You have three choices after writing your press release. Use a press release service, pitch it directly to reporters, or do both.
When you send a release to a wire service, it syndicates your news to their site and across varied channels. They help you in reaching your target audience. However, it’s not only that.
A wire service is a platform that helps build brand awareness and increase your exposure. Before hiring a service, check out the things that they will not mention to you but are important before making a decision.
- It’s not the solution for your SEO
Yes using a press release service can aid in improving your SEO. However, don’t expect that it does all the work to boost your ranking in search results.
Keep in mind that only a few distribution platforms offer the feature that improves your ranking. Not all services provide it. Don’t commit the mistake of assuming that it is part of the plan.
You can do it on your own if you want to boost your SEO. Write content that uses relevant keywords. Use search terms and phrases that your target audience is using to find you.
Do not at all cost use keywords too many times. There is no such thing as keyword stuffing now. Google penalizes sites that don’t follow this rule.
If you place too many keywords in your content, you may be suspected for spamming. The best place to use it is in the headline, subheading, and the body of the release.
Don’t force keywords in the content. Use it as naturally as possible.
The other key tactic to improve SEO is to write high-quality content. Provide value to the readers. Don’t focus on talking about your brand and your product or service.
Provide the answer to “Why they should care?” People must feel that they need to connect with you because they find value.
Google also rewards sites that answer best the queries of the people. If your content provides an answer to the common issues and questions, Google will reward you by placing you on top of the search engine result pages (SERPs).
- Some newswires just publish your content on their sites.
You must be very careful about this. However, don’t fret. Distribution sites that are free only publish content on their own sites.
Not only that, it can only be seen for a very limited time. It limits your exposure and the ability to build awareness and traffic.
Paid wire services are different. They syndicate content on their own sites and to other channels, such as journalists, media outlets, and other online locations.
These services ensure that you build awareness and increase visibility and traffic. You are also able to reach your target audience because of their industry-specific and geographic targeting features. These features are not available on free distribution services.
When they syndicate content, it’s good for the following reasons:
- You build brand awareness.
- You become more visible.
- You improve your social media presence.
- You attract media opportunities.
- You gain quality leads.
Before making a decision on which platform to use, ask them to provide a sample of their distribution. You are advised to use writing services where you can leave such a similar message “check my grammar for free” and check your grammar and punctuation before sending your PR.
- It enhances your social media presence.
If you want to widen your reach on social media, you need to go with a PR service that offers social media integration. For instance, Newswire provides auto-post of release on Facebook and Twitter starting from its basic single distribution plan called Premium.
It gives your content more exposure and visibility with this feature. Not all press release platforms offer this.
If more people read, like, share, and comment on your posts, the higher the tendency for it to go viral. This is important if you want to boost your ranking on search engine result pages (SERPs).
- The outcome of distribution depends on the quality of your writing.
If you think that all you have to do is write and the rest will be done by a PR service, it’s not. Your distribution will succeed if you produced a well-written press release.
Even you have chosen the best distribution platform but your content is poorly written and boring, no one will have the interest to read it. Your content must be compelling and interesting.
The best PR platform can’t do miracles if your content is boring. Include images, infographics or videos to make it appealing. It increases the engagement of the readers.
A well-written release reaches the top of the SERPs. Ensure to maximize visuals, stats, keywords, and links. It aids in improving your authority and awareness.
There are paid press release distribution companies that offer writing and distribution at the same time. They ensure that your content is error-free and that it suits the standard, and is optimized.
- Distribution is not the answer to your link-building problem.
If you want to be an authority site, you can’t do it by earning too many links that look spammy. Google changed its algorithm to eradicate these sites that lure the search engines.
Since then links in releases must have the “nofollow” attribute. That means that it cannot be used to score ranking on the SERPs.
If you think that you can use the distribution site to solve your link-building issues, it’s not going to do it. The only key to build backlinks is to write compelling, newsworthy, and relevant content.
When sites see that your content is valuable, they will link to your site. This is the most natural way to earn links.
And distribution sites can boost this by syndicating your content to high authority media outlets. If these media sites publish your content, you earn links that increase your authority.
Keep your content effective and relevant to attract links from those sites. You can add hyperlinks in the keyword anchor text. This help boosts your SEO.
- High-quality newswires give importance to multimedia elements.
Authority and expert wire services know the importance of multimedia in content. They value these elements because they know they know that it can boost the value of your release.
Today, all-text releases are no longer effective. If you want to attract the reader’s attention and engagement, you must include images or videos in the release.
Images are worth a thousand words. It explains the message that you want to convey, even without reading the content.
Videos are worth millions. It delivers the message faster than images. Moreover, content with visual elements attracts people to like, share, and comment.
It can go viral. With high engagement, your content will be on top of the ranking. This increases your authority, boost brand awareness, and improve site traffic.
When you’re on top of the SERPs, you can also attract more leads. Of course, sales follow.
- There is no guaranteed media coverage.
If you use a PR service, it doesn’t mean that your media coverage problem will be solved. There’s no guarantee for that.
However, it doesn’t mean that it is impossible. If a journalist sees that your release is newsworthy and relevant, they are more probable to pick your story.
If a journalist is subscribed to RSS feeds, they can receive your content once it hit the wire. This gives you an edge over your competitors who are not using wire services.
Don’t forget that they use it for fact-verification. They also use it for a feature story and to monitor industry trends.
When you use the platform, you don’t have to worry about how your story is going to reach your target audience and journalists. Newswire offer industry-specific targeting. They send your news to journalists who write about your industry.
It is also geographic-focused. It reaches the local, regional, national, or international market that you want to reach. It widens your exposure and increases the chance that it reaches the people who care about your story.
When your story reaches your target, you’ll be able to promote awareness, establish you as an expert, and boost your sales. There are a lot of benefits to that.
Using a free distribution site isn’t advisable. It only exposes your story on its own sites for a limited time. If you have a ground-breaking story, using it isn’t going to help.
Again, to increase your media opportunity, you must reach out directly to reporters. Build relationships. Help them make their jobs easier.
- All distribution services provide a tracking report.
No. Not all plans and not all PR platforms offer a report to give you insights about the outcome of your PR campaign.
Choose platforms that provide monitoring or tracking reports. You need to know how your campaign went. You need to weigh the strengths and weakness of your campaign.
This gives you insights on what things to change, retain, or improve. You can enhance your future campaigns if you have an idea of how your previous campaigns worked. By knowing how it performed, you’ll know also if it is perceived well by the audience.
If it worked, you can repeat the same topics in the future. However, if not, this is an indication that this kind of topic will not help.
Sometimes, distribution services will not tell you these things. It’s something that you should learn on your own or read between the lines. If you aren’t that smart to get it, you can end up getting the wrong PR service or distribution plan.
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