Press Releases & SEO

Lately there has been a lot of discussion on the benefits of utilizing Press Release sites for SEO purposes. Even Search Engine Watch did a full investigation into PR Newswire (an extremely popular online press release distribution service), and the recent changes they made to their system in an immediate response to Google’s ever-changing algorithm.

As a result of all this mayhem, I am getting a lot of questions on how to best utilize Press Releases for SEO purposes. Here’s a couple tips I like to share…

1. Press Releases should be unique. Simply having your writer create 1-copy of the event in which you are pushing isn’t enough from an SEO standpoint. If you are promoting the PR on a local website, and a national PR distribution program, they should be unique copy.
2. Know your audience when pushing out Press Releases. Find industry or local websites & blogs to tap into your target market. The market is saturated with generic PR distribution services, but who really reads those anyways?
3. The real value in the PR distribution websites is from an SEO standpoint, but be careful on how you use your anchor-text. I do not recommend linking from PR websites on your target keywords. Rather, try to focus on ‘branded’ links.

Just for fun, I also wanted to share my favorite PR distribution websites:

• http://prweb.com
• https://ireach.prnewswire.com/
• http://www.webwire.com
• http://www.onlineprnews.com/
• http://www.prleap.com
• http://www.24-7pressrelease.com