  Accomplishments such as breaking a sales record or hosting a company-wide volunteer project are another major reason to publish a press release.  Furthermore, if your company is having a major sale, special or promotion, these seem to be stories that journalists and bloggers love because they really get the attention of a lot of readers.  Press releases announcing sales can benefit your company in many ways.  You are guaranteed links, traffic and most likely conversions, which will increase your search engine standings as well as your bottom line. nBefore you write your release, if you have been employing proper SEO techniques, you should already have a list of target keywords that you are trying to rank for in the search engines.  You will want to use these keywords throughout your release as anchor text links pointing to the correct corresponding pages.  Be sure to keep keyword density in mind while writing your press release.  The general rule of thumb is to use no more than one keyword per 100 words.  Keep in mind that long-tail keywords might be your best bet if you are a smaller company with a lot of competition because you are not likely to rank high for the most sought after keywords.  In other words, sometimes you are a little fish in a big pond.  For example, if you are selling chocolate then you are going to have a difficult time ranking number one for the search term “chocolate.”  However, if you can focus on your specialty or something that sets you apart from your competition then you will be better off.  If you sell “fine imported Belgian chocolate,” it will be much easier to rank higher for this long-tail keyword.nPress releases are one of the most effective SEO tools.  If you are not currently utilizing the press release in your marketing strategy then you should start right away!nForrest Yingling is the Marketing Director for WebNet Hosting, Premier Miva Merchant Web Hosts and Providers of Reliable, Best in Class Business Web Hosting.