No matter how many times I hear it, I still cringe when I am asked this question by an Internet marketer who has heard that one of the best ways to build back links is by sending a news release through a distribution service like PRWeb.

That is not to say that quality links should not be a key outcome of a news marketing strategy that uses a distribution service like ours.  In fact, a well construed and executed news marketing campaign will almost inevitably result in high-quality links from relevant sites (in addition to a host of other positive outcomes).  However the direct correlation of a payment to PRWeb with the acquisition of links is problematic for a variety of reasons (not the least of which would mean some stiff penalties in the Google index). 

This article will set the record straight on the real value that PRWeb provides for online marketers looking to build equity in their Web properties.  First let’s start out by clarifying the following:  

PRWeb does not sell links
Google has been explicit that they treat links from news distribution sites differently than others.  If creating back links were as simple as paying a service like PRWeb money to run a hyperlink dressed up as a news story then it would be problematic for Google, who continue to value quality links as a fundamental signal of the relative authority of Web content, as well as us.  

For us, it would be problematic for the countless people who read, syndicate, and write about our content every day.  First and foremost, we are a news distribution service that serves as a conduit between businesses that have news to share and people interested in receiving that news. 

A major component of our value is derived from the quality of our content and the strength of our editorial review policy.  If we were to suddenly start allowing anything through our network, it would have a detrimental effect on the downstream partners and news consumers who are the single-most important component of our distribution network and herein is the value to using PRWeb:

Industry-leading access to journalists, bloggers and Web publishers
The fundamental value we provide to our customers is through our distribution network.   We take news about their business and leverage a variety of channels to make sure that their news gets in front of the right audience. 

When a release is published on PRWeb, it is indexed by search crawlers and placed in Web and News search engines, syndicated on targeted Web sites, delivered directly via Real Simple Syndication (RSS) and e-mail to bloggers and journalists and more.  What this all means for Internet marketers interested in building online equity is that their news release will be presented front-and-center to people whose job it is to create and publish content. 

This is when the real value of the distribution network comes into play.  If the content is interesting and compelling, it will trigger the following activities:

     -  It will capture the attention of editors, journalists and bloggers looking for compelling news to write about;

     -  It will be syndicated on the sites of Web publishers looking for news to share with their audiences;

     -  It will be shared by social media participants on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook;

     -  It will be clicked-through by news consumers – your target audience. 

As these activities take place, hyperlinks will start to be generated that will point back to the release creator’s own Web site and the aggregate will be an increase in the online equity of their Web property.  So the question that presents itself is, how can a search marketer create content that is likely to result in these different outcomes and ultimately in the building of online equity?

The devil is in the details
For years, the press release has been something the PR person in a company used to get a journalist’s attention.  Great press releases had attention-grabbing headlines, conveniently placed information, and succinct, straight-forward language that helped a journalist or editor quickly decide if they wanted to write a story or not. 

With the transition from offline to online, the press release has evolved (along with media consumption habits) into a tool capable of far more than grabbing the attention of journalists.  Today’s online news release is a synthesis of the traditional press release and a multimedia, search-optimized Web page (traditionally the domain of the online marketer). 

The ideal online news release therefore blends best practices associated with the traditional press release along with best practices associated with Web optimization.  Here are a few things to consider while constructing an online news release:

Write for people, not for search engines
At the end of the day, the only entity that matters is the person reading your release.  If the release doesn’t have a compelling headline, you are not going to get people clicking-through to read the release.  If you bury the lead (or don’t have one) and spend the first paragraph talking about why your company or product is so great then people will lose interest and not read the rest.  If there is no story in your release at all, then the people that did actually read your release aren’t going to act on it and even worse, they may avoid reading your news releases in the future.  90% of the ROI of a release is going to be derived in the human activity that ensues after it is delivered – so make sure your release is interesting and compelling.

Don’t just write, create
In a wire-enabled communications paradigm, you write a press release.  In a Web-enabled paradigm, you create a news release that blends text with imagery, audio and video.  There are countless research studies that show that multimedia increases a variety of desirable outcomes including likelihood of action.  A 2007 study from the Online Publishers Association revealed that over 50% of respondents took some form of action after viewing an ad containing a video clip.  Furthermore, not only can video (and other forms of multimedia) inspire user activity, but it also provides content for bloggers and journalists to use when they are constructing their stories about your news.  The days of the text-based press release are gone and the days of the multimedia-enabled news release are here.

Optimize for the Web
Once you have created a compelling release that is going to be interesting for people, then you should think about how to best optimize it for the Web.  There are some standard practices everyone should follow – anchor text links, ALT tags, title tags, etc. 

People should also think very carefully about the keywords they are using in their release.  Are the keywords being used going to help them tap into the vast number of people using news portals like Google and Yahoo! News?  If not, what are the keywords that can be used to better ensure that their news release is the one retrieved by a search query (without ruining or changing the experience of the release)?  There are a variety of free tools like Google trends that help users understand popularity of different keywords and these should be used when optimizing the release. 

How our approach is different 
While traditional newswire services still focus on getting text-based releases to journalists and media outlets, PRWeb allows customers to create multimedia releases optimized for the Web and distribute them to a distribution network of bloggers, publishers, journalists and consumers that is without peer in our industry.  Our editorial team ensures that every news release that passes through PRWeb adheres to our editorial standards to ensure that our news recipients, who range from niche bloggers to the Associated Press, are provided with relevant and original news content.  To learn more about PRWeb visit us on the Web at www.prweb.com.