I’m often asked when I mention doing press releases for website promotion, branding and visibility what online press release distribution services I recommend, if any. The truth is that I’m a longtime user of PRWeb, have spent thousands of dollars running press releases with them and am pretty pleased with their services.
When I first started doing serious press releases several years back, I signed up with PRWeb – partially because they were very visible at industry conferences like PubCon and partially because they offered (and still do offer) a series of free webinars that explained how to use the service.
I was making the leap from being a small site affiliate to creating true affiliate brands and knew press releases had to be a part of my marketing strategy. With the roles of traffic and branding playing a larger and larger part in top search engine rankings, utilizing every opportunity you have to get publicity, including press releases, is becoming more of a necessity.
The PRWeb offerings
PRWeb has tried to simplify their offerings over the years to give you a choice between four main press release packages:
- Standard Visibility aka the $80 level
- Social Media Visibility aka the $140 level
- SEO Visibility aka the $200 level
- Media Visibility aka the $360 level
While the site touts tons of features for each, the main (read, important) differences aren’t that difficult to spot.
Standard Visibility ($80)
The cheapest of all the available options, standard visibility gets your release listed on the PRWeb network (which gets about 2-3 million unique visitors per month), in Google News and Yahoo News. Additionally, you’ll also get access to basic statistics about how “well” your release did such as headline impressions (cumulative, by week and by day), full page reads (cumulative, by week and by day) and the ability to compare the statistics of one (or more) press releases to another (useful in identifying the best days of the week to send out releases and which features help make your release more appealing).
Social Media Visibility ($140)
This option gets you everything included in the Standard Visibility package with a little increased distribution. Specifically, your release will be sent to an additional list of about 35,000 opt-in journalists, a “media digest” list (a list of about 4-500 regional reporters or 150-300 vertical reporters – your choice) and will also be distributed on the Pheedo network (which means your release will receive exposure on the relevant high profile sites in Pheedo’s network).
SEO Visibility ($200)
The “SEO Visibility” package, in my experience, is often the most misunderstood. PRWeb, along with every other known press release site, has long been treated differently by Google. The links from within your press release, with or without anchor text are not going to give you much (if any) “inbound link value” in the eyes of Google. Then why bother with the SEO Visibility package? A few reasons.
The SEO Visibility option comes with everything included in the Standard and Social Media Visibility options as well as distribution to an additional regional or vertical media digest list (for a total of two), inclusion with relevant premium vertical publishers (like Entrepreneur.com) and the ability to embed an image within your release.
In addition to that increased distribution, you can also specify anchor text for your links, keywords to include in the url of your release when published on PRWeb. If the links don’t “count” then why does either of these options matter? To begin with, at first glance, a press release looks much neater and more professional with “anchor text” vs. www.mydomain.com/the-long-ass-url-to-the-feature-were-announcing.html as the links to the features, people or products being announced.
Additionally, PRWeb has numerous distribution channels and should someone from those channels decide to publish your release on their own site, you’ll likely find more value in that re-published release linking to you with anchor text rather than long and ugly url strings.
Specifying keywords to use in the url of the release hosted on PRWeb will increase (however slightly) the chances that your release will rank well in the search engines based on the domain age, trust, branding and traffic of PRWeb.
Additionally, you also get access to additional statistics called “Search Engine Hits” (which is a bit misleading since it is actually search engine visits, not “hits” as traditional SEO folk would identify “hits”). You’ll get to see the percentage of total search engine traffic each of the major engines sent to your release (Google News, Google, Yahoo, MSN and “other”) as well as the top 20 keywords that drove that traffic. Unfortunately, while they show you the % of traffic each engine sent, they don’t show an aggregate number of “total search engine visits”, which PRWeb says they’re working on providing.
Media Visibility ($360)
This package includes everything in the three previous packages, but with some additional “heavy artillery” distribution via the Associated Press and by having your release sent to a distribution list that includes the top newspaper in 100 designated marketing areas (DMA). It also includes the ability to include video with your release, access to additional geographical statistics (which is essentially a Google maps mashup showing you the location of people who have read your release) and the ability to export all of your statistics (you can find an example export here).
