I have a client asking me about PR submissions and wanted to get a few opinions on the matter before answering him. His basic question is about how to distribute. He’s split testing with two different releases – one is going to a 125 distributions to free PR sites guy and the other will be submitted to a handful of top (paid) PR sites. So far he’s just done the 125 free sites and is waiting to see what comes of it. He’s uncomfortable with spamming the web with the PR, but is curious what will happen. Does anyone out there happen to know how long is reasonable to wait for links in Google News etc? Also, is he more likely to get high quality links from the bigger players like PRWeb and BusinessWire than the free sites? My experience has been that the PRWebs of the world will offer much more substantial results for branding, traffic and SEO, but does anyone else have thoughts or experience so that I can give a bit rounder advice on the topic? (Not exactly copywriting, but and extension of a copywriting specialty )
You don't need more than one paid PR site. Anything else is a waste of money for minimal results. The "right" way to go about it would be: 1. Submit to one paid distribution site that would best reach your target audience (assuming you want the links and SEO value -- if not, a free one is fine too). 2. Submit manually to your local or regional media outlets. 3. Publish the release on your own site (doing this first by a few hours can be a good thing -- get it indexed as the original, and you keep a news collection archived for future media review).
I agree with you....with links always quality matters not the quantity...your client would be better off taking your advise
From my past works, backlinks from relevant high PR site are much better than from hundreds of irrelevant low PR one. But your sites/contents has to be good or you may need to pay to put a link on those.
No press release site is actually "relevant" so the links of them matter very little in the long run, free or paid (and they get buried on low-ranking archive pages quickly as well). It's all in the results -- what other sites see that press release and cover the news. That's why even with online distribution it's foolish to neglect manual distribution (sending it directly to the most important niche, industry, or area publications). Remember that online distribution is a supplement, not a primary distribution method (if you care about maximizing your return).
That's what I typically recommend - a well placed release on a paid site (or two if there are two potential markets or a social following would be better picked up on a different release site) and manual distribution and/or pitches to industry/niche leaders. He's following that plan with the second release but was curious about the hype and tried the first through a service for 125 free sites - not a service I offer, btw. The release got some links back, but wasn't astonishing in performance -imagine that. LOL I replied to him yesterday with the same advice and supported it with some material I found in a few blogs from PR pros, including one of Jenn's. Nice to see the sentiments are common here as well.
And submitting to a couple dozen makes you a press release spammer and can hurt your company's reputation more than any links from it could help.