Press Releases – Sally Falkow

Should a business even bother with press releases anymore?

The answer to that is: It depends.

Is the content of the release newsworthy?
Does it tell an interesting and engaging story?
Is it optimized for search engines and news search?
Is it formatted the way reporters, bloggers and other digital content creators and curators prefer?
How do you plan to distribute it?

Press releases are no longer a good SEO tactic, since Google views any links in a press release as paid links. Which of course they are. Most reporters don’t pay attention to the major newswires anymore, but there are still good reasons to publish your news:

You can’t rely on the media to tell your story. Every business needs an online brand newsroom with all the features and content reporters need today..
The majority of reporters say they visit brand newsrooms regularly and read press releases there.
Press releases found online via search engines are the #2 source of information for business buyers.
Consumers do online research prior to making decisions. They find and read press releases in search engines.
Press release live forever online. They can surface in a reporter’s search while researching a new story.
The release is formatted in the digital layout preferred by reporters and bloggers, with all the necessary digital, social and visual assets.
The release contains tracking code so you can see how it performs.

The trick is to know how to find a hot news hook and write the release so that it will be ranked well in Google News and Google Web Search.