What to watch out for
PRWeb makes it incredibly easy to get your release in front of the right people (your release will need to do the rest) but it does have a few caveats you should be aware of.
Linking limitations
Links, even with the SEO Visibility package are limited to 1 per 100 words. PRWeb’s reasoning is that Google News seems to prefer this ratio and anything above it risks the release not being included in Google News. Since press releases traditionally are supposed to be short and to the point, you might find you quickly run out of links and are then editing your release to bulk it up to get another link or two in. However, note that if you contact PRWeb and explain you’ll take the risk of not being included in Google news, they will allow your release to go through providing the number of links isn’t excessive (aka obvious spam).
RSS groupings
PRWeb has the ability to group your releases, which is especially useful for those submitting releases on behalf of clients. However, note that underneath each release published is a section called “Other releases by the member” where other releases in the same grouping appear. So if you don’t want sites connected publicly, be sure not to connect them in your account by putting them in the same RSS grouping.
Editorial Scores
PRWeb doesn’t give much information about how it doles out editorial scores, only that each release receives a score of 1-5 (with 5 being the best) and that an editorial score of 4 or higher is required for your release to be distributed to Topix, Yahoo News and eMediaWire. If you get a score below a 4, you’ll want to edit and improve your release and submit it for another review to ensure maximum exposure. That said, I’ve never really had a problem getting an editorial score of four or above.
Three power user tips
- PRWeb is releasing a “Tweet It” option for your press releases that will tweet your press release for you the second it goes live. Be sure to take advantage of this brand new feature. Twitter is awesome at spreading news in a viral fashion.
- Press releases are listed on PRWeb based on who paid the most. You can buy additional “stars” above the four packages listed to show higher than other folks if you’d like. Whatever package you buy, you might want to consider paying a few dollars above the package price. So, if you buy the 200 dollar package, pay 203 dollars. This will bump you above all other press releases who only paid the 200 dollar base price without you having to buy another entire star for 40 dollars.
- If you’re interested in trying out PRWeb, I’d suggest signing up for an account and then attending their free daily webinars as soon as possible before spending any actual money submitting a release.
My experience
As I mentioned, I’ve been using PRWeb with success for a few years now. Our releases are well written (we do them in house) and always submitted at the 200 dollar (SEO Visibility level) though I admit I didn’t realize everything that came with the Media Visibility package until I did this review and will likely use that level for our next “big” announcement.
The statistics of our last five releases published are as follows with the most recently released press release listed first:
(impressions/reads/email forwards/prints/pdf)
- 116561/1990/0/17/0
- 146304/2229/0/17/40
- 107428/1542/0/14/40
- 128481/1824/0/15/26
- 98241/2122/0/9/27
Our releases all have gotten us several links a piece and we also have three business deals that have been very good for our sites that came from releases we’ve issued putting us on that company’s radar in the first place. Press releases, and PRWeb as a distribution method, have earned their spot in our marketing budget.
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{ 47 comments… read them below or add one }
Best summary I’ve read for not only PRWeb but for doing a press release. These were on my list for 2009. Time to get them rolling.
Very good overview on press releases. I think that a lot of link builders miss the fact that press releases aren’t meant to be used for building a link profile outright. Because of this, they don’t give their PR enough love OR their PR is not that interesting so it doesn’t get picked up on the back end.
We used to use PR WEB religiously. As you we’ve spent thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars there for ourselves and our clients.
Up until recently we were very satisfied. Recently, however, they’ve been getting sloppy. PRs had poor distribution. We did a Media distribution release for a Start-Up in the middle of M&A talks and until I got on them after day two we were barely showing up anywhere. All they did a week later after I really let them have it and threatened to take our business elsewhere was send me a coupon for my next release.
Our last batch of basic releases have gone to PR Leap (they offer anchor text at $50) but we still keep them close for the $200 package, but we’re way more attentive to the release and to its results.
