PR - a valuable tool in increasing online visibility
Press relations is an integral part of off line marketing
so why do so few web masters use its online counterpart
to promote their sites? Whatever the reason, they are missing
a very important trick. This was brought home to me at a
recent mini conference held in London and run by PR Web
of Washington State*.
PR Web is a newswire site. Press releases are submitted
to it for consideration and vetted by a team of human editors
who are there to ensure that everything published on the
PR Web site conforms to their guidelines. These relate mainly
to content (no adult content is accepted for example), libellous
material etc. Submission of the PR Web site is priced on
a sliding scale from $0 to $80 depending on the level of
distribution service you choose.
Online PR has two advantages. The first is that just about
every journalist looks for new material, press releases
and other material, every day. They trawl the net for whatever
is happening in their particular field. You only have to
look at the quantity of information in our Sunday papers
to understand their insatiable appetite for material.
The second is perhaps a little less obvious but very powerful.
Press releases are an excellent tool for getting online
visibility in all sorts of online media from Search engines
to blogs.
The online press release
An
online press release needs to fulfil exactly the same criteria
as any other release. It must be newsworthy. It must provide
some information that is of interest to its market and which
they do not already know. Traditionally, suitable topics have
usually fallen into one of the following traditional categories
The same categories apply to online press releases except
the nature of the web allows a slightly more liberal interpretation
of news. Space is not at so much of a premium as on the
printed news pages of a magazine or newspaper, and the distinction
between editorial and advertising copy doesn't exist in
the same way.
The real differences between on and offline releases lie
in the way they are distributed and the scope of that distribution.
All online releases can get published by newswire sites
like PR Web (assuming they meet the site's guidelines relating
to content etc), whereas a release sent to a paper publication
or number of publications will only be published if each
editor selects it based on whether there is room for it
in the next issue of that publication, and possibly (cynically),
if it fits in with the advertising schedule.
Ironically, online releases have a longer shelf life. Something
becomes news the moment a journalist, or any web master
for that matter, finds it on the web. If I am running a
newsletter and I find something that I think would be useful
and new to my readers, it doesn't matter if the news release
it came from is a month old, or even older. A traditional
news release is likely to be ditched though if it fails
to make it into the current issue. Not much is put aside
for future issues.
Newswire sites list all current releases on their own websites,
and usually define current as being one month. However,
after that month they are not removed but archived meaning
they are available to be searched long after they have 'expired'
as news releases. This again extends their useful life,
to years in some cases.
Distribution channels
So how will the information in your press release find
its way out into the big wide world of the web? The answer
is in lots of different ways, both actively and passively.
Search engine news searches
Google News and Yahoo! News for example take feeds from
the newswire services and this obviously offers massive
visibility to news releases that are well written, optmised
for search, and have something interesting to say. But it
gets better! Press releases are picked up by the main Google
and Yahoo! search engines, not just the news searches. Since
press material is new and content rich and usually very
focused on its topic, it is perfect spider food.
RSS newsfeeds
The newswire sites make all their material available in
RSS feeds, separated out into categories. These feeds supply
content to thousands of sites and so your site can appear
on all the sites that subscribe to that feed category. The
RSS feeds offer huge visibility.
Blogs
Active bloggers are always looking for the latest information
in their area and one place they find it from news releases.
The may access them in many ways, searching the newswire
sites directly, subscribing to feeds, it doesn't matter
how they find them the important thing is that they do.
Forums
As with blogs, active forum goers are always looking to
be the one with the latest news, and where do they find
it? Answer, on the newswires.
Added value
Now that your press release is featuring on thousands of
websites all over the net, the benefits don't stop there.
We all know the value of links and as every press release
should contain a link back to its home site, then good distribution
of your release will do your link building campaign no harm
at all! Not every user of your release will copy the link,
but many, if not most, will and they are likely to use many
different variations of anchor text wording, perfect for
developing Page Rank (PR) which is important in Google algorithm.
Writing online press releases
Now that we have discussed why press releases work so well
on the web, what are the guidelines for writing them so
that they will have most effect.
The same rules apply as for writing any other content rich,
information style page. Make it interesting, focused on
the topic, keep the length to around 500 words, up to a
maximum of about 1000. Use keyword rich, attention grabbing
headlines and sub headlines. Finally, don't forget that
all important link to your home site, using good keyword
rich anchor text.
The optimum frequency for publishing press releases is
usually about six to 12 times a year depending on the size
and importance of the company and how much news it is generating.
More than 12 will tend to swamp the market, unless you are
a very big and important company. Less than six probably
means you are not taking full advantage of the power of
the online press release.
*I use PR Web as my distribution channel for online press
releases, they do have very wide coverage and I would recommend
them as being efficient and professional to deal with. That
does not mean that other newswires are not equally good
and effective. Sally Kavanagh October 28th 2005
Search Engine Workshops Ltd
Rosedale House
Rosedale Road
Richmond
TW9 2SZ
