PRweb backlink results of $80 press release

I wrote and submitted an $80 press release with prweb on 22nd April and thought it would be good to see the results.

MSN picked up 89 results from the start of the article from people syndicating the PRweb and google/yahoo news feeds and only 2 results for the end of the article.

Its too early to say what google and yahoo have done but I will keep you posted.

Although this many links looks good its still not what I would have hoped for and because all the sites using the RSS feed are getting continually updated content its not going to give any permanent links from them. Even the temporary links are just to prweb and not my site.

As a comparison if you were to submit some articles to a couple of hundred sites MSN would pick up about 100 within a week.

Edit: As I check the MSN links the results have dropped to 40 rather than 89.......

 

good info. Keep us updated.

 

And how many journalists read the release and wrote an article on it, giving you a link from a super authority news site (imo worth more than 500 low profile sites linking)? Thats where you should be aiming.

 

Thats what I am hoping for in the long term - we shall see how it goes......

 

Fantastic Mad4! really looking forward to your sharing of the results.

 

Can you post the link and stats of your release? Any real pickups or media coverage? Thanks.

-Dimitry

 

What is the title of the press release if you don't mind sharing?

edit: nevermind, i should have looked at the link in the first post.

 

Feel free to express an interest in this thread if you wanna learn more about how to get real media coverage.

One of the problems I have with PRweb is it's barrier to entry is non-existent. Not much work is required to get a press release listed, so a lot of stuff that isn't really ready for their supposed news wire gets listed on their site and they ask for money to put out releases that achieve very little if anything. Your release was listed with prweb but wouldn't have got a shake at AP, it would have been an automatic flick to the bin, same with any newspaper no matter how small and insignificant if a journalist with a heart beat read it they would flick it.

No offense, serious. My criticism is of prweb, not you or your release. Because if you called a journalist they would engage you at a whole different level.

Next time I’d recommend calling a journalist from your small local paper and having them interview you, to help learn how to take an item and make it newsworthy. They will poke and prod at the topic asking you questions to try and find a newsworthy angle. Think about what questions they asked afterwards and ask yourself the same questions again with each release you write.

What disappointed me about the release was I’m sure there is a really good newsworthy story there, you just didn’t convey it well. It could have got a better run.

The main problem was you didn’t say WHY… as in who what when where why.

The release isn’t newsworthy *yet* you need to tell a story and paint a picture… put it in context and lead people in a new-*-worthy direction.

Something that could help is doing 'the 7 whys.' It's something I do in my media brainstorming sessions and also in counselling (am a Social Worker) to try to get to the heart of the issue. You ask why, get an answer, ask another why question, get an answer, ask another why question... eventually it leads you towards the underlying truth. Or if you are painting a picture like in a news release it can help you 'cultivate the narrative.'

For example:

7 Why’s
Q1. Why did you change the direction of the website?
A1.
Q2. Why did you believe that A1, was important?
A2.
Q3. Why is A2. important to your business?
A3.
Q4. Would you say A3. is important industry wide?, if so Why?
A4.
Q5. Why was what you were doing previously inadequate?
A5.
Etc, etc, etc why, why, why, why, why……
Gets to the heart of why the change is newsworthy and important, and what impact will it have on your business, the industry, and why etc.

If you wanted to make that release 'remark'-'able' and compelling reading, you need to tell readers why you made the change to your site, why the change is important. 'Why'... is more newsworthy that what you are doing (not-newsworthy) so comment mainly on why and then you can swim upstream in terms of newsworthiness.

The other big missing piece was attribution. You didn't introduce yourself as a spokesperson.

e.g.

Parra 1: who what when where why.
Parra 2: Mr. Joe Blogs, owner of www.example.com said "abc is the case for xy&z reasons.
Parra: the rest... = discuss further.

Also, you said: "been in existence for some time" ... too vague. If it's a valid point be specific, e.g. "been trading for two years", otherwise, don't: mention it being ultra vague.

Also, don't put your url in the article title... that is an automatic signal for a journo to flick it.

There are a ton of tips I could give you on this but don't want to send your head spinning too much just yet.

As mentioned above, feel free to express an interest in this thread if you wanna learn more about how to get real media coverage.

End-note: Can I get a hell yes!!!!????

 

Some great info here Dominic, thanks.

The problem with most sites is that they are not newsworthy no matter how much you try and dress them up.

Also Matt Cutts stating that the links don't help well I would disagree. Maybe google devalues them but its hard to see the value being totally zero. MSN and yahoo certainly counts them.

 

Mad4, Dominic - great information so far, thanks Excellent thread

Keep us updated Mad4, I'm interested to see how far you get

 

As an up-shoot of my post in this thread I got asked on PM about if it was worth doing a press release via prweb about a particular website. So I thought it better to post the reply here without specifics, as it flows from mad4's comment that many sites aren't newsworthy.

This is an important concept a lot of people don't realise about the media, so it's worth posting openly:

It doesn't matter if your website isn't newsworthy, you opinion or point of view may be. You just need to be quoted in a newspaper article with a reference to your 'related' website, e.g.

Joe Blogs, owner of www.example.com said "

You could be commenting about another company, a development in your industry, a new trend, a criticism of something. There are so many things in your topic area for which you could become a relevant spokesperson.... or ideally an authority spokesperson.

For example, if you have a website on the topic of real estate... you can comment on any related issue for the media and often get a link to your site for your trouble. It might be a story about the impact of increased interest rates, or the effect of a military base closing, or the consequence of banks closing branches in rural areas, or the impact of an industry leader's website on the way people buy houses today, or so many other topics.

It doesn't matter how unnewsworthy your website is, it only matters how newsworthy what you have to say is on a related issue.

See where I'm coming from?

If you have something to say, write a press release and contact a journalist from a relevant media outlet (that has a website) and go from there.

 

very interesting post and certainly gave me some insight into pr releases. Any good tips of writing PR's ? someone told me that u shud write on your own instead of asking others to write ! also any need of putting backlinks in the release or just mentioning the name that "joe blog of xyz.com said" will do the job ?

 

Thanks for the info mad4

I know this thread is old but Prweb is still running and still seems about the same.

I was looking at press release sites the past week and Prweb is one of the more popular ones. I remembered a company someone I know works for bought a $200 package from Prweb a year or 2 ago so I tried search their backlinks for any sign of quality links that came from it. I found none.

Also the article published on Prweb all links are “nofollow” not very impressive for $200.

Reading some more reviews on the Prweb service it sounds like this is the common result and the highlight is a spike of robot traffic for a week or two, some rss feeds on scraper sites and some pasted articles on scraper sites.

Basically it seems like the same results you get from your typical free article directory.