Five Reasons Why Press Releases Matter & When To Write Them
 Congratulations, if you are reading this, you are probably at a stage where you
have at least had an idea and created a product or a service ready for
distribution.
Those of you schooled in traditional market theory will have heard of the
4P’s Model coined by McCarthy in the 1960s– Product, Promotion, Place and Price.
Press releases are both a form of promotion and a method to ensure that your
product or service offering features in the right places.
Press releases can be an effective marketing tool that you can use to
communicate a message about your product or service to the public, media and
other webmasters. Whilst press release services can be expensive, for example,
PRWEB they can also be very affordable– or
even free (e.g. PRLOG).
Public Relations Templates Most big firms as Intel, Microsoft and Apple all issue press releases – but
that doesn’t mean you can’t. Indeed, both Alex Tew of MillionDollarHomePage and
James Murray-Wells of Glasses Direct described press releases as a significant
contribution to their success.
1. Press Releases Give You Back Links
Writing a press release can give you back links from a page that is
considered important by Google (has a high page rank). Broadly speaking, the
more websites that link to you and the more significant the websites that links
to you the more valuable your website is considered to be by Google. This is
known as external search engine optimization.
Page Rank – Page rank is Google’s rating for a particular website or webpage.
It’s a measure of how many, and how important websites link to it. You can view
a page rank of a particular website by using the Google Toolbar or by using
PRCheck.
Some press release websites will let you use anchor text, although you may
have to pay extra for this, by using anchor text in your keywords you are
effectively voting your website to appear higher in search engine results for a
particular keyword in Google.
Anchor Text – Text on which a hyperlink is based. So for example in press
release definition, PRCheck is the anchor text and link is
http://www.prcheck.info
If your website is completely new and not yet been indexed by Google, getting
an existing website to link to you is quicker than requesting to be crawled by
Google.
2. Press Releases feature in Google News
A good press release service such as
BigNews
(free) and PRWeb (paid for) will feed into
Google News; this means that when your press release is released anyone
searching in the news for your keywords in your press release will be able to
find it. Let’s say, for example, you’ve written about Onions – anyone in the
media or public looking for resources about Onions will be able to find your
press release.
Featuring in Google News will bring additional traffic to your website.
Google features new and current events often in the first page of search
results.
3. Press Releases can be easily copied and pasted by the media
In my experience, the
easier a story is to copy and paste, the more likely it
is to feature on a big media website or be used by other sites on the internet.
The media tend to be more receptive to receiving press releases than they are
article requests without any assistance about your product. Whilst not every
media organization may be interested in writing about your product or service
news – those that are, are more likely to publish content when they have a
resource to write around.
4. Press releases can be keyword targeted to bring traffic/conversions to
your website
A
well-written press release will internally search engine optimized. As a
result when users search for key words or phrases they can find your press
release when using search engines. This will bring traffic to your website,
relevant traffic that will give you the opportunity to convert that traffic for
your product or services.
Internal Search Engine Optimization – Writing in a way that your keywords and
phrases, by which you expect your users to find you with, are included and in an
optimal manner in your article.
Conversions – Your objective, it’s the desired visitor action. This may be a
download, click or sale of a product or service.
5. Press Releases bring credibility
Having a credible piece of balanced literature on a third party website gives
the impression of credibility. Press releases encourage other people to write
about you – readers of those websites will have developed a relationship with
that media outlet, website or author, and thus will be like a warm introduction
rather than a cold sales call.
In addition, if big recognized brands write about your product or service –
you may wish to quote or mention their article. Credibility and brand recognized
reviews help to establish create trust with your visitors. Trust will help to
increase your conversions.
When Should You Write A Press Release?
Press releases should not be written as an advertisement filled with
superlatives, they are statements of news value to be communicated. They are not
a replacement of advertisements, promotions or articles but something in
addition to.
Press releases should be written when the can add value (conversions) to your
product or service when their additional value is likely to exceed the
opportunity cost.
Opportunity Cost – The next best thing that you could do with your time and
money
You may wish to consider writing press releases for the following purposes:
• News about your product or service
• Product/Service Launch
• Mile stone reached
• Product/service update
• Hiring significant new staff
• Technological development
Press Releases - Quality Or Quantity?
Writing press releases brings up the old age question – What’s more
important, quality or quantity?
Firstly, should you write more low quality press releases or fewer well
written press releases?
I would advise the latter – fewer well written press releases, because you
need to put a journalist or webmaster in a position whereby your content is well
written enough for them to copy and paste extracts.
Secondly, given a limited amount of funds should you submit your press
releases to lots of cheap/free places or fewer, but more expensive high quality
places?
Press releases serve two main audiences, potential customers and the media.
Website Visitor Perspective
High quality press releases sites such as PRWEB, in my experience, draw much
more traffic in from Google News than a free press release such as that from
BigNews. Moreover, a free press release website will tend to have advertisements
on detracting readers from your message to a competitor website.
Press Releases And The Media Perspective
From past experience, I’ve had better luck in getting articles written about
my product by the media by using a paid service such as PRWEB rather than a free
service.
Whilst I recommend using a paid press release service such as PRWEB, I do not
necessarily recommend buying their most expensive package, but I certainly would
suggest the SEO option that enables you to add anchor text to your articles.
A free/cheap press release service could be used in addition to PRWEB, but
you are only cheating yourself if you just use free press release service.
Dan Offer is the owner of the
Facebook IM, an innovative instant messenger Chit Chat for Facebook.
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