I'm considering having a press-release written and distributed for one of my sites - but i'm not sure if the potential payoff is worth it. Has anyone here had good results with a press release? Please share your results and lessons learned..
A LOT of businesses have huge success through press releases. But a lot of website owners also don't have much success... the reason being that many treat them like they should be keyword-littered articles to try to get backlinks. If that's your idea, I'd say don't bother, and focus on articles instead. Not only will it not be your most effective solution in that case, but you'll damage your credibility where it counts; with the members of the media they're supposed to be targeting. If you send out garbage releases, they'll ignore you when you finally have something newsworthy you want to promote. On that note (and I'm not saying backlinks is your goal; just an example), the most important thing you can do if you want your release to be successful is to make sure you actually have something newsworthy to say in the firstplace. If there's nothing truly unique, it's not going to get you much coverage. For instance, don't send a general release about launching a new site. Send a release telling people why they should care about it versus the hundreds or thousands of other new sites. What's the general angle you're hoping to go for on your release? If you give me some background, I'll give you some more specific feedback as to the likelihood of coverage. Jenn
The other thing you want to consider when sending out a press release. Be prepared! Be prepared to have to do an interview at short notice and be available. Be prepared to fulfil stock if you get a run-on. I'm not saying that your release will be a hit, but if it is, then be prepared. You might also wanna prepared yourself for some dissappoint too, just in case , not everything works the first time. A great resource is Paul Hartuninan, look him up on Google.
Thanks guys.. My goal was to generate some interest, traffic, and maybe get some backlinks and repeat visitors. The site is in a particular niche of 'computer help, so i'm not selling anything (other than adsense clicks and some CJ offers). I was thinking about just a vanilla "new site" press release.. but after talking to my newly acquired "Press Release Professional" he dreamed up an angle, piggybacking on the Myspace craze that I would not have thought about in a million years. I dont have very high expectations, and was planning on the entire cost (less than $150 for the entire service.. writing & distribution) ending up being a tax-write-off.. so if it actually does any good, i'll be pleasantly surprised. I'll come back and post my results in a few weeks.. or will it take longer?
So you going for the PRWebdirect services? I think it worthed it, at least you will get your news appear in both Google and Yahoo news.
You can appear in google and yahoo news for free using www.pr.com and www.prleap.com instead of prweb. Jenn
PRleap is not necessarily free for Google news appearance. Only those selected PR's that appear on page 1 hit G-News. It costs $50 to ensure your PR goes to G-News.
Every press release I've ever sent out for my own company or sites has gotten into Google news from both of those sites. And PR.com sends them all out, and reasonably quickly. If people really want to upgrade for PRweb, they should be doing it at a high enough level that it's going to ensure them at least a top 30 placement, and preferably top 10. Either that, or just the $30 range or whatever it is for live links if they still insist on that being their reason for doing a release in the first place (which isn't a good reason). Anything in between really isn't necessary, and won't likely give you enough of a benefit to justify the cost. For example... if you upgrade to $100... that's not likely going to get you that many more pickups (and I mean "real" pickups, not PRweb's estimates) than if you just upgraded enough for links. Either way, it's still so far down that most people won't see it unless they search for your terms. But upgrading for $300 can get you a top 10 placement on a lot of days, which ups your visibility drastically, and can lead to decent pickups by more serious media outlets, rather than just backlinks in blogs. Jenn
Yeah, as long as your sites interesting and newsworthy and you manage to get your story out there you may have success, theres certainly been a fair few successes, but I agree with John Triscan; be ready just incase...
I’ve had a very good experience with my Press Release. I wrote it according to Jenn´s indications on her great articles and I distributed it to PRWeb and so on, but what really got good responses ( not much traffic yet, my site is in a very specific niche) was publishing the press release on a reputable e-zine , related to my niche. I have received many, many emails after that offering to publish the Press Release in related web-zines, mailing lists and even very specific printed media. The Press Release relates to my Blog, and is only live for around 15 days and back links are not showing big yet but I am having such an amazing response just because of the Press Release. I would say the trick is distribute it to the right places, to web-zines and respected media in your field and, most important of all, you must be offering a service that is worth mentioning. My Blog is an activism Blog so I managed to attract the attention of like-minded activists by offering them another gathering place.... you got the point Hope that helps somewhat
Yes, I've also had good results. I paid the $60 or whatever it was, and saw a nice spike in traffic, and gained wuite a few links back. Was mos def worth it for me.
congrats on the successful press release padme. Good tip about the ezines. My most successful press release ended up getting on the houston chronicle's website. Got a good amount of traffic from that link. Press releases are definitely worth it if you write a good one.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________ PR is not only critaria for appearing in G-News, they take many thing into consideration such as site stats, award and recognition and historical background of particular sites etc.
I don't see anything in that statement that says what "google's criteria" is. PRleap is just saying that you can get into G-news for free potentially, but $50 will seal the deal. I don't use PRleap, but it sounds like their free submission for good PR's is the way to go. I might give them a try.
www.PR.com sends every release to Google news, so if you're concerned about PRleap not sending it, just use them. Jenn