This release went live on 2007-05-09 and is 6 days old. Lifetime PR Activity: 36781 http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/5/prweb524854.htm 36284/497/0/2/36 Details of Full Page Reads 1. Release was Read 421 84.7% 2. eBook Download 38 7.6% 3. PDF Download 36 7.2% 4. Printer Friendly Version 2 0.4% Trackback Submission 0 Forwarded via Email Form 0 Read via Email Link 0 A PRWeb member has blogged about this release 0 Podcast Download 0 Read from Google Search 0 Read from Newspad Search 0 Pingback Submission 0 Sub-Total 497 100% Details of Headline Impressions Headline Displayed thru RSS, XML or other syndication 19270 Headline Displayed on a PRWeb Site 16553 Headline Displayed on Topix Network 254 Headline Displayed on Pheedo Network 164 Headline Displayed on 3rd party site via Javascript 43 Eyecaster Banner Headline 0 Headline Displayed on PRWeb Podcast 0 Sub-Total 36284 100% Any comments on this volume of traffic? Thanks for any feedback
First things first... you shouldn't give a damn about what PRweb's statistics say. They're not what you need to know (and yours actually seem really low for them after 6 days too... what upgrade did you use?). Here's why: 1. Just because something was "displayed" doesn't mean that it was read, nonetheless read all the way through or leading to any results. 2. "Reads" are basically views... not really "reads", so that's misleading (misleading stats is one thing they still haven't addressed very well with their recent updates... unfortunate). That means someone may have looked at your headline and said "that sounds pathetic" and clicked away. Or they may have gotten to your summary, and you may have lost them there. If you were lucky enough to get them to even look at your release body, chances are that they never got past the first paragraph, unless it was a very well-written release and a quality news angle presented well (yours has the benefit of relatively short paragraphs, and the scannable nature of a list which often helps with getting eyes further down the page... the reason I'd have gone with that kind of format for your release is that it's feature-based. If it weren't a service/product release, that doesn't always work well). That's just the reality of press releases though in a general sense, and why you shouldn't take PRweb stats too seriously. Think of it this way... You could get 100,000 "reads" according to PRweb, and have absolutely no one think your story is newsworthy enough to mention. At the same time, you could send it to a few large targeted media outlets in your industry or local metro area and get 5 or 6 high quality pickups that lead to a trickle-down effect of niche blogs and sites picking it up. The latter is the better result. So if you haven't done it yet, I'd rework the headline and intro paragraph for a second version (just mentioning your hometown or nearest metro area), and send it off to a few local papers or news sites (free to do, and generally pretty easy to find the contacts). You could also shoot it off to a few niche blogs independently that accept releases, and see if it helps get real pickups for you. Otherwise, you'd need to use something like a clipping service for comprehensive results, or at the very least set up Google and/or Yahoo alerts for your site name or some specific phrase that someone would basically have to quote from the release if they wrote a story, and that will help you find any coverage that actually came out of it online. Just remember that real results are always better than estimates or vague numbers.
I don't have any personal experience to share but I've been googling the topic recently and you can read herewhat the others have to say about it (the thread there dwells on PRweb, PRleap, etc.)
if your story is interesting then yes but I used to think about press-release as way of PR (Public Relations), i.e. way of branding, making your name (your company name) known and recognized and of course, if your press-release is interesting and distributed well enough, you can get great exposure and get traffic
I partially agree on this. (I say partially, because "damn" being such a strong word... ) "The number of reads" really doesn't tell much... more useful would be "number of times somebody contacted you" or "number of times you get a sale becase 'somebody saw your press'" or "your own website traffic after making the release.
lol sorry... very strong opinion. I get so sick of explaining over and over that these stats mean essentially nothing... PRweb really needs to get more straightforward about it. They know they target a tech-savvy, stats-obsessed audience, so giving a bunch of pretty numbers works as a marketing tactic. I'd like to see their terminology a bit more honest yet though... especially like to see them quit calling anything a "read," because that's just not true. The fact is that PRweb can't track what really matters... actual pickups in quality, relevant outlets (online and off). And tatiana, yes, press releases can lead to traffic. That has very little to do with PRweb though. You have to remember, traffic you get from press release distribution sites is not the best quality, targeted traffic, which is what you should be looking for. Remember, press releases are written to convince others to write about you (or broadcast, etc.). They are the ones that have a better reach with your target audience in the end... not you, despite all the hype you'll hear about "social media press releases" being perfect for reaching your audience directly for the "sell" (click the link to find out why they're complete garbage to begin with, and just a tool to satisfy the SEO junkies... only poorly). If you want high quality traffic (meaning not only a targeted audience, but one that's more likely to be interested enough to sign up, subscribe, buy, click your ads, come back, etc.), your best results will generally come from working on really building solid news and getting a few big pickups on relevant authority sites. Once you do that, relevant bloggers pick it up more naturally, leading to more links, exposure, and traffic. Otherwise, the traffic you're getting is people often just glancing to see if your site is professional enough to bother writing about. The majority of the time, they probably just leave within seconds, deciding not to write the story. That's not quality traffic.
it still can mean something. you can know and learn your visitor more from those stats. at least you kow what they are interested and which are not. so you can use those info to improve your site, products and services. ^^ but somehow yeah stat alone can mean nothing.
