SEO involves many activities, press release submission is one of those having a great impact on the entire strategy. It has been in fact a staple in search marketer’s toolbox for many years, especially since the update of Google’s algorithms like Panda and Penguin. The credit goes to these both updates for bringing genuine and top-quality content and also connections to the website, favouring mainly those sites that were affiliated with those of some reputable names and also some frequent publications.
In today’s time, press releases are evolving. They generally don’t carry the same benefit they used to since there is a number of businesses that have been using them for the sole purpose of self-promotion, and it is certainly not tougher for getting some relevant news authorized to be published on several reputed news channels. The majority of press release syndication platforms are something that tends to cost a great amount of money, making them fully questionable components of your strategy especially when you are working with a restricted budget.
As far as the importance of press releases for SEO is concerned, it is still beneficial, but it is also true that their nature and power are in the middle of a transformation shift. So, if you are planning to include them in your optimization strategy, then you should understand the current scope of some tactics relating to the press releases and also find some ways of mitigating their potential drawbacks.
The advantages of the press release
The fact can’t be denied that press releases created some major impacts for the past decade. They are available with numerous advantages that make them worth writing and also for more than just SEO.
Here are some major advantages of press releases that one cannot easily ignore.
Natural links from several outside sources – It is certainly tough for getting some quality inbound links. Building them by yourself is something that generally takes a greater amount of time and can also result in a search engine penalty if you are not fully careful. Writing or also producing some great content that generally gets shared virally is indeed highly difficult too. But, there are indeed several news sources that constantly looking for some new materials for publishing and submitting one press release that can easily put you in contact with a number of them simultaneously. Every link that you get generally separates from your site and offers you link source diversity in the process.
Top-quality authoritative resources – They are certainly not only a few low-to-average quality drifters that generally get stuck in the pool of contenders, most of the sites where your press release will be submitted are generally good quality. They are basically news sites dedicated to publishing quality details and also they have been around long enough for earning their full reputation.
A chance for name recognition and keyword linking – It is the most important fact that a press release is capable of offering you an important opportunity to associate your company name with some relevant keywords and also some subjects. This generally increases the likelihood that mainly searches several important queries that tend to result in business showing up mainly due to co-occurrence and also co-citation and the recent semantic search updates to those of some of Google’s algorithms.
Get referral traffic and visibility quickly
Press Releases are not only meant for optimising search engines. Every news outlet that generally picks up your press release is certainly going to have its own dedicated readership that clearly indicates that you will have a new set of eyes seeing your brand for the first time for every press release that gets published. Users, on the other hand, will get an important idea of your business and also if they are keen, then they will prefer to visit your website blessed with extra referral traffic.
Online reputation management – Those press releases that include your business name in the title generally rank good in online search engines for your brand name. As you will be able to control the content of a press release and this is something that generally gives you some degree of control over your online reputation.
Disadvantages of press releases
Apart from advantages, the press release also bears some disadvantages to consider for your strategy. All you need to do is to keep such potential downsides in your mind especially when planning the outline for the campaign.
Quality sources are generally tough for persuading – For those who are going to get published on their multiple high-quality outlets, then the quality of your press release also needs to match theirs. So, submitting your press release is not a guarantee that any outlet will eventually pick it up, though you can count on at least a few dozen sources. Still, it is considered to be an unpredictable game and also if your press release is not able to meet those quality standards of some more authoritative sources, you can then be easily limited to the pool of lesser publication outlets, so decreasing your total impact is per a press release.
Availability of press release is larger and collectively reduced authority
There are numerous news sites and all of them are indeed constantly pushing some new materials. This is something that generally makes it highly difficult for writing an effective press release that stands out of some crowd enough for generating some substantial visibility or referral traffic. Moreover, if you publish a larger volume or also publish them stuffed with links, your rankings then could certainly suffer.
Expensive – It is something that generally depends on how many press releases that you send out and also what platform you use for distributing them and also how you write them, every press release tends to cost a few hundred dollars. For some large companies with huge budgets, talented writer and also experienced PR teams, this is certainly worth it, but for those of struggling small business owner, the investment may not be worth.
Set your own importance and priorities
All you need to do is to consider your priorities first especially when evaluating some great possibilities of a press release. You need to find out some of your end goals. If you are fully focused on strengthening brand awareness, then building your social presence and also increasing your outreach may certainly be a good strategy comparing to the submission of small press releases. So, if you are keen on solely enhancing your link profile, you may then consider some guest blogs as affordable and also highly efficient options.
