Press Releases as an SEO Tool

The use of online press releases to advertise a website, product, or service is a practice that is often overlooked and underused. I think that many online marketers are not familiar with the pros and cons of using press releases and therefore choose to focus their marketing efforts elsewhere.

A well written press release can do wonders for your website exposure and traffic, when used properly. There are many free press release websites, as well as several paid press release options. One of the best services that I have used in the past is PRWeb, which offers packages ranging from $80 to $360. Before you go out and spend your advertising dollars on an expensive press release package, make sure you understand the ways a PR will benefit your website and the ways that it probably won’t provide much benefit.

The question that I see asked most often about press releases is whether they serve as a good method of link building. Generally speaking, if your primary focus is to gain backlinks for your site, you can likely gain more by spending your money elsewhere. The large PR websites like PRWeb have great traffic and Pagerank, but almost all of these sites fail to pass any of that link juice on to your website.

That’s not to say that press releases can’t be an effective way to build links, it is just important to realize that getting your link shown on the main page of PRWeb is not going to do much for your SEO. The one case where I have seen websites have great link building success through a press release is when the release is very interesting to reporters that regularly monitor the wires. If your release is picked up by another online reporter, there is a good chance that the reporter may republish the release on his website or do his own report based on your press release. This is why it is important to keep the reporters in mind when writing your press release…don’t focus exclusively on the end consumer.

While the majority of press releases do not get picked up by hundreds of sites across the web, a very well written PR will almost always get your website a nice traffic boost and will also greatly help to expose your brand or product. By now you might have noticed that there is one recurring theme here….a press release MUST be well written in order to be effective. A poorly written or designed press release can actually do more harm than good in some instances. If you are not a great writer, it would likely be worth your money to hire a PR professional to help write a release for you. A quality press release can usually be done for less than $50 and the investment will really affect the success of your PR campaign.

If you prefer to write your press release yourself, check out Angie Haggstrom’s Tips For Better Press Releases. This will give you some great ideas and things to keep in mind while you craft your PR masterpiece!

Tagged as: Angie Haggstrom, backlinks, free press release, link, Link Building Tips, marketing efforts, online, PR, pr websites, press, press releases, release, release options, SEO Tips, website, website exposure