No, you really can't, because reads have absolutely nothing to do with visitors. It also has not much to do with what they're interested in, b/c you can't really guage it in a general sense, b/c again, you're not generally reaching your end target... so you're not finding out what they want or like. You also can't get a full picture, because traffic resulting from a press release doesn't just come from things like distribution sites and wires... if you do your job right, it's going to come from the sites offering the actual coverage (something PRweb can't track). Whether people visit your site from a posted press release often has very very little to do with whether or not the general subject matter interests them. It's more about whether you're effectively getting it in front of the right eyes to begin with (hint: most webmasters using releases aren't, so making changes to a site based on the results of a different audience is a bit foolish), and quite a bit more about whether or not the release is written in a way that compels people to care. You could have a topic your audience would have a lot of interest in, but if you write a lousy release, you'll lose them before they even figure that out.
Jenn, being the expert here is really sharing valuable info. I think you are right what you said about PRWeb.com can't track what's really important. I think distributing PR online has been overrated and probably misguided. From my understanding, you want media attention with a PR. But webmasters are mostly looking for traffic and incoming links ... hoping that their PR gets republished over and over at other places generating more and more links. Hmm ...
What I've tried to drill into my own clients, and others here, is this: Yes, you can get lots of quick backlinks just posting a release online. But it's not the smartest option in nearly every case. Here's why: 1. You can get MORE, HIGHER QUALITY, RELEVANT, PERMANENT BACKLINKS FROM AUTHORITY WEBSITES by doing it the "right way" and taking advantage of that trickle down effect. Is it easier? No. You have to put thought into your news angle, and effort into a properly written release. But in the end, you'll get the better long term return for your effort and / or money, and if anyone isn't interested in optimizing their returns no matter what the goals are, they're being short-sighted, don't have much business sense, and no matter how good their results are, they could have been better. It's stupid not to get the best results possible when you can... and you can. On top of the backlinks, coverage in relevant authority outlets also gets your message in front of a greater number of truly interested members of your target audience... meaning the traffic you get as a result of that coverage can be enormously more valuable than the quick visits of people simply looking to decide if you're worth writing about or not... those people aren't interested nearly as much in your ads, products, services, or information. 2. Having a no-name site in the beginning makes a lot of site owners not really care about the quality of the releases they put out. Frankly, most don't know the real difference between an actual release and low quality article thrown into a press release template, so they may think they're actually sending out something worthwhile. And it's really not their fault. The problm is that there are simply a lot of generic content writers thinking they know how to write releases, and their clients trust them, even though the releases are often crap. In the end, if you can't hire a professional in PR or at least copywriting, you'd often be better off doing it yourself using free templates and samples as a guide (and there are plenty of them). But here's the problem with using these low quality releases... if your site actually does grow in popularity to be a recognizable name, even within a niche (and in most cases that's a goal, or should be), having crap releases littering the Web from before can hurt your chances for coverage later. Press releases are a PR tool... not internet marketing, no matter what you may hear about them. Because of that, they have less of a hard sell effect like most marketing tactics, but they influence others' perceptions of you (or your site) enormously more. You can't separate the PR and coverage from the backlinks and traffic... at least not if you want the best results for the effort or money. And that's unfortunately one of the biggest mistakes you'll see people in places like this making.
In my case, my prweb press release got me linked up with another news wire which in turn got me 6 radio interviews. Very lucky but worth the $180 I spent. All in all a Press Release is worth it in my opinion.
No... I gave them credit publicly for a few of their recent changes. But it doesn't change the fact that their stats are misleading and that they use them pretty blatantly as a marketing tool and don't seem to care much about them being misleading, b/c it's precisely what their target market wants to hear. Webmasters give them a load of money. They're also stats-obsessed far more than a traditional business owner. They take advantage of that fact, and that's pathetic. They made a little bit of progress, but they have a long way to go. And I don't have anything "against" PRweb. I send them plenty of clients, and the majority of the clients I send their way are spending at least $400 or so on distribution, so I make them plenty (and unlike others, I don't join the affiliate program to make a buck off of it, b/c it's more important that my clients know I don't have an ulterior motive for recommending a service). PRweb gets the brunt of my comments, b/c it's the one people yap on and on about the most, touting stats and results that they don't even understand, and which mean very very little. They enable that. When they stop, I won't have to spend so much time explaining these things over and over here, to clients privately, and elsewhere.
What was your news angle about? It would be great if you'd post a link to the release in the archives, so others can see a more successful one.