Determining The Best Online Press Release Distribution Site For Your Business
By Erika Kirsten Beck
One of the many questions people ask me as a public relations social media business strategist is, “Are press releases dead?” My response is always the same, “Absolutely not, but they have gone social.”
The standard press release has evolved to include social or some say interactive internet features. One of the most prevalent is the use of online press release distribution sites.
This is a crowded space and websites come and go without warning or change policies to their service at will. Some are free and some are not and as with most online services, some sites are better than others.
Follow these simple steps to determine the best online press release distribution website for your business needs.
1. Page Rank via Google of at least 5 or higher. Use this URL to identify the page rank of any online distribution website: http://www.prchecker.info/index.php
2. Cost – Free or Fee? One of the most popular free online press release distribution sites is PRLog. If you need a few more bells and whistles try the fee-based PitchEngine, they offer a free trial so you can easily test both services for the same price.
3. Google News –Are a fair amount of press releases published by the distribution site picked up by Google News? To find out got to Google News and do a search for the site using this template: “site:sitename.com.”
4. Traffic – If the website has no visitors then why would you want to use them to distribute your release? Try using Alexa.com, or Quantcast.com for more background on traffic and demographics for the site in question.
5. Results – If the site accepts valid submissions (you have followed all the rules) but never posts your release, they are useless. If your submission is rejected or delayed more than once, it’s time to use a different service.
To maximize your success try using multiple distribution services for publishing the same release to increase your chances of a higher placement in the Google News search results.
Erika Kirsten Beck is the founder and president of Ryder Media Consultants which designs, develops and implements custom social media business strategies and campaigns that create awareness for an organization’s products or services. She specializes in social media strategy development.