Great summary of their products though. If only their summary was half as good :-)
Wow..great article on press releases, a very under-utilized medium!
Right at the time I was searching for some good piece of advice for doing a Press Release, I found you Rae!
Thanks. :)
Our clients like the $360 level because they get statistics in greater detail and we like it because of the report formatting options. Good to see you promoting the value of online press releases with an SEO perspective – especially appreciate the power user tips. Thanks Rae!
@wiredprworks
Rae, great article!!! A PR campaign is something I had thought for a while but I never really knew where to start. Your article made it very clear and I know already which package I am going to order. It would be great if you could write another article with a few suggestions on how to write an article for a PR campaign.
I used PRWeb at the beginning of January as part of the launch of my new business. I will admit that I didn’t know what to expect, but knew that I wanted as much coverage as possible. Therefore, I went with the high end “Media Visibility” package. Its hard to tell exactly how how much traffic my site got through PRWeb, but it did an amazing job generating the type of industry buzz that I needed for a successful launch. With in a day of the release going live several very large players in my industry were quoting it in articles/post they wrote.
So, you can bet that if I had that type of response with my first release, and if big name players use it as well, then PRWeb has got to be well worth the money. i will differently be using them again in the future!
Great article Rae I actually just found your site. In your experience do you find that you get very many backlinks from releasing these press releases? Or is it more for the exposure?
Hey Matt… depends on the industry and site… we have one site where we get a minimum of 20 backlinks every time from people who watch the releases for the sector and report them, links in tact, on forums. Sometimes, we only get a link or two… just depends. But the exposure is always worth it, in our experience. One release even landed us a column in an offline publication.
I am sorry about all the questions, but would you say it helped the google serps position of your webpage or did it essentially stay the same?
@Matt If you got the money and something news worthy, why not? There’s always a possibility of landing a link from one of the more trusted authorities or from an industry related site.
LOL Matt, no need to be sorry about the questions… Donovan brings up a good point – and I mentioned it in the release too – all PRWeb (or any PR service) does is put your release in front of the right people… your release HAS to do the rest. That said, links we receive from outside sites appear to have effect serp wise… though it is never our top priority when doing a PR.
I’ve been using PRWeb for a while now and only use the Media Package for the brick and mortar store.. The last one we ran worked perfectly and got us in 2 local newspapers and interviewed on all 3 local TV stations in the same week.. Did wonders for the sale..
Everything else goes out at the SEO level..
Thanks for a good review, Rae :)
Btw, did you try other PR distribution services, such as PRNewswire?
PRN, particularly, costs about $1400, so I’m wondering, if it provides good ROI (in visibility and, perhaps, links).
Thanks.
Came here via Sphinn
It’s kinda a good reminder really that a little cash in your wallet to spend when launching a new website / application really does count for a lot.
My tip for PR Web is plan your release date b y looking at the competition on your primary keyword for a particular day of the week. I used to work in an industry where the government released closely-followed statistics every Wednesday, so a Wednesday press release was always buried for its primary keyword phrases.
Releases with a seasonal hook are really good. My most pickups came from a tax day themed promotion released on April 15th.
Nice article, I have never grown any websites large enough to warrant a press release, but hope to be there sometime in the future, and will consider prweb for sure.
I agree, we have been using PRweb for many years and have seen great results as well.
Rae, thanks again for your article. It offers a tremendous depth of information on online news releases as well as PRWeb!
I’d always used the SEO visibility package for the anchor links and we generally pulled out 40k – 60k in “hits”, so it was marginally successful (clients were pleased w/ the exposure, at least). I’ve been working with PRWeb for clients for a few years now as well and there are some things here I had never thought of that I’m going to start implementing! Great list of things for newbies or for long time PRWebbers.
