Link Building with PRweb press releases
-
Im looking for tips or best practices when sending out PR for link building.
I send out at least 4 press releases per month using prweb’s advanced release which allows anchor text. For the past few months I’ve been rotating branded terms, exact match keywords and full URL’s as the links, but always linking to my home page or to one particular subpage. Most of the releases are to announce upcoming projects or to announce a recent website launch for a client, less often we’re highlighting a service or special we want to promote.
Im wondering if I should be linking to more sub pages to spread links around, and if I should be focusing more on branded terms vs. exact match anchors. Due to the cost involved I just want to be sure im getting the most out of it.
-
[Response removed by forum moderator.]
-
This is always the issue with "We need you to prepay because... blah blah blah." The real reason is, if we did it month to month, it would kill the model.
I think the problem will be that slowly it has no real value. How slowly,who knows, I have never been able to justify the cost for the PR services. I have gotten a lot of emails from them telling me they disagree with me though.
Best
-
For one client whose work is generating some interesting potential headlines (business technology for the financial sector), I'm starting to experiment with PressKing.com. It's a distribution wire that's roughly like DM'ing an unusually large, influential Google+ circle. It's too early to call it a success, but here's why I think it's important to use in tandem with any PR:
- Their database includes journalists and bloggers who've consented to receiving fresh news on an overwhelming list of topics. Client wants to publicize a new patent for mobile checking? Want to get your PR in front of 2000+ US-based columnists who've expressed interest in "ATMs", "Business Technology", or "Digital Imaging"? (It seems like a good idea, no?) You can do that with PressKing, and the contacts span from high-DA sites like NYTimes, Bloomberg, and WSJ to niche news sites and industry quarterlies.
- If you're already using OSE to identify where related sites receive links from, and you know your client's low-hanging fruit (i.e. sites that link to multiple competitors but not to your client's site), it could be an excellent idea to add contact email addresses from those sites to the distribution list. Would it be more effective to reach out directly to individual journalists with a personalized note? Probably – but if you don't have the time, I think there's a way to do this respectfully, and successfully.
The technical considerations of which keywords to use, what anchor text, to which pages, I think are old-world considerations that obscure the real issue. The real issue is how to get links to your latest and greatest content while it's still fresh, and "fresh" is powerful bait for many journalists seeking word counts to occupy an otherwise slow news day. I hope this helps!
-
Wait, PR Web is sending some really nice links your way.
-
I am no expert, in fact I probably should not be giving advice, but here are my 2 cents. With the recent Penguin updates it seems that we now need to blend exact match anchor text with branded keywords. Make sure you diversify your back links, try to keep it natural.
-
Great ideas, thank you! The reason I've been sending them as one-offs is to keep the flow steady and add these types of links each month, but I really like your ideas about promoting great content. Easier said than done of course...
-
It's working OK, but it's hard to justify the cost. My goal was not to get the attention of the press, although I have on rare occasions, it was to get the releases picked up by authority domains for some decent links. It's certainly a case of diminishing returns since it seems to be the same sites that pick up the releases each month. I prepaid for a year with PRweb so im trying to get the most out it.
-
Most of the releases are to announce upcoming projects or to announce a recent website launch for a client, less often we’re highlighting a service or special we want to promote.
These topics are ephemeral rather than evergreen.
Just saying what I would do.....
I would announce client sites in batches - one batch of several clients every couple of months.
I would make three or four great pieces of content that are best-on-the-web in your niche each month (posted on your own site) and send one press release to PRweb that announces all of them. People might say WOW... if anybody still reads PRWeb releases.
I think that this would focus your efforts on building great equity in your website and minimize your investment in topics of temporary interest and using PRWeb - which IMO is a low value service. Maybe share your release with a couple of bloggers in your niche.
-
Nick,
Wow, by paying extra you get to use anchor text! OK, sorry, had to do that...
To say I have an opinion on these is an understatement. First, it sounds as if you are using them as more of an actual release which is good. Most companies use them as web trash and news rehash with a company or firm name repeated: XYZ announces inside toilets used more often than outhouses in US!!
My question would be, how is it working for you? Are you getting links back and are they of value? If so, where do you need/want them and make sure you are watching for questionable ones, keeping anchor text varied, etc.
Rand did a nice piece on Link earning versus link building that I went back and reread that speaks to more "meritorious" (for lack of a better term) link gathering. I think over time we will see this type of link building diminish. As someone who understands PR, I can tell you that the "press" does not see this type of thing due to there being so much of it. So, to call it a press release is overstating it at best. These are link building tools for the web.
I think with Penguin and all the other animals, slowly these will lose value.
