i started a press release and news distribution site PRURGENT.COM. I am newbie and new to press releases and media. How do i promote this site? Where to start? I need advice and help.
Oh brother. I was just typing a response for you, and I bumped something and was sent off the page. *sigh* Let's try again: 1. Don't put stars near releases if it doesn't "mean anything." It should show quality, paid levels, etc. Right now you've got a 5 star fake press release. 2. If you intend to ever get picked up by any news services, you need to have some editorial control, or hire someone to do it for you. If fake releases are getting through, it won't be taken seriously, and can get you into trouble later. 3. You have a good number of typos on your press release help page (like listing "stories" twice right near the beginning of the "important points"). 4. On that same page you also have a lot of incorrect information. 350 words is in no way even close to the maximum length a press release should be. 2 paragraphs in the body is also wrong... they should use as many as it takes to break it down properly, and 3-5 or so would be completely normal. Why are you telling people not to include an email address in their media contact information? It's completely standard to do so. It should be avoided in the "body" not the contact info, if you're worried about spammers. Either way, it should be accessible. 5. You really should add a summary field to your submission form. Just showing the first line or so in the release doesn't guarantee the news will even be shown. Again, it's pretty much a standard in online distribution, and you should make things as familiar to people as possible. 6. I wouldn't call yourself a "wire" when you're really not, b/c you don't want to mislead people. There's a difference between a newswire and a distribution site. 7. In your horizonal navigation, the "partners" and "links" links go to a 404 page. On a positive note, it's clean and has potential. It'll just take some work and tweaking. Good luck with it. Jenn
huh, the site is in testing phase, and in due time most of them would be removed. thanks very much for your help. do you know how do i get partnership with media or yahoo/google news? thanks
Well for starters, you'd have to have enough news there to interest them. You'd also have to make sure it's being screened / edited, and not just automatically posting things immediately (didn't try to post one, so I don't know if that's what you're doing). I know at least one was pulled from Google News because of "bad" news getting out there that wasn't really accurate or something along those lines. And those are the kinds of perks that would be a plus over some of the other free ones for users. You'd then have to suggest your site as a news source for them - I know Google News lets you do that... not sure about how with Yahoo.