PR Releases? Do they help your SEO?
-
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
-
can you provide some link of the pr site please to use
-
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.
-
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...
-
Unfortunately I don't have any data on that.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Hello,
You have a total syndication amount of 380 on that press release.
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.
-
Was Diablo 3 prior to Matt's 2005 post?
-
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?
-
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
-
With many of the updates over the last year, do you think that scraper sites like chron.com could actually hurt your SEO efforts?
-
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
-
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.
- 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.
-
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.
-
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
-
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!
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
-
Re-writing articles, how does this effect SEO?
Hi there, I noticed a competitor had re-created a couple of articles I wrote, but they made reference back to me in the article, can in anyway possible myself or their site be penalised for duplicate content? The article isn't completely copied word for word, however it is definitely shows some similarity. Any advice around this? Thank you in advance
Industry News | | edward-may0 -
Website ROI for organic SEO
A potential client would like to see published industry reports on ROI for SEO projects before they commit to doing. Please could you point me to some credible industry reports that shows the direct impact of organic SEO. I think that it would help if this report had organic click through rates, an increase in organic traffic as well as ranking info. if available. Thanks.
Industry News | | a-b-c0 -
What is the best Press Release website?
What is the best press release website for getting a press release in front of writers and news sources? We have used a couple with OK success, but I would like to hear and learn from the experiences of others. Thanks *I am not concerned with the page rank of the press release site or any SEO benefit coming from the PR website itself.
Industry News | | VentaMarketing0 -
Hiring an SEO in North West England
I'm looking to hire an SEO Expert in North West England. We are only a small web deisgn company (less than 10 staff) and have more SEO work than we can handle at the moment. Is there anyone looking for a job in Norh West - UK ? Cheers, Darren
Industry News | | PIXUS
www.nwonline.co.uk0 -
How to handle spam SEO companies soliciting your clients?
My clients keep getting spam email or messages in the contact form, about how they could be ranking better, they're not hitting keywords they should be, etc. Typical scare tactics trying to solicit new clients. How do you deal with this?
Industry News | | CFSSEO0 -
What are some good organizations an SEO company can join that are strong trust signals?
We are working on a website redesign, and want to prominently include some trust signals that help people feel comfortable with us. We're including logos of a few places we've guest posted, and also the BBB and local chamber of commerce. Do you have any other ideas on logos we can include that are good trust signals? Any associations or organizations we could join? We are a trustworthy company, we just want a way to communicate that visually, and it seems organization seals and logos are the way to go. Thanks!
Industry News | | brianspatterson1 -
What is the highest conversion rate you have achieved? URGENT... Community please help!!!
Hello Guys, I need the community's help. I want to estimate the number of visits per month that I will have to generate in order to reach a particular revenue target(monthly). There are three brackets (income channels) in which I can divide this total number of visits - ORGANIC, CPC & ADVERTS. There are two parts to this question. Part A> What percentage of the three income channels should I give to ORGANIC??? Part B> What is the conversion rate I can achieve? Basically... I want to find out what is the general conversion rate that you guys normally achieve for your clients and what percentage of your total visits are through pure SEO and Social Media. I have done most of the calculation assuming that I will be able to achieve 4% conversion rate (but the answer scared me real bad :)).... do you think this is low??? or do you think it is alright? I will appreciate prompt response because I have to give my client the forecast report in a few hours... I have done a lot of research and have finally turned to you guys for an answer... RAND... can u pitch in man??? That would be awesome 🙂 Thanks in advance for your input guys. Best Regards, Talha
Industry News | | MTalhaImtiaz0 -
How do you hire an SEOmoz-savvy SEO consultant?
I'd like to find an SEO free-lancer to review WikiTree.com and give me ongoing advice. My first instinct would be to go through oDesk, but I know I want someone who is tuned-in to this community and uses SEOmoz's tools. Advice or recommendations? Thanks!
Industry News | | Interesting.com0