I was recently asked, (well when I say recently it was about 4 months ago actually), what is the purpose of a press release. My answer was... to get some backlinks and leads.
What? Backlinks and leads? I hear you cry in disbelief... Oh c'mon now you didn't ever think that a press release was about letting the world know about your latest product launch or about the new guy who has taken over at sales & marketing... did you?
Well, here's a little secret... press releases are supposed to be newsworthy but that's not the ultimate goal of a press release, especially an online press release. As far as I'm concerned a press release is all about getting people to read it and then follow through to your website or at the very least "expose" yourself to the masses, in the most decent way possible of course.
Every time I write a press release, which is at least once a week, I fully expect my website hit counter to start spinning for at least a week after. Otherwise what is the point?
A press release is a very powerful mechanism, not only for getting news out in a timely manner, but to laser target your market audience with specific news about a specific subject. Only those people who are interested in the subject matter are ever going to read it anyway so it really needs to strike a chord with these guys.
Let me give you an example...
I'm a member of the UK Business Forums (UKBF) and I use their press release forum for putting out news about our BusyVids offerings. I've also used PRWeb and DWPub for the same purpose but it's much cheaper to use the UKBF's resource. In fact it's free if you are a full member... as I am.
Now these press releases achieve two things...
1. They get read by the right target market audience and many will follow the links to my websites.
2. They get ranked in Google, so I get valuable backlinks to my sites and even further exposure.
Here's a screenshot of one I published recently for BusyVids. You can see the date it was published is 4th July, and today's date is 11th July. So in just 7 days my PR has received 5,436 views, which is about 27 times more than any of the other press releases on this page.
To enlarge this screenshot just click on it.
A quick check on my website's analytics revealed that 3,882 people (unique visitors) had followed through to visit my website and as a result we picked up 11 video production jobs each worth £149 (11 x £149 = £1,639). Not bad for 15 minutes of writing.
So that's one reason for writing press releases. The other, as mentioned already, is the Google rank and backlinks. See the screenshot below, which shows the press release in the Google search pages.
To enlarge this screenshot just click on it.
So from 343 million search results my press release is right there in position one (the 3 above are paid listings) and on page one for the search phrase "Online Video Production & Marketing Company". Those advertisers on the right-hand side are paying around £1 a click so I win again.
Now here's a screenshot of the actual press release, showing the links back to both my BusyVids website and my KnightWriter website.
So, now you can see why I love press releases so much. They are just soooo powerful!
Done right they can bring an almost instant flood of traffic to your website and pull in a few handy bucks too.
It's much easier to show these kind of results with screenshots rather than try to explain how it all works.
Press release anyone?
All for now.
Bill
BusyVids
KnightWriter
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