PR Releases? Do they help your SEO?

[Thos003]

Do PR releases help? Do links from PRweb.com carry no value? Was Matt Cutts being specific to the user's website in the Google Webmaster discussion, when Matt said "I wouldn't expect links from press release web sites to benefit your rankings, however."

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/O178PwARnZw/discussion

[conversiontactics]

can you provide some link of the pr site please to use

[williammarlow]

My first career was as a traditional public relations guy (press secretary for a congressman), and I continue to use press releases now that I am dedicated on SEO, and they work great when done correctly.

As others have already said, that means: (1) you need to make sure you are announcing something newsworthy, and (2) you will only have good results if reporters or bloggers write about your press release on their own website.  Press release distribution platforms are not valuable, in my opinion.  So in addition to ONLY writing press releases when you have something newsworthy to announce, and in addition to writing very well-written press releases, you'll also need to follow up personally with lots of targeted reporters and bloggers if you hope to get a lot of bang out of press releases.

It's not easy, but it is a great way to generate high quality 'editorial links' from trusted domains, so I think it will actually become more and more important in the future.

[clarktbell]

Personally I would only use the PR strategy if it were for PR purposes (imagine that). For instance if your company has made a notable partnership with a vendor, landed a large contract, or has done something noteworthy in the community then it would be sufficient to push a PR piece.

My interpretation of Cutts' statement on this topic is that a PR/Article will not be a very noteworthy citation.

For my clients the efforts that we would put into a PR piece we are now allotting into a content marketing push with being featured on a guest blog or onto our blog or social channels.

I hope this helps...

[SkinLaboratory]

Unfortunately I don't have any data on that.

[SteveTheWoodsman]

The general SEO's response of "it depends" doesn't apply here.  I've done a lot of PR article backlinking in the past and I've never had a case where it helped for anything but maybe the company's name and even then we couldn't track any additional sales to the PR efforts.

The ONLY exception that I've seen is concerning ORM (Online Reputation Management) of a personal nature.  The reason is because the objectives are different.  With traditional SEO/SEM you are trying to drive sales, therefore you can not rely on spammy outlets. Whereas when we are conducting ORM for the different varieties of a person's name - there is almost no competition yet you need to dominate the top 5 SERPs.  I always use an extremely diversified strategy but I do include PR articles about 50% of the time and it does help... especially on pages 3-5.

[ClaireH-184886]

I am not sure about how online press releases help your seo, but what I can tell you about them is, they do help promote your business.

As someone in the PR field, I use online press release sites a lot, but never the paid version. The responce we do get from the press release is huge.

I done an experiment last year where i compared the amount of business we got from an advert in a newspaper to spending time writing five press releases and putting them on online press release sites. We got much more sales from the press release than we did get from the advert, we also found that a number of online magazines and blog sites were publishing our press release.

I have heard a lot of people say that press release sites can damage your seo but i am not convinced on this, but i am also not an expert in seo so only people like Keri and other experts can tell you if they can help or damage your seo.

[MarketingOfAmerica]

Hello,

You have a total syndication amount of 380 on that press release.

Search here: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&tbo=d&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q="The+study%2C+which+shows+an+association+between+Psoriasis+and+obesity+in+children+is+recently+published"&oq="The+study%2C+which+shows+an+association+between+Psoriasis+and+obesity+in+children+is+recently+published"&gs_l=hp.3...430.1112.0.1287.3.3.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0.les%3B..0.2...1c.1.Fa2ZBLL6Vlo&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.1355534169,d.cGE&fp=f182791b62bf034e&bpcl=40096503&biw=1583&bih=745

To me a very good press release is around 8,000 to 10,000 results.  The higher the results the more it will help.

We use methods on a daily basis where we guarantee 3,000 + results.

You could get the higher end prweb and I think this gives you around 1500 or so, but I am not sure, I haven't used prweb in a while, since we have other methods that I feel are just as good if not better.

[Thos003]

Was Diablo 3 prior to Matt's 2005 post?

[Thos003]

I show you as number 6 for "Psoriasis videos" that seems pretty good.... although google didn't pick up the actual video.

Where were you before the release?

[MarketingOfAmerica]

Great post,

Very interesting points.  I like the part he puts "however".  He always leaves off certain factors where something could help in a specific instance ha.  It's hard to say with press releases, but I know that they work.

I ranked for a diablo 3 term in only 3 hours after making a press release when diablo was popular.  So this tells me that if I can rank for a keyword in 3 hours at first in the world for something they are working.   Now the keyword wasn't very hard to get, but it was 2 words and it was about diablo.  So to me, press releases will always be worth it.

Have a great day.

Matthew Boley

[Thos003]

With many of the updates over the last year, do you think that scraper sites like chron.com could actually hurt your SEO efforts?

[SkinLaboratory]

Back in November we published a press release.  It got picked up by 79 news sites.  Despite being a relatively small site, we saw zero visible change in SEO.  This was unusual, and I was considering making my own question about it.  Maybe it's something new?

You can see the PR here, it has pretty good PA on PRWeb by itself.  It should've made a noticeable impact somewhere, but it didn't.  http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/11/prweb10180911.htm

[KeriMorgret]

Matt Cutts chimes in on Alan B.'s SEJ article at http://www.searchenginejournal.com/get-over-yourself-matt-cutts-did-not-just-kill-another-seo-kitten/56842/ and mentions that he (Cutts) said the same thing in 2005. The series of tweets Matt made are copied below:

I think I covered this on http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-article-in-newsweek/ pretty well (search for “press release” to catch all the comments I made.

Ultra-short version: 1) don’t expect links from press release websites to help ranking.

2. Don’t expect press releases on many other websites, e.g. http://www.chron.com/business/press-releases/article/Levitra-Buy-Viagra-Cheapest-Prices-Guaranteed-3993998.php on Houston Chronicle to help either.

& 3) the benefit is not links/PR from the press release directly; it’s primarily when reporters write an article as a result.

but I think all of those points are implicit in my 2005 comments on press releases from http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-article-in-newsweek/ Hope that helps.

[Thos003]

I am sure the general SEO statement of "It depends" applies here as well. I picked on PRweb.com specifically because they are not a "Free-For-All" PR site.

My suspicion is that many of the sites that call themselves PR sites are of very poor quality.

[MarketingOfAmerica]

I would also think in this manner as well.  You need diversity of platforms and Ips.  So if anything it's good for that.  They are also natural looking links to your site since they get syndicated.

I would however make sure that that you aren't making your press releases to over promotional, they link to a source other than your main site and you don't use to many anchor texts.

I personally like to link to my website and then a source like wiki, gov site, a health site for facts, or anything in this nature to help show where you found your facts at.

Have a great day.

Matthew Boley

[RickyShockley]

From what I have heard/read, Google's seems to want you to believe that press release links are not valued, but from what I have seen they definitely seem to have some impact on rankings. Maybe they have turned down the tuners on links from press release sites, but they certainly seem to have SOME positive effects.

Just my thoughts!