9Writing press releases and blog posts

9.1Use the inverted pyramid to structure your draft

Start your story with the most important information first. As the Yale Journalism department explains: "Since…users and email readers typically scan text, using the inverted pyramid form of writing is a good way to get the most important information in front of your reader – first."

For practical purposes, stories written in the inverted pyramid style will survive automatic truncation or slash-and-print methods of publication.

This style does not mean you need to sacrifice detail or background information. The readers who stick with you past the first few paragraphs will appreciate more detailed information. But, for the 90% of lazy readers, the inverted pyramid ensures they get the bulk of the information that they need.

Your first paragraph is your lede. It contains all the most vital information. Subsequent paragraphs contain supporting material, including quotes or background detail. They are used as evidence to back up the claims made in your lede. The rest of the story contains in-depth detail and information that may be cut without remiss.

News agencies can cut along any of the lines above and still retain the essence of your story.

9.2Know your story before you write

Before you write the story, get the story right. Clack away on the keyboard all you like, but if you don't know what you're writing about inside and out, you won't create a meaningful or engaging release.

Consider the following:

• Why is this story newsworthy?
• How timely is it?
• Why is it interesting to external readers?
• Who does it impact and how does it impact them?
• Is this something I would like to read?
• Who or what is involved in the story?
• What makes the story unique or different?
• How did it evolve? What is the background?

Consider your audience. Who is it you are trying to persuade? Are they Russian Airtel subscribers, iPhone users or app publishers? How do they talk about their interests? What words do they use?

Know the type of media you are targeting. Are you seeking attention in technology publications, advertising outlets, women's lifestyle publications? Where are you hoping to have this news reprinted – in the U.K., in South Africa? How do these publications usually treat copy? How are their articles structured?

9.3Write a relevant lede first

Your first paragraph should be no more than two sentences. This is your lede. Address the questions of the story's who, what, where, when, why, and so what in you lede, the first two sentences of your story.

You will need to know the audience of your piece to make this relevant, especially the "so what" question. Supply readers with the most important information quickly, rather than relying on them to dig it out of the body copy.

Avoid extraneous information, especially marketing speak, in your lede. It clutters and distracts the essence of your story. Avoid slogans, catch phrases and jargon. Strive to convey only the essential parts of the story and the reason your audience should care.

For example:

Opera Software's Skyfire unit, the cloud-based mobile video optimizations experts, today announced the addition of a robust video congestion analytics dashboard to its Rocket Optimizer platform.

This lede suffers from wordiness and neglects to address the important pieces of the story. For example, the lede doesn't include the name or function of the "robust video congestion analytics dashboard" being announced. Better ledes allow the reader to get away with not reading the rest of the article.

Analyze the who, what, where, when, why, and so what of this story to come up with a better first paragraph.

From this breakdown, a new lede can be crafted that clarifies the announcement and gives the target audience, in this case operators, a reason to be interested:

Operators can now wrangle congestion by viewing real-time analytics of mobile video use on their networks. Today, Skyfire released Rocket Insights for their Rocket Optimizer platform, letting operators better manage their network loads.

Include the benefit to your audience in the first sentence, as close to the front of the story as possible. This helps make the reader emotionally invested in the story upon first glance.

In the above lede, the release of Rocket Insights comes second. The benefit to operators, the target audience, takes precedence. Remember, you are writing to someone, more than writing about something.

9.4Employ journalistic style

Many news agencies, such as the BBC, enforce a "one sentence, one paragraph" rule. The Nielsen Norman Group recommends writing "50% less text" when crafting pieces for on-screen consumption. Keep your text concise. Make multiple rounds of revision to cut out unneeded words and phrases. Johnathan Price recommends the removing the following:

• Words that have been included just to emphasize your sincerity, like really and truly
• Words that don't add anything to what you have already said
• Unnecessary details
• Phrases that unnecessarily repeat words you have already said, when a pronoun would do
• Phrases that tell the readers something they already learned
• Pompous b.s.
• Corporate speak (phrases only a committee could love)

Cut down your sentences: "If your average sentence is 16 words, your sentences are too long".

Use shorter, more direct words. Opt for plain language. A story's reading level is a strong prediction of your reader's comprehension. Increase comprehension by reducing the level of reading.

Include numbers to appeal to your reader's logic. Numbers subconsciously create trust. Employ numbers that provide context for the story, that describe trends surrounding your newsworthy event.

9.5Use quote for insights

Journalists like quotes, they will reprint them from your release. Avoid packing quotes with repeated information from your lede. Quotes provide insight and opinion.

Quotes should sound natural, as if a real person has stated them. Remove jargon.

Use quotes to color your story. Experiment and try to make them memorable. At the same time, ensure they do not offend any party.

9.6Write your headline last

Headlines should stand alone. They should be independent and not require contextual or insider knowledge to understand. Avoid relying on photos to add context, as they may be stripped by certain news readers. Your audience should be able to get the most interesting facts without having to read more than the headline itself.

Headlines encapsulate the content that follows. Write your content first, so you can be sure of what the article is about. It is much more challenging to write content that fits a headline, than to write a headline that fits the content.

