Thinking about using a Public Relations firm to post articles

[Boodreaux]

How much value is there in links from articles sent to places like Yahoo and Topix.  Various news sources.  I have about 20 related topics we can publish articles on in order to try and get some higher rankings from a few key word phrases.  Is 4 a month okay?  Would 1 a day be okay.  Just looking to help to compete with the big guys in my industry.

Any past experience or advice is appreciated.

Boo

[Boodreaux]

Definitely a great long term strategy!  Both velocity and acceleration will be a welcome addition to our new site! Being new I wanted to get a few quick links out there.  The domain authority for the PR company is in the 90"s and mine is only in the 20's...right now.  I was thinking it might help in the short run a little. My blog is not going to be in place for another 4-6 months so maybe I can do this as a precursor just one time, although after reading your comments I am inclined to do much more research and am leaning towards not doing it.

Thanks for your feedback!

[EGOL]

My approach to this is very different.  Instead of writing articles and distributing them out to get links, I publish all of my content on my own site.  This makes my site the link magnet instead of creating other sites that will compete with me.

If your method of getting links is to publish content on other sites then you must sustain that effort perpetually to keep your link count growing.  However, if you publish all of the content on your site then your site grows and grows in mass and as it grows there are more link targets and the velocity of your link acquisition grows over time with the same level of effort from you.

There are two risks with this method.  1) it has a very slow start, and 2) you must be able to produce linkworthy content.  If you can't you will fail, but the better you are at producing that type of content you will have velocity and something more important... acceleration.

Finally, although there are some good PR firms out there, many of them are nothing more than spammers who wear suits to work.  Be careful if you go that route.

[Boodreaux]

You are correct. They are way ahead in the broader categories but we will be at different starting points and heading to pristine waters. By they time they realize what happened hopefully we will have outdistanced them by a long ways and they will have to do the catching up.

We will be using some of the same mediums but will control for different keywords in a more verticle market.  We will go deeper and hit more long tail.  By the time they see they are behind in these areas we will hopefully be the one that is far ahead.

[EGOL]

I have about 20 related topics we can publish articles on in order to try and get some higher rankings from a few key word phrases.  Is 4 a month okay?

Who are you trying to defeat?

Let's say that your competitor is moving at 200 miles per hour and you set out in chase going 10 miles per hour.  Will that be effective?

If you chase at 202 miles per hour can you sustain a 100 hour attack?

The above were very simple.   You say that you are out to get the "big guys" in your industry.  That statement communicates that they also have a head start.

You see, the answer to your question is not one of "how many".....  Instead it is one of different starting points and relative velocities.

[karlseidel]

I'm not certain I know the answer to the variety of questions you're asking - but I know content is king! So whether there's value "in links from articles sent to places like Yahoo and Topix" the answer is yes if there is value in your articles submitted.

I'm familiar with the idea behind long-tail keywords. If your industry is like mine there are words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs within concepts that will resonate with readers looking for information specific to their needs whenever they're ready to do a search.

I know for example that when we publish articles written by us or about us we get more impressions and click-throughs. And I believe if the reader gets the idea you're just offering pablum to fill pages and attract eyeballs you run the risk of offending and/or alienating them...in which case they might abandon your site with a bad taste in their mouth and never return.

[ak1lz]

There is great benefit to doing this! You would be putting your content in front of more people while increasing your changes of them sharing it. I think 4 per month would be as much as you would want to do. You will want to think about value to the readers most of all, and think about news broadcasters and how they might respond or take action to your press releases. If you publish a great story every week vs so so stories every day, they would take you more seriously if you did the 4 per month route.

My past boss who is very good at creating controversy in the sugar daddy dating niche via seeking arrangement, was really good at this. He always tried to provide site data about the users and presented it in a controversial way to make other writers react.

His press schedule depends on what is going on, and usually tries to push something out every week or so. Sometimes he would post anything for a month.

The best way to approach this is to make a plan of when and where you will be publishing these stories. Be consistent and do research on the art of press releases!  This post should help a bit.