Free or Paid Press Release Websites?

Why waste time sending your hard work off to websites that don’t deliver the results you’re looking for?

Publishing press or news releases is an effective way to boost your ranking in search engines and drive traffic to your site. The links created by publishing a press release can continue to send visitors to your site for months, even years after the original release is published.

You’ll find there are two options to distribute press releases online: the free option and the paid option.

Free services include websites like 24-7 Press Release, Free Press Release and PR Log.

Paid services include PRWeb, PR Newswire, and Business Wire.

Often, press release distribution sites offer both free release and premium (paid) release options. Before deciding whether free or paid distribution services are the way forward for your business, here are a few tips on how to find a good press release site:

Think About SEO

Reputable press release sites will allow you to use anchor text and text links back to your website. You should be able to easily optimize your release to ensure high rankings in search engines.

Consider Page Rank

A good press release website should have a high page rank of at least 5. The higher the page rank, the better the results. Websites with a higher page rank are considered authority sites and are more successful in getting your release noticed.

Testimonials From Previous Customers

Most high authority press release sites are honest and up front and display testimonials from other service users. They may also display samples of effective press releases. They want your press release to succeed, so their website should give you some advice to help you write a winning release.

Look for Follow Tags

The site should have follow tags. As the name implies, follow tags allow the reader to follow any links to your website. No follow tags, however, defeat the purpose of sending out a press release as no-one will be redirected to your site.

So now that you know what to look for in a press release distribution site, how do you decide whether to use a free service or a paid one?

Generally speaking, paid sites will have more features than free sites. Compare the free distribution with the paid upgrade on any press release site and you’ll see that the paid options have more benefits. Free sites work well for many types of releases, but the paid sites give you extras such as additional links and anchor text, live social media streams, media attachments and quick publishing.

Free sites with a page rank of 5 or higher work well if you’re submitting releases regularly. Even if they initially take a few days to publish, you’re still creating a steady stream of free publicity for your website. However, if your company tends to issue only a few press releases a year, you may want to pay for the perks that premium sites offer.   Free sites also tend to take a little longer to use than the paid sites and you may need to format your release slightly. All this takes time, which may not something you’d be willing to compromise for free distribution.

Carefully consider which option would be best for your company when it comes to press release sites. Free sites can be effective but sometimes paid services give you more bang for your buck.

What are your experiences of press release websites – free or paid?