Good to see someone at least using it like a real press release about their company,
Best
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How Many Links to Disavow at Once When Link Profile is Very Spammy?
We are using link detox (Link Research Tools) to evaluate our domain for bad links. We ran a Domain-wide Link Detox Risk report. The reports showed a "High Domain DETOX RISK" with the following results: -42% (292) of backlinks with a high or above average detox risk
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
-8% (52) of backlinks with an average of below above average detox risk
-12% (81) of backlinks with a low or very low detox risk
-38% (264) of backlinks were reported as disavowed. This look like a pretty bad link profile. Additionally, more than 500 of the 689 backlinks are "404 Not Found", "403 Forbidden", "410 Gone", "503 Service Unavailable". Is it safe to disavow these? Could Google be penalizing us for them> I would like to disavow the bad links, however my concern is that there are so few good links that removing bad links will kill link juice and really damage our ranking and traffic. The site still ranks for terms that are not very competitive. We receive about 230 organic visits a week. Assuming we need to disavow about 292 links, would it be safer to disavow 25 per month while we are building new links so we do not radically shift the link profile all at once? Also, many of the bad links are 404 errors or page not found errors. Would it be OK to run a disavow of these all at once? Any risk to that? Would we be better just to build links and leave the bad links ups? Alternatively, would disavowing the bad links potentially help our traffic? It just seems risky because the overwhelming majority of links are bad.0 -
Problem with internal links
Hello! Our domain, http://www.unionroom.com/, is having a strange issue with OSE in that it is telling us our internal pages aren't linking to one another. An example of this is that it is showing our About page ( http://www.unionroom.com/about/ ) only having three links, but this link appears twice on every single page on the website (~200 pages) in the header and footer. We've hung around for a little while to see if OSE would correct itself, but it hasn't and this now suggests that it may be an issue with our in-linking structure. Can anyone spot any issues with our build? The rest of the websites that we produce, that are all built in the same way, all have healthy internal linking structures according to OSE. Very confusing! Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | unionroom0 -
Site wide links Concept
Hi All, All type of site wide links are bad for Google or it depends upon other factors as well? For example if you talk about GoDaddy or any other service provider company they put their links on the footer of other websites so in this condition, Google will harm their rankings or not? Also elaborate the best practices for site wide links.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RuchiPardal0 -
What to talk about when building relationships
Hello, I'm assessing what to do to build relationships in my client's niche. For each possible backlink provider, I'm thinking 1. Like them on facebook 2. Follow them on Twitter 3. Add them on G+ 4. Read their recent blog posts. 5. Comment in their facebook account about what I liked about their latest blog posts and tweet (though I don't know what to tweet here) 6. Post helpful blog post comments 7. Get the conversation going, then talk to them introduce my content to them that will help them. (though I don't know how to make the transition) I'm marketing a PDF that is helpful for their site and an HTML article (same content as the PDF) that has been non-commercialized. This is for an ecommerce business. My biggest void is not knowing how to lead a good relationship conversation into a conversion. I don't want to be salesy. But I'm looking for general comments as well, like what to tweet and anything I've left out in the list.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
How fast is too fast in building quality links?
So I'm working on a brand new project, and want to go after my competition rather aggressively. I have a long list of industry resources, including blogs, articles and directories, and several news/media/press release type sites that I could have link to me in a very short amount of time. How fast is too fast? Is there a penalty for getting links too fast if they are all legit?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GoogleMcDougald0 -
Internal followed links query
hi guys, im hoping to get some help with a a question i have about internal followed links. I analysed my site (selling adult toys) on open explorer today against some of my competitors. what i found my internal followed links and total internal links are extremely low compared to the other sites. here was my stats internal follwed links: 177 total internal links: 178 i have over 2000 pages on my website. which i believed to of had a good internal link structure. when compared to my competitors theres was in the thousands. i have looked to see if i could spot any 'no follow' tags but nothing. my site is christiarasextoys.co.uk if anyone can help me out here id really appreciate it
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | skyenicole0 -
Planning a Link Building Campaign: Which keywords to focus on?
Okay, so looking at my ranking tab for my campaign. It shows the increase in traffic from my keywords, ranks, etc. My goal is to increase traffic, thereby sales. I am trying to plan a link building campaign (aside from the onpage optimization) and get as many keywords within the top 10 as possible: Do I start focusing on a certain number of keywords that are on page 2 (lets say 10) and try to build links to get them within the top 10. Then pick another 10 keywords? Do I pick a variety of keywords from various pages? What is the smartest way of trying to optimize campaign keywords as far as linkbuilding?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo0