Are Press Releases Still Worthwhile?

Before the Internet made it easy to connect with the world, whenever a company wanted to announce a new product, partnership, or any other development in their business or industry they’d use press releases.

Copies of these releases would be mailed out to any industry journals, magazines, newspapers, and TV stations interested in reporting on it. With a little luck and the right angle, the releases would result in free publicity.

In the Internet age, press releases took on a whole new level of importance. Suddenly every business on the planet – along with thousands of small time webmasters – were doing everything they could to get attention.

Press releases played a big role in this. They offered a method by which a company could instantly broadcast their latest news directly to the media. While most webmasters struggled to reach the front page of Google with their target keywords, a well-timed press release could get their name featured on hundreds or thousands of sites in a matter of hours.

Press Releases Are Still Relevant

Many online marketers now think that press releases have outlived their usefulness. Much like listing in directories, they see press releases as an SEO technique from times gone by. Well, they’re wrong.

Press Releases are just as important today as they always were. While the Internet is more crowded, a well-executed press release with sufficient SEO can boost your rankings and get the traffic you desire.

All Publicity is Good Publicity

If anyone is mentioning your site, it’s a good thing especially if they to include a backlink. There are countless sites online that are eager to publish new content, and many of them are more than happy to print press releases.

And it isn’t just websites that are looking to fill those blank pages. Trade journals, magazines, podcasts, and even newspapers have an endless need for content. You must put it out there to be heard.

Be Smart and Do It Right

While there are lots of press release services who charge a fee to publish your content, there are many that will happily promote you for free. As long as your press release is newsworthy and you meet their guidelines, your release could be published today.

The Chance to Go Viral

Social networking drives the Internet, which makes it easier for your content to go viral. A well written, entertaining, and useful press release could easily be picked up by users on sites like Facebook and Twitter. The trick is to find the right angle to engage people’s attention. Humour can be a great approach, as can shock tactics. Anything that gets you noticed increases your chances of being shared.

Let us help you go viral.

Attracting Customers Through Press Releases

You must stay within the guidelines to get your press release published. A well-crafted press release could attract visitors directly to your site, enabling you to make additional sales. The trick is to find the right angle. Anything that convinces people to click through to your site could generate sales directly through a press release.

Press Releases Post-Penguin

Finally, it’s worth addressing the state of the Internet in a post-Panda and Penguin world. Google has made it clear they won’t tolerate unnatural link profiles. If it looks like you’ve artificially cultivated your backlinks to gain rankings, you could find yourself knocked out of the top pages.

This is a tricky time for webmasters as we need to build backlinks to our content. Google seems to be getting better at working out when we’re building them manually.

Press releases can offer at least part of the solution to this. For one thing, press release sites tend to be trusted. They don’t allow custom anchor links within a release. Most require you to add just a naked URL or, perhaps, the name of your site in the hyperlink. It seems that Google expects to see a range of these basic backlinks in a natural link profile, so press releases offer an easy way to disguise your artificial link building strategy.

For that reason alone, then, press releases are worth the time.

Let us help you write press releases that get noticed and increase your quality buying traffic.