Press releases have been around for a long time. My father-in-law, now retired, was a professional press release writer. But do press releases still work? Hasn’t the internet moved on? Well, no. They can work really well to get the word out about your product or business, and get you lots of traffic to boot. But only when they are well written and distributed.
Subhub has a terrific article on the best free and paid press release websites and when to use them. When it comes to writing your press release, stick to the following guidelines,
- Have something newsworthy to say
- Make your press release just one page long
- Don’t make it blantant promotion
- The headline is important; you need to grab the readers attention and include keywords.
- Summarise the story in the first paragraph
If you have the money to pay for distribution, prwebdirect is the ‘google’ of the press release industry. But it doesn’t come cheap. Their service starts at an eye-watering $240. You can also use prnewswire, prleap or businesswire. If you’re just getting your feet wet, you might not want to pay for it. Subhub also lists 13 free press release websites with a high page rank. You want a high page rank so you get better SEO authority and more traffic.
In today’s video ezinearticles provides some simple tips on how to write the perfect press release. In the video, they tell you to write your press release using the 5 W’s (and the H); Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. It’s the classic journalist’s advice for writing a news article, which is what you are writing.
Writing a press release doesn’t have to be hard work.
