I remember taking a journalism class back in college where the professor harped on using the same adjectives more than once in a story. He urged us to be more creative to come up with different adjectives, and would even dock points if we duplicated words. Since then, I’ve always had a thesaurus at my desk.

Admittedly, this was before today’s search engine revolution, with its emphasis on keywords. Now, instead of using a thesaurus to help write a press release we turn to the Keyword Tool on Google AdWords, which allows you to test keywords or phrases and see how often they are being searched. You don’t want to select words with poor search results.

This presents a dilemma for many writers who like to use their official company lingo, abbreviations, or even generic wording (e.g., the word “solutions”) when a slight change in wording could pay dividends with better search engine results.

For example, the words “test equipment” will likely generate millions of search results, many of which will be irrelevant if you're looking for a B2B buyer of a specific kind of equipment. Your news release may be in that pile, along with everyone else. If you can change the wording in your press release to “power electronics test equipment” your text will be more descriptive and relevant, and therefore score higher in the search results. The Keywords Tool becomes your new thesaurus.

My old professor will cringe at this, but the other trick is to make sure those keywords show up multiple times throughout the release. This is where a good writer earns his or her wage. You need to work in those keywords but avoid unnatural phrasing while matching the flow of how people search for industry terms.

It's challenging to write a press release that meets the journalistic style. Now, it’s almost a science to write a good press release that’s full of information AND keywords.

Tip: During the draft stage, ask your writer to highlight keywords so you can see just how often they are used throughout the piece.