You can more easily avoid "hiccups" between your headline and your lede, if you write the headline last. A hiccup occurs when the same words or phrasing appear in both the headline and the lede. Hiccups make the content sound like a skipping record and should be avoided.

Your headline should inform the reader of the content, without requiring them to read the specifics. Avoid generic phrasing and clichés. Employ facts instead of opinion or clever word play. Craft headlines that are self-serving to your audience, rather than serving the interests of the writer or organization. For example:

No. 1 from Coast to Coast ambiguous

This headline requires the reader to know that Opera Coast is an app, that it is currently trending in an app store, that the United States is colloquially known to span from "coast to coast", and that the provider of the press release is a technology company. Few general news outlets can be held to such a high standard of contextual information. Even fewer numbers of general readers will understand this headline.

New browser Opera Coast tops App Store lists across Europe and USA better

Keep your headline concise. Successful headlines must contain a subject and a verb, at the very least. Fragments cause confusion. For example:

Browse for Change with Opera and YCAB ambiguous

This headline does not include a subject, and it uses an event name to describe what the article is about. Most likely, your reader is unfamiliar with the event. That's why you are announcing it to them. Include a subject in the headline and an action that invites the reader to learn more.

This story is about a campaign that provides education to under-privileged youth in Indonesia. The above headline does not reflect this. There are no keywords – helpful when searching for news – loaded into the headline. Here, keywords for the audience should be included, such as: Indonesia, education, youth.

Indonesian youth given affordable education from Opera and YCAB better

Try to keep your headlines under 60 characters. This ensures they will be fully visible in journalists' inboxes, if they are emailed. A six-word title is considered an ideal amount.

9.7Front-load your headline

You may only get 11 characters of a reader's attention, regardless of how long and well-crafted your headline may be. Place the most relevant keywords as close to the front of your headline as possible.

The publishing format of your content may change your keywords. For content that is published online, opt for search-engine optimized headlines. You can use tools like Google Trends, AdWords keyword planner, and other analytics to help find the most relevant or trending keywords associated with your content, in the target audiences' geographical region.

For content that is emailed, opt for subject titles that reflect the content most accurately and appeal directly to the recipient of the email. Front-loading content-relevant keywords for email subjects is more effective than using trendy search-relevant keywords. Your recipients will scan their inbox, rarely searching with keywords. Go for subject lines that will grab a scanner's attention.

Opera reaches 1,000 extensions ambiguous

The Opera add-ons catalog reaches 1,000 extensions that customize the Opera browser better

1,000 ways to customize your browser with extensions from Opera's add-ons catalog search-engine optimized

Web-extensions catalog provides 1,000 ways to customize the Opera browser front-loaded, directed at technology writers

9.8Choose a publication method and employ urgency

News must be timely, or it loses its appeal. Audiences prefer to read what's new and different. Make sure your headlines and body content are timely, if you are crafting press releases. If you are crafting blog posts or lifestyle pieces, there is a more forgivable window for timeliness.

When you've completed your draft, ask yourself whether the content is news or whether it would better serve as a blog post. Then, edit and publish accordingly.

Press releases are meant to draw attention. They invite journalists to write articles about the announced event. They are not the article itself. Avoid embellishing or over-promising in press releases. Present factual information simply and directly.

9.9Make your text scannable

Avoid an "impenetrable wall of text". Opt for short paragraphs that are easy to skim.

Provide waypoints for your reader to quickly locate the information that is relevant to them. Use navigation markers like subsection headings, photo captions, summary lists, and call-outs instead of cheap tricks like bold- or italic-treated keywords and phrases, exclamations, clichés or clever word play.

Supply meaningful and informative subsection headings. Ensure that they reflect the content that directly follows them. Treat subsection headings like miniature headlines that avoid "hiccups" with the text that follows. Include a subject and an active verb.

9.10Avoid spam filters

Your release may be filtered out by your recipient's email client, if you include certain words or phrases that are known as spam triggers. Spam filters, like Apache's SpamAssassin, score the contents of your email against a set of spam-identifying criteria.

Phrases like "as seen" or "FREE" (all-caps) in your subject line score high on spam filters' scales. Avoid the following in your subject line:

• The word "free", especially at the beginning of the line
• The word "guaranteed"
• The word "hello"
• Strange text treatments, such as TXT-speak, ALLCAPS, or g.a.p.p.y. t-e-x-t
• Symbols, including currency symbols, ampersands, colons, and dashes
• More than one exclamation point

The body of your email must be free of spam triggers, as well. Avoid:

• Salutations that begin with "Dear"
• Phrases that discuss opting in or out
• Phrases that describe a "breakthrough"
• Offers of free membership
• The words "do it today"
• The words "free preview"
• The words "see for yourself"

As a best practice, send only plain-text emails to news agencies or other journalist outlets. Spam filters are strict when it comes to HTML emails. They filter emails that have more image area than text, links that include the words "push here" or similar, tags that are poorly formed, and many other weighted criteria for formatting HTML emails. You can easily avoid these considerations by opting for plain-text email instead.

For more detailed recommendations, see MailChimp's guide on How to Avoid Spam Filters.