I'm putting together a little internet marketing strategy and was wondering how worthwhile online press releases are? How much traffic can be genereated using a service like PRweb . com? What is the benifit in regards to SERPS?
Online press releases are a good idea, but don't expect a tremendous amount of traffic from them. They're useful for getting the word out to any journalists/bloggers who may be listening (but I don't know how many are), and if they link back to your site with relevant anchor text there should be an improvement in SERPS. Fundamentally, most online press releases are a link-building strategy. If you are trying to reach "the press", you might do better to identify a few targets and contact them directly.
If you use paid services like PR.com, it's worth it. Otherwise, free ones would just give you backlink, infact, no they won't. They don't allow links You are just posting content to the search engine and news. Free ones are normally used by people who can't afford. If you want it professionally, use paid ones like PR.com - they are worth it.