Ignoring all other potential benefits (traffic, exposure etc) - can anyone confirm that press releases are still good for SEO? Ideally I would appreciate information based on testing of results, and based on evidence from the last month or two.
As in links? Surely that depends on whoever picks it up - my best advice is read a few guides on 'How to write a killer press release' etc., nail a few topics you're going to write newsworthy content about and try a handful of press releases and THEN see the results. I say a handful, because you'll need enough results to draw a reliable conclusion. As meantioned before, PRweb is almost definitely your best bet - they offer real-time tracking systems too. Good luck!
Just like powerful newspaper headings, press releases too can draw maximum visitors & contribute to your site’s marketing purpose a lot by increasing site’s PR as well as search engine ranking but it must have some really interesting news stuff which visitors usually want for. Thus press releases constitute an effective medium for traffic generation to your site.
I like the idea of PRweb.com but the price of $200 a pop seems a bit high. Is there a similar service that offers a comparable product? Thank you.
We do ;-) We own Google news approved PR sites. We find our sites have a much better effect than mass submissions, but are a much better deal than the likes of PRweb ;-)
Press releases can be helpful with link building. Occasionally the 'press' or a 'blogger' will pickup a release and write about it in their blog/news.