Truly brilliant article and explanation on how to get the most out of using PRWeb for Press Release distribution. Thank you Rae :)
I have to disagree with Rae on this one…As far as SEO is concerned, I think that the $200 spent on a press release (be it PRWeb or one of the other similar online PR services) is really not worth it. Nothing worse than a bunch of people submitting press releases that are not news worthy because they think it’s going to improve their rankings. If you’re trying to improve your rankings, you’re much better off spending that $200 on buying a good directory link and if you’re looking for some real press release distribution that might actually get picked up by the media you should try PR Newswire. It is a real newswire service. It might be more expensive but if you’ve got real news to announce it’s worth it.
George, to clarify, I never said that the links from PRWeb itself would improve anyone’s rankings. Actually, I flat out stated the opposite:
I’ve done two PRWeb releases. One went great (great=it brought in inbound links) and one didn’t really do much. But that was back when PRWeb was doing their initial push into the SEO marketplace.
I really quit doing them simply because I don’t want my site being found in the same places every seo company has as part of it’s standard ‘Package A’. If it’s standard SEO practice, I tend to pass on it.
Your blog is without a doubt one of the most informative and helpful blogs out there. I truly appreciate your content. I am always trying to look to improve my knowledge and strategy to make my own business stronger. I am never disappointed when I come here. Thank You and Keep up the good work Rae
Wow, great write up! This is the third blog post I’ve read by you and I’m now following you on twitter. Our marketing manager is going to start using PRweb this coming month for a few clients and this was perfect timing. I’m sort of excited about the possible opportunities considering the level of journalism our new marketing manager possesses. This could get interesting. Thanks again!
Great post Rae, this is not only really useful for people who have not used PRWeb (or similar services) before but great for people who are not getting the most out of currently using them.
In my own experience the $200 level is my favourite although I have used the full package for large releases as you mentioned, PRWeb is defiantly one fo the big players in this game and I do recommend them but does anyone have any recommended UK focused PR companies?
Hello,
I want to share my story of PR web with your readers. I too have been hassled by the press release police. Two of our releases we submitted recently were too commercial. I know press releases are written for the consumer, but if can’t be written at least a little commercial what value does it hold for a company ? Also, one of the ways they tell you to fix it is to make sure if it’s a tip sheet it has to say so in the headline. If not, I guess the people at PR web are not able to figure it out despite the bullets and the fact that it says tips.
I do want to say that the rep I spoke with said it gets flagged by some kind of system so I question if any real eyes are even reading it ?
I’m just getting into press releases and this will help since I’m so new to it. Thanks!
Hi Sugarrae…
I dont usually comment on blogs too often – especially since my comment is not going to be too much on-topic or constructive…
But I browse the web a lot, including for research – like my current session (currently researching off-page SEO as a newbie starting up to build a website) and I am rarely as impressed with a web design as yours (especially the banner – I love it!) so I thought I might take 5 mins to let you know…
But then I also read the article I came for (How to survive affiliate evolution) and was really impressed with the content… so I added you to my RSS aggregator and even voted for you in the “Moms in biz” thing…
here you go – just letting you know…
Hey Jeremie,
Thanks for the comment, the compliments and for subscribing to the feed… all are appreciated :)
I am going to ask these two questions knowing that this isn’t the most appropriate place — I apologize.
1) The custom comment box is totally cool. How do you set that up in thesis?
2) I can’t seem to figure out the “click to continue” for non-teaser posts. Any help?
Thank you,
Jeff
Hi Rae,
Great review and nice handy tips, thanks. However I’d like to share my recent experience – when launching my new directory marketing ebook I had to submit press releases and submitted them to PRWeb, Express-Press-Release and a bunch of free sites. To my surprise, I found out that 1) ERP is only $29 pre submission so way cheaper, 2) ERP got me into Google News faster than PRWeb, 3) they reposted my press release to a bunch of other sites in their network and what’s even better, 4) it brought me more direct traffic than PRWeb. So I guess this could be industry specific or just my luck but that’s the result I got. I am not affiliated with ERP in any way, just thought I’d share.
I have just released press releases and of course the obvious choice was pr web. I got great results from this but it is interesting know of others that may also give good results to vary the places I submit them.
