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Internet Press Release Distribution – A Primer
It Used to Be Simpler
Those of us in the PR game a decade ago remember when internet press release distribution was a paid service offered mostly by PR industry dominant media services. Bacon’s & Burelle’s (renamed Cision and Burelles Luce respectively). These industry biggies offer PR professionals and companies full-service media research, lists, & clipping & monitoring for blogs, print and TV. In the past couple of years, excellent upstart Vocus joined the battle for our hearts and minds.
These major media services all have annual subscription fees that although not inexpensive (read thousands), to their credit and favor, have all designed affordable packages for small businesses that are serious about their PR. They’re worth your time to learn about.
Dominant Internet-Only Distribution Services
Like Cision and Burelle’s above, PRNewswire and PR Web were pioneers of the internet press release. They offer a variety of enhanced services that assist less experienced news release writers in creating and distributing news releases as well as additional packages of distribution you probably wouldn’t be able to access otherwise. Again, well worth the value until you get to know more about optimizing your news releases. Their cost varies from $80-$400 per release. At last check, PRNewswire had an annual membership fee. PR Web had no membership fee.
Two Benefits of Internet Distributed News Releases
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Search engines ‘like’ optimized press releases. Well written, they are good subject matter and, well designed, have the right SEO ingredients to become ‘backlinks’ to your website. You’ve experienced the result when you do a web search and find multiple links (from the same domains) with your search term in the title. If it’s a good headline (Title) and ‘Description’ (first paragraph) , searchers click through to have a peek and you end up with a website visitor.
- Journalists doing story research use the web extensively looking for research information, subject matter experts and fact checking. For the same reasons as in #1, they might grab your news. Here’s where your content really becomes critical. Fluffy copy, puffery and overly descriptive adjectives need not apply. You can find good press release writing tips at Bill Stoller’s website. Smart Guy Bill.
A Plethora of Free
In the Supernova of internet access in the last decade, literally hundreds of free press release distribution services have surfaced (maybe thousands?). Which ones to use?
Here’s a little help. We’ve gathered the following sites that should meet your needs nicely. Invariably we’ve missed some ‘newer-gooder’ ones, so drop a comment below and we’ll update this list.
Free Press Release Websites
Pitchengine.com – A Suggestion
With a tsunami of social media washing over the world, it wasn’t surprising to find an enterprising young person (Jason Kintzler) creating a website to help both bloggers and press release writers gather their related material (photos, videos, print material and other media, into one convenient resource and link(s) offering helpful, organized and ‘enforced’ SEO guidance. That’s pitchengine.
You get to post your ‘stuff’ for 30 days for free or you can pay $35 a month to keep an unlimited amount of your material for as long as you continue your subscription. We recommend it. Our Pitchengine links always pop to the top of the charts.
Writing a Good SEO Optimized News Release
Whoa! A subject for another day. We’ll start in working on that one for you this weekend and link it to this post when finished. We think you’ve got enough to keep you busy for days.
Do you Have New Free Press Release Sources to Share?
Photo credit: trevarthan
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Nice post. A couple more free press release distribution networks:
http://www.theopenpress.com
http://www.24-7pressrelease.com
.-= Amanda Eyer´s last blog ..News Releases : Dead or Alive? =-.