I am about to pay a guy for a press release. Its the expensive one, $80 package from prweb. Is it worth the money or what? I recently submitted my site to digg.com and it made front page, this is where i got the idea from. what do you people think?
I was thinking of using a press release also. Hope to get some comments from those who tried, if it can increase traffic and link popularity..
Really depends on the site I would say. Depends on the breadth of services it offeres and the demographic you have. What industry is it in?
I find the $200 level to be most worthwhile. It allows you to add text links and track statistics. I do this as part of my marketing package for my customers. Each time they offer a new service or a promotion. The results are great in my opinion. Worth every penny. The press releases is permanantly on prweb, and develops page rank and backlinks over time. and will bring you some visitors for its lifetime. Better than any $200 directory listing. The trick is to write a clear and concise press release that is not a mere advertisement. Write something that offers something new. a solution to a problem, then you will get return. I have done this mostly for computer and health industries. What is your industry?
I think a lot depends on the quality of the press release. If you have a truly news worthy topic for the release that the paper press might even be interested in, then you might want to pay the extra for a professional writer and the extra exposure on the PR sites. If you are using Press Releases to get back links only and you have a less than truly news worthy topic you might want to stick with the low cost or free releases. There are many topics worthy of a press release, but not all of them warrant a large expense, the return will not be any better than the free releases. In my opinion News worthy means "would you see this in the news paper" or other news related magazines and articles". If not, stick with the cheep submissions and just get the links and a surge of visits.
I would much rather spend 105 bucks on seo software than a press release. I've used PR web before, and while traffic shot through the roof at first, it evenutally dwindled.
If you do a search on the forums here for PRWeb, there are a couple of pretty interesting threads. I'm going to be doing my second press release at some point this month, and I'm thinking about using prnewswire as well. I think it's a matter of opinion. I think it's worth it, but you have to understand your goals beforehand. Expecting 50,000 visitors directly from the press release will not happen. Even with top rank, if you don't give a reason to click through you could end up with only a handful of visitors. There are other reasons to do it though - first is SEO - people who read the article can link to your site and inbound links are always good. People scrape PRWeb like there's no tomorrow and generate backlinks, but I think the value of those has decreased dramatically over the last year - if they were ever very valuable to begin with. It's great for getting a site spidered, however. The second reason is that using PRs is a way to control/contribute to the overall impression of your site. The third reason is that if by chance a media outlet likes your release and tells their readers/listeners/viewers about it, you can expect an enormous surge in traffic - like a new gadget that gets announced and is then slashdotted, or I remember one about a guy who quit his job to blog who ended up getting some really good press as a result. Think about your goals, and alternative ways to spend the money to achieve those goals. The money may be better spent elsewhere, but I would never consider a press release a waste.
The pr would be for http://textmessage.cc as i said i got this on the front page of digg.com, they sent me 11.5 uniques that day and thats why im thinking it may also do well with a pr. Then i also have this http://textmessage.cc/tool.php Should i promote both of these in the same PR or shall i save the text message tool one for another press release?
yes i would say so i have submitted over a dozen press releases with several sites. ive tried a few different payments at least do $30 with prweb to get into google news or $80 for yahoo news PR are good for one way links, traffic spikes and can help ya get more permanent traffic, as well as increasing your sites presence on the internet and it can help build trust with users. im all for them..
I think paid press releases are worth it if you truly have a valuable and unique service or product to sell. For webmasters just wanting to increase visitors i would recommend the free press release options...
i am a full beliver in press relase, but as has been stated above you really need a worthwhile product or service in the first place. i think the 80$ submission is perfect, you still get decent tracking and full submission. press releases are also great because of the contacts that get made. we have had severl magazine editors contact us requesting more information or permission to reprint our releases.