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Mon, Dec 6 2010

Free press release sites

Let me first say that I like to give credit where it is due. I am always on the lookout for newer and better ways of accomplishing things, and I search the Web periodically for ideas, and you should too.

I recently searched and found this "List of sites to submit your press release to for free" at http://mr-seo.com/blog/search-engine-ranking/list-of-sites-to-submit-your-press-release-to-for-free.html. Feel free to review it and others at your leisure.

Marketing and advertising professionals know that press exposure is one of the best methods of promotion that there is. An article, or mention on an independent Web site, or news source is much more influential and important than an advertisement.

Where advertisements are viewed as intrusive, an article or press release is viewed as informative and educational. To achieve this coveted exposure, it takes time and effort. A marketer, public relations manager, or communications director should build personal relationships with the key editors, bloggers and influential people of the company's niche business sector.

I have recently checked and updated a short list of some free press release distribution sites that I use. Some previously free sites began charging fees to submit to, while some were difficult to use efficiently, so I deleted them rather than endure the aggravation every time I wanted to submit a press release, which is a common occurrence at the J Howard Company.

Bear in mind these are free press release sites that anybody can submit a good press release to and will usually get published reasonably fast. That is important when we want to get information out as fast as possible and generate some leads.

I have successfully created accounts and submitted press releases at all sites here - there are a several dozen or so sites where I expended far too much time trying to create an account or attempting to submit a press release only to discover there was a charge for doing so or that had errors in the process. Obviously, I omitted those sites from the list.

So these are the ones that actually work for me and will work for you, too.

Are free press release sites worth the time and effort time? Based on experience and clients' results, yes, if you know what you are doing and have a plan or at least incorporate the press release as part of your marketing strategy.

Advantages of free press release sites

Press release sites are hard to beat for a fast, easy way to deliver your message and your company brand all over the internet. Some submission sites are fairly highly page-ranked which helps to elevate the importance of the items associated with it and the content placed on the articles.

Several of my clients enjoyed top-10 Google listings for the keywords we used totally organically; using free press release sites, and article submission sites (which are slightly different) only.

Even though most of these sites require that an account be created which can be tedious and time-consuming, there is software that can help to expedite the process but it isn't advisable to submit to every single press release site-just the better ones.

One has to take the time to enter the required information, and then respond to the confirmation email after the information is catalogued with the site. I usually spend the last 90 minutes of a day to secure new press release accounts, and follow through the following morning with the emailed confirmations that I must open and click onto a link to activate the accounts. I also have clients who pay me to provide that service on their behalf.

The biggest disadvantage is that these sites do not allow anchor text/links (to an outside Web page) within the content of the press release but they do allow for a Web site URL in the resource box, so back links will be generated from the press release.

Most of the sites don't allow images or video-just text; www.prweb.com will allow images and video, but at a minimum of $80 to use their services, although it may be worth considering, depending on the audience and the impact your press release deserves.

There are options for paying from $3 to hundreds of dollars for instant placement including HTML links within the content and better exposure if you are in a hurry, but most clients choose to plan ahead and wait a few days. If the press release is well written, that should be enough to generate the intended results.

To find out if a PR distribution site is getting their content indexed by Google news, go to Google News and do a search for "site:sitename.com", substituting the domain name of the p0ress release submission site for "sitename". This will reveal all of the stories at that site indexed by Google News.

I also added the current page rank of the sites next to the URL of each:

free-press-release-center.info PR5

NewsWireToday.com PR6

24-7pressrelease.com PR6

PRLog.org PR6

PR-Inside.com PR6

BigNews.biz PR4

Onlineprnews.com PR5

ClickPress.com PR5

PR-USA.net PR5

OpenPR.com PR4

PowerHomeBiz.com PR5