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I was just worndering if it's possible to get press releases published in the news sections of the major search engines. I know Google uses algos to grab news content from various sites. Is there a route to getting your press releases picked up e.g. by getting it on one of the sites Google gets it's ontent from.
Any ideas welcome.
Note that you can use their service for free and still get a respectable amount of coverage; if you write a good release it will increase your chances of being picked up by the different news aggregators.
Your press release has to be unique and valuable though... There are thousands of press releases put out every day, so you have to bring something good to the table, otherwise you are wasting your time and money.
Another approach I learned that helps: Condense it down to a 100-150 word blurb. Most of the time, a publication might be interested in your story, but not have the space for it. Or, they will feel it doens't merit 500 words - but is worth a brief mention.
Writing a blurb press release (100 words or less) - will get you in more publications.
Sid
1.All press releases are put into one large document and sent out.
2.Publication editors need to scan the whole document
3.Document has no category listings
4.You can not target your publications. One size fits all approach
5.Editors get burraged (is that a word) but not appropriate info.
6.Editors delete easily non targeted information
What do you guys think?
[dmoz.org...]
"2.Publication editors need to scan the whole document"
Not true. There's a summary section for that particular PR release service. A summary of the press release goes at the top of the story. Besides, editors have to do that for every press release they are interested in.
"3. You can not target your publications. One size fits all approach"
Not true with this service. The staff targets your press release for you. It gets general and specific categories.
"4. Editors get burraged (is that a word) but not appropriate info."
Depends on who is writing the press release. Depends on if it goes to the write publication. Depends on if the editor thinks it is useful or not to his/her audience. Depends if the editor just ran a similar story and may not want to run the same topic again.
"5. Editors delete easily non targeted information."
You can target your press release with precision at other press release services.
The biggest problem with press releases is most Public Relations firms or business owners write the release write it and just totally screw it up because they don't know what they are doing.
I was a journalist for 5 years and was always amazed at how unusable the press releases I got from so called professional PR firms and departments. They often read like a 19th century snake oil salesmen full of hyperbole and self-serving garbage. If it looked like it was going to take too long to rewrite their self-serving crap, I tossed it in the can because I didn't have time for it. When I did rewrite the press release, 90 percent of the time I only used less then 25 percent of the information.
They didn't have a clue how to write a story for a publication. Hyperbole and self-serving garbage is not what reporters and journalists want or need. They are not about to sell out their profession just to rave about your product/service. Journalists really resent those kind of press releases.
Each of the PR firms under that DMOZ list has professional writers available. They can probably do a good job - certainly better then the PR firms and business owners could.
If you want an example of a bad press release, go to Google News and type in seekgeeks - and read that release under emediawire - Whoa. That's awful. They issued 5 press releases and only got picked up by one online news service (and they cut it down to 4 paragraphs) that's available under Google News.
When I sent out my last press release/blurb, it got picked up by the Washington Post, Tampa Tribune and a number of trade publications and VIP blogs (high PR links too!). I've got my fingers crossed for a few other big publications.
The moral of my story is: a press release can definitely work for you if you put a lot of thought and care into writing it and targeting the publications. If not, it's doomed for the trash can.
Added--> Wow! I just found out my blurb went out on the wire (Knight Ridder News Service) and got picked up by some other big papers today!
First off, thank you very much for your great post, it was most informative to me. Now that you pointed out an awful one (which I will analyze just after posting this), could you point out a realise that you think was well written?
Thanks again.
See how the journalists do it.
Thx,
Steen.
Try PRWEB also known as emediawire - go for the $80 option and it will get where you want it to go.
At SES, they had a booth where they were pushing a new $300 option in which they can embed anchor text, something that up till now there hasn't been a way to do. I believe they also park this content in their archives.
I haven't figured out how one would avoid dupe content problems, though, if the page is picked up and incorporated into more than one site.
Other publications did a mix of quote and write their own comments. In other words, they would take a few paragraphs out of my press release, add in their own comments and piece together a story.
A lot of places like Tampa Tribune just wrote a 100 words summary (blurb) based on my story. (They copied 1 or 2 sentences). This particular one then got picked up on Knight Ridder News Service and was printed in the San Diego Union.
After I sent out my press release and saw that the few that picked it up were just running a summary of my story, I started sending out blurbs (an item less then 100 words = filler).
One might have better luck getting a blurb press release published because Newspapers/magazines often won't dedicate that much "white space" to a new website. If they do, it will be a short filler.
However, if they can take a 100 word summary blurb (without rewriting it) it might be used more as they try to fill in places where a bigger story didn't complete the page.
If your press release is just a blurb, just write a 100 word summary stating the plain facts about your website. Cover the who, when, where, why and how -- and get out. Write down a factual summary, and then shut up. Get in - get out. Don't be tempted to write more.
If the reporter wants to do a longer story, they will contact you. I only had one contact me and do a story.
The blurb idea is just a suggestion.
There is a press release service that is supposed to be the best on the net for getting items published about new websites. = Eric Ward's URLwire .com - However, he's expensive. I looked at some of his press releases and really wasn't all that impressed. There's another service that specializes in press releases about new software - dpdirectory .com
At that DMOZ link posted earlier, many of those press release services have a tips page for writing press releases. I don't know how good they are because I never bothered to look at them but they might be helpful.
My last tip is to make sure you contact the trade publications in your industry directly. I sent out (email) hundreds of blurbs and press releases on my own - only to get a handful published.
That's the way it goes.
It took 6 weeks of work to compile a list of publications that published items about my (?) but it was worth it to build up a press page with links to publications that ran items on my (?). I even have a nice 6 word quote at the top of some of my pages from the Washington Post - and that's great PR!
