Boosting Search Engine Visibility with Press Releases

Any individual or organization can be like the big boys and issue press releases. They are an effective publicity tool, and with the rise of the internet, an online press release can be seen by many people and enhance the visibility and traffic to your website.

There are many online venues for distributing press releases to the vast online audience. In fact, many companies even offer free distribution of press releases on the internet. Such companies like PRWeb www.prweb.com and PRLeap www.prleap.com collect press release submissions onto their websites and then market the endless stream of information to journalists and other online publications. These distribution companies also gladly offer RSS feeds in a variety of categories that any website owner can use. These companies make their money by selling advertising on their high traffic sites and by soliciting paid services from the people and organizations submitting press releases.

The paid services offer enhanced distribution to subscribing journalists along with better placement among the hundreds of press releases that can be posted on any given day. However, even opting for the free distribution has many advantages. Readers and users of the content at the distribution company will feel free to take the content of your press release and publish it elsewhere on the net because web publishers and bloggers are always looking for fresh content. This has the effect of spreading information about your company around the internet along with links back to your website as long as you included your website in the press release. Readers of your press release will often even click through to your website from the press release if your news is compelling to them.

Along with having people reading about your company and visiting your website, the distribution of your information and links on the internet increases the visibility of your content and web address to search engines.

Issuing online press releases also gets your companys messages and news items into the editorial content of other websites. Just like in the print and broadcast worlds, having your message appearing as editorial content in online media allows it to be read more often than advertising as well as being cheaper than advertising. Press releases, when used in conjunction with advertising, are also building name recognition for your organization and legitimacy, which will increase the power of your other marketing messages.

And of course a big advantage could come from an online press release when a reporter actually calls to do a story about your company. This basically cant happen unless you are using press releases as part of your publicity efforts.

Tracy Falbe is the author of both fiction and non-fiction books and ebooks on a variety of topics. Her latest ebook Creating Publicity with Free Online Press Release Distribution explains how to write press releases, how to integrate them in a marketing plan, and the ebook identifies companies that offer free and low cost distribution. http://www.falbepublishing.com