Has a press release ever outranked you?

I am prepared to purchase my first press release.

I have always done traditional link building, but I am trying to move towards automating as much of my income as possible.

This being said, I want to do a case study on press releases. I have found a service which looks nice and has decent past reviews, so I am ready to purchase.

Here are some stats:

The keyword I am targeting is low competition.

After only 30 days of being live, I completely dominate the second page of Google in dozens of keywords, meaning 5 - 7 of the spots are internal pages of mine.

Several keywords are also showing me at the very bottom of page one.

Normally, now is when I would begin my traditional link building methods to start chipping away at the SERPs.

I want to try something different this time, so I thought it would be a perfect time to give press releases a try.

Here is what's stopping me...

The keyword is low competition, right?

The websites that might pick up the story are authority sites, right?

What if they actually out rank me?

Nobody is targeting the keyword, let's call it 'applesauce'.

If they submit a high quality article about 'applesauce' on their blog - couldn't they possibly become my competition?

Any insight in this would be greatly appreciated, do I have a legit worry?

What would you do?

 

Be prepared to spend big bucks. There is a *lot* of research that goes into a press release. Lots of work contacting, promoting and sending out etc.

 

What kind of big bucks?

I was prepared to spend $200?

 

Depending on who you hire $500 all the way up to $3,000 for an experienced copywriter. Anyone who claims they will do it for $200 will give you a mess.

 

Thanks for the input!

 

You don't have anything to worry about. Yes the News sites will have good authority and will not out rank you for your keywords. The thing about PR's is you don't use "keyword" anchors but instead use BRAND or URL. Usually you're allowed 2-3 links, I also add a link to a social media page for the site FB/Twitter/etc this way it's linking to a page that's also linking back to my site.

These Brand/URL links from PR's are good to dilute your backlink profile from getting too over optimized with just money keywords.

I only pay$60-$80 per release, anything over $160 is overpriced. Press Release companies have a "News wire" where these get distributed automatically, no work to syndicate them.

Where have you come across these crazy prices? You have no clue about PR's. PRweb has a standard for $159 and their service is legit.

 

Press releases, media kit elements, brochure copy, flyers, posting brief remarks, promotional e-mails, copy for individual web pages, power point presentations, taglines etc.
If you assume that hiring a copywriter is expensive wait until you hire an amateur to do the job!
Hiring a reputable copywriter will set you back $1,500- $3,500. Yes some will do it for $500 but you get what you pay for.

 

Not sure where you got lost but OP is referring to a normal Press Release. An article typically of 300-600 words explaining something newsworthy about the site/business then distributed online.
What your explaining sounds like hiring an entire marketing department. Don't over think the topic here.

 

That's exactly right, just around 500 words about something exciting that's happening in my business.

The guy is going to shop it around to about 500 news/tv stations via some kind of live wire.

 

Answering OP's question: yes, if you have a unique set of keywords with low competition then try NOT to use these in the PR, otherwise your SERP will go down as news sites will outrank you on these keywords, at least temporary. You may derive some benefits from a PR if you don't use your keywords (or close synonyms) there. Keep in mind that poorly written PR (even without your keywords) could actually be negative for you - unfortunately, this was my experience
As for @Spoiltdiva's comments regarding costs, she is talking about marketing campaign rather than a single PR, and her numbers are about correct.

 

Am I missing something here? Owing to abuse, Google have long discounted backlinks generated in press releases. Isn't this common knowledge? Google's former head of web spam, Matt Cutts, mentioned this in 2012. Google subsequently incorporated this into its Webmaster's quality guidelines the following year.

In fact, some professionals on Moz and SEL have even said that press releases could harm SERP rankings.

Press release will enhance brand awareness, and generate some organic traffic. Period. Exercise caution if anyone claims to be able to improve rankings using press releases.

 

Yes they were discounted years ago for being used to gain mass links. Back then I would get over 2,000 links from a PR, today it's less than 200 (less spammy sites).
They are still useful today though. They have high authority/trust/metrics/blah blah. Most all are no-follow but still build authority/trust to your site but not rankings directly per se. They help dilute your do follow/no follow profile percentages. Most don't use keyword anchors anymore but instead use Brand or URL anchors(not spamming keywords, the whole reason for devaluing them in the first place) again helping your keyword anchor text profile from having too many money keywords. I personally use them for strong citations(NAP) for my local business/Google Map 3 pack listings. So PR's help your rankings indirectly by optimizing all of the above. Of course PR links alone will never be the only links you need.
No comment on MOZ haha. I do read SEL/SEW/SEJ every couple days.