Press Releases and Mass News Outlets Aren’t Just for the Big Boys Anymore.

Imagine having access to news and media outlets that reach an audience greater than that of CNN, the Wall Street Journal and Fox News combined. Also imagine that:

• Anyone can click on your release and contact you to buy whatever you’re selling
• Your release gets picked up and redistributed through thousands of sites, blogs and news aggregators
• All of these new links back to your site improves your website’s search engine ranking
• Because prospective customers find you on credible news sites, this credibility is passed along to you

It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? All these benefits from simply writing a short press release and sending it out.

The truth is that there is a little more to it than that but before we go there, let’s discuss what press release distribution really is now that we’re in the information age.

We’re not talking about writing a press release, printing it out on letter-sized paper and mailing it to your local newspaper. While that still can be done, there are much more effective ways of harnessing the media available through the Internet.

A better approach to take is to write a short press release and submit it to major sites that will distribute it on our behalf. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of sites on which we can post our releases but nobody has the time to submit to all of them. Instead, it is well worth the mimimal costs to use a press distribution service to do this for us.

It is important to note why we would want to do this. You may be thinking that you operate a small, local business and you may not see any benefit of getting world-wide exposure through media channels like MSNBC or Yahoo News. If that is the case, you’re still thinking old-school on many levels.

First, you’re issuing press releases to build your credibility. When huge sites run your press release (and they will) you can leverage their influence on your site. Add a “As Seen On” section to your site, include the logos of the sites running your release and immediately people will look at you differently.

Of course, some news sites have massive reach and huge traffic going to them. If your news story (press release) becomes popular you will get people clicking through your links back to your site.

Finally, these sites have very strong page rank with Google and the other search engines. When your press release appears on these sites complete with links back to your site, Google gives your site more credibility and your search engine ranking should go up over time. Since press releases are never removed from these sites, your links will remain as long as the site remains in business.

This has been a very brief description of how to leverage press releases. As always, there are some little idiosyncracies and tricks that you should know about if you really want to do this right. Contact us to discuss whether this method is suitable for your business.