-
Intuition
the business of intuition
You don’t have to be a professional psychic to have an unexplainable hunch or feeling about a situation.
-
Hollywood
Hire Me Hollywood!
Want to know the super-secret to Stan Lee's writing process? What's for lunch on the set of The Walking Dead (hint: it’s not brains!)? How to sneak onto the set of Saturday Night Live?
-
innovation
iRenew Bracelets
iRenew suggests adding their bracelets to every Back to School Checklist to give students and moms a competitive edge this school year!
-
Beasley Real Estate
House of the Day
Beasley Real Estate is a boutique property brokerage firm with a global reach, specializing in the greater Washington DC market.
-
Corporate Psychics
When the Outlook is Hazy
Executives are turning to business psychics such as Victoria lynn Weston for help making tough calls: "Should I hire this job candidate?", and, "When will my company turn a profit again?"
-
Social Media
Facebook Customization
Companies, authors and filmmakers seeking to have a professional presence on Facebook can get help from MediaQuire.
-
Musical Brains
Harnessed
Language and music are central to what it means to be human. But where did they come from?
-
Share
Print 
Email
RSS Feed
The Importance of Press Releases
Posting a recent article by Chris Crum
Press Releases More Important to Marketing Than You May Realize
Press releases are not only great ways to spread the word about any announcements your business might have. They can also drive traffic, particularly from search engines. This is not news, but it's a commonly overlooked fact.
Have press releases brought you significant search traffic? Discuss here.
"Search engine rankings are arguably the most important small business marketing tool available today because it drives Web traffic -- and potential prospects -- to a small business' Web site," a PRWeb spokesperson once told WebProNews. "However, because improving search rankings is desirable, achieving results can be both challenging and highly competitive."
Back in the summer, PRWeb shared a case study with us, involving a firm that typically sees a boost in search engine rankings and a 50% spike in web traffic after they issue a release. In fact, for one release in particular, the firm saw a spike of 400% on two different Web sites, and the firm doesn't believe they were from the same users. They also incorporate social media tools like Twitter to extend the "shelf life" of press releases, and say that drives additional traffic.
"When we included a link to our press releases on Twitter and other social media networks, we saw these both expanded the scope of distribution and the extended the longevity of the announcement," the CEO of the company behind the case study had said. "With other news releases we saw an initial spike in Web site traffic on the first two days and then it dropped off. With these features we've seen increases in traffic up to five days after the news release was issued."
In a study from Arketi Group, also back in the summer, journalists were found to use the web in the following ways:
- 95% search
- 92% reading news
- 92% emailing
- 89% finding story ideas
- 87% finding news sources
- 75% reading blogs
- 64% watching webinars
- 61% watching YouTube
- 59% social networks
You've got to wonder if that social networks number has gone up by now. My guess is that it has, and social media has since become all the more important to search, particularly with the inclusion of real-time search results in Google and Google's social search experiment (which may eventually move beyond experiment status).
Marty Weintraub, the President of aimClear shared some great tips and insight into the use of press releases for search in a recent interview with WebProNews. Among other things, he noted that when you do a press release, you're "hitching a ride" in the search engine results and news results. You can use outbound links in press releases, and perhaps more importantly, you're out there where the journalists are looking.
Beyond the distribution sites, don't forget to include your releases on your own site.
Journalists like being able to find the most up to date information from the source itself. Earlier this year I discussed how some companies' own press centers are holding back some marketing opportunities for them. Your site should have a section for press releases, and that should be up to date with the latest release when it goes out. You'd be surprised at how often these go without being updated even when a press release has been spotted elsewhere. It is also a good idea to link to any company blogs, Twitter accounts, or any other place where company announcements are made.
About the Author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237
For more MediaQuire interviews & articles, become a fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
To pitch story ideas for our blog, MediaQuire at MediaQuire.com
Give us a try - we deliver your news to your custom created media list. Need a Facebook Fan page - we can customize one for you, too!
Write a comment
- Required fields are marked with *.
Posts: 1
Reply #1 on : Tue March 30, 2010, 08:18:03