We’ve all heard that optimized press releases are a great way to keep your company top of mind and drive traffic back to your site. Today I’m not going to get into online PR’s SEO value as much as I’m going to talk about how to dress your press releases for success.

This is where you get to put on your Sherlock Holmes cap and do some digging. Take a look at all of your existing content, and see if you can find a fit for it as a killer press release attachment. Comb through your slide shows, PDFs, images, charts and Word docs.  Be creative with re-purposing this content so you leave your readers with a key takeaway that’s shareable with friends and colleagues.  A cleverly chosen attachment can leave a lasting impression long after your press release is yesterday’s news.

Infographics are enjoying a rise in popularity, and Adrienne Young’s post, “The Rise of Infographics,” on Information Experts explains the different types of infographics and why people find them compelling. Don’t have any infographics to illustrate your company’s data? Makeuseof not only tells you how to design a great infographic, but lists some free tools to help you, such as Creately and Stat Planet.

Make your attachments highly relevant and colorful. Keep in mind that you want them to enjoy a second life on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Flickr. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Did you take a trip recently to check on a supplier or partner company? What key points from that trip would resonate with your release’s readership? Write a one page diary of the trip; you could even add a map of the region you visited. See Brian Hicks’ account of his trip to Brazil in U.S. Funds’ Shareholders’ Report/2001, Vol. 3, pg. 7.
• If you are a healthcare provider or hospital system you surely have a wealth of consumer information you could attach to your releases. Consider sharing graphics and images that promote healthy living, like Mayo Clinic’s Healthy Weight Pyramid.
• And if you want some inspiration on how to create infographics that do more than squeeze a lot of information into a square space, look at this from Edmunds.com on “How Fast Does My New Car Lose Value?“

Hint: Tag your attachments with the keywords you are targeting in the release to give yourself a boost in search results.

These are just a few ideas for dressing your press releases up with .ppt, .jpg, .doc and .pdf attachments. Next time we’ll discuss embedding videos into your releases. And yes, there are such things as Infographic Videos.