What are press releases and where are they released?

I am just wondering what press releases are as they pertain to websites. I see people offering them everywhere.

 

They are similiar to blog posts. Ideally they go out to a large number of news sources for extra exposure. They are essentially announcements about the launch of a new product, service, company or website, etc.
Probably the best free one would be prweb.com
I have used them with limited success

 

Press releases help you get the word out about your website or its service.

 

If you're equating them to blog posts, that might be why you've only had limited success. Also, PRweb hasn't been free since October. The best free option is to submit directly to the Associated Press (www.ap.org) to the appropriate regional bureau or beat journalist, and a free option to get into Google news would be www.PR.com.

Press releases are a media relations tool that you use to tell journalists and bloggers about some newsworthy story. Generally, saying "hey, I launched a new site" doesn't even come close to being newsworthy, and you won't get great results. The best bet is to tie yourself to a much larger news story in your industry in some way... let that be the larger focus, and introduce your name and url though a quote about that topic if you can't come up with a better angle more specifically tied to your site.

Press releases can be good for generating backlinks, and you'll hear a lot of people talk about that here. What you need to decide is this: Do you want fewer, higher-quality, relevant, one-way backlinks from authority sites, or do you prefer a larger quantity of quicker backlinks, such as from a bunch of scraper sites. Your distribution model would be tailored directly around which goal you choose, plus whether or not you're looking for real "exposure" through the media, or only those backlinks. In the first case, you'll want to focus on getting your release directly to journalists (the best way, and the cheapest if you do it all yourself... although more time consuming), and in the second case, you could use free distribution sites or paid ones to get the job done.

There's a free template in my sig to help you format a release if you'd like, and some press release writing tips and info on building backlinks with press releases at two of my other sites: BizAmmo: Public Relations and NakedPR.