Rae — appreciate the insight and background here. This type of release is something our group doesn’t have a lot of “hands on” experience with and the inside information is appreciated. If you are marketing it, PRWeb must be worth it.
The Media option looks to be worth spending on for bigger announcements. What is the most you have spent on any PR announcement outside of PRWeb?
Does PRweb focus mainly on US or is it international? For example does it work also if you want to get your press release be distributed in Poland?
This is great info!! We are just going live with a Company/blog/web-precence focused on our tagline “Start your Life Up” We have named our site LifeStartUp. We searched far and wide for advice and this site is near the top. Way to go Sugar Rae. We actually ended up hiring a Logo design firm in London but we are looking to do P.R. as we build our content and presence. We are all learning from scratch very slowly. Any advice for building a site from nothing into one thats helps and encourages? We are doing it to help others with a positive mindset and we intend to test some products online and post our results on which ones made us a few bucks.
Thanks from the (small)staff at LifeStartUp.com
PRWeb is a great resource and service. For those looking to give press releases a try, prlog.com will do it for free. Don’t expect the same service and PRWeb, but for free, its hard to beat.
I have to agree with many of the comments left here. This was a well written post on PRWeb. Reading this plus talking with a few others have made me understand the extreme value of PRWeb and Press Releases.
For me this will be a great kick start into this medium on many levels. Thanks for the insight Rae.
Rae: Awesome, in-depth post on PRWeb. I have debated what would be the best provider to use for internet press releases (about 60 days out from distribution of my first press release). I really appreciate your presentation of your thoughts, and especially your results!
Thanks bunches.
Shay West
Great review – I’m also a PRWeb fan – for several years. They’re #1 ranked on TopSEOs.com (here is the criteria used). PRWeb always ranks first.
I love getting stats and that make it easy to compare press releases, the ability to schedule ahead, and use RSS feeds for each of my clients. Oh, and customer service (believe me this is important when your client needs something changed ASAP).
Thanks for sharing your stats – which are excellent. I’m just going to note that about a 1.5-2% clickthrough rate is what I get every time. Seems to be pretty consistent even with higher news value PR.
If you don’t want stats or the extra features aren’t important I like PRLeap for $50. It’s a small shop and they are innovative plus has the good SEO features you need.
I’m writing a book about online PR that should be out in a few months. I have a lot about PRWeb in it.
Thanks
Janet – http://www.newspapergrl.com
@newspapergrl on Twitter
It seems silly to ask.. but have any of your Press Releases… you know – ever been read by a journalist and resulted in a newspaper article like real press releases do?
PS if you want a real Press Release in the Associated Press feed you just call AP and get the email address to sent it to and there you go… FREE.
PR Web is for Press Releases that are not worthy enough to result in real news articles.
wow, what an article. Having used PRWeb only a few times, this has now shed much light on certain doubts I had about their 4 levels of distribution…. I do inhouse SEO for a British charity named the British Council and we are starting to use this much more frequently… problem is that being based in France, and obviously being the language a sensitivity in this country, it’s a shame that we cannot send out PRs in French… I am bookmarking this article, thanks for the useful info ; )
by the way, does anyone have simimar positive experiences with PRNewswire?
Excellent article, thanks for the info about PRWEB! I’ve been on the fence trying to decide whether it’s worth my money. I released PR’s with other popular sites and found out spamming forums with my “PR” was their “method”. So, after some further investigation I came across PRWEB, hear MANY great things about them but just wanted to get further proof that they work.
great article, i’ll definitely use PRWEB for my next release
Hello, thank you for such a great post, i was looking for reviews on PR web and came across this post. I wondered if anybody thinks PR web will be useful for geograhically based releases. Say im doing a press release about what going on in my local town, which i run a website for, would PR web be useful to me?
Thanks
As someone who’s company is slowly bringing a lot of the marketing back in house this is invaluable and has helped me understand PRWeb a lot more. Far better than going through all the sales blurb on their site.
Thanks