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
-
Best Way to Promote Other Authors SEO?
Wanted to get the communities feedback on this. WDAC is designing a new section of our site. This new section is aimed at helping small businesses that want to get SEO help, but are not in a position financially/do not want to pay an agency for help. The page can be viewed here: http://www.webdesignandcompany.com/expert-seo-tips The page is called "Expert SEO Tips" and we are going to promote other authors content that focuses on high quality articles around SEO tactics, methods, tips, tricks, etc. There are a few articles listed on the page based around what we have shared in the past, but you can see that the page/section is still in its infancy and may change to a new layout/design in the near future. The section will summarize the article we are linking to , and provide a link to the authors Twitter/G+ profile, depending upon what they have setup. We have reached out to a few places in the Google+ communities asking for articles and submissions, but have had little success. Strange due to the fact that we are providing outgoing links without requesting one back...hmmm. Anyway, what do any of you think would be the best way to get people to respond? Also, does anyone see any issues with adding this type of content to our site using followed links, specifically since we are linking out to relevant articles related to our own services? Does anyone see any potential pitfalls? Does anyone have any articles they think would be a great addition or provide help to business owners? All input and insight is appreciated! Looking forward to hearing your input.
Industry News | | David-Kley1 -
Where to Look for a Standard 9-5 SEO Job
Hello, I'm looking for a standard 20-30 hour a week SEO job. I'd like to make $30/hour. My resume is here. So far I'm making a list of all the SEO companies in Boise, Idaho. Then I'm going to also call up the larger companies in my local area. I'm interested in knowing how to best look for a job, and if there are any national companies where I could do work locally for. Let me know what other information I can provide.
Industry News | | BobGW0 -
Seeking help with Chinese SEO - Baidu, etc.
Hello, I'm working with a hotel that wishes to establish an online presence in China - they're putting the emphasis on digital marketing, so I'm seeking a Chinese SEO specialist to work with on microsite and optimization.
Industry News | | McTaggart0 -
Does Penguin Help Negative SEO?
With negative link targeting seeming to become more and more of a ‘standard practice’ for more and more agencies and freelance SEOs (I, for one, have had to use the disavow tool far more than I ever thought I would) and the fact that there are more “link building services” that really only build ‘crap’ links than there were when that type of link building worked, I am honestly a bit afraid that Google is really just pushing SEO’s to the ‘dark side’ or at least handing black hat link builders a great tool for bringing down the competition. I had one SEO actually say to me “If my client can’t recover than at least I can target everyone that jumped ahead of them and only spend around $300 on bad link building”. This came from someone I NEVER thought would say anything of the sort and really got me to thinking’ “will this be the future of SEO?” I know the answer is no but still, it seems more and more people are just throwing their hands up and targeting competition rather than working on their own websites and with updates like Penguin I am afraid that more of my time will be spent disavowing links than building them.
Industry News | | Vizergy0 -
What is the best way to share good content (and help myself in the process)
i spend a decent amount of my spare time browsing quora, stumbleupon, google reader, pulse, etc keeping up with all the different aspects of internet marketing when i come across a particuarly valuable piece of content i take a few seconds and share it using hootsuite on my linked, twitter, facebook (i spread them out so there is only one post a day) this rewards those who write valuable content but im not doing anything to benefit my site - www.sawwebmarketing.com im establishing myself as somebody who has good stuff to share to my potential clients.... what a quick, easy way to share the high quality things i come across that will create links for me as well? (short of writing my own blog post listing the high quality articles i found with my thoughts on each) thoughts? opinions? thanks everybody! Matthew
Industry News | | Mrupp440 -
Problem with SOME Indian based SEO companies, HELP!
First of all I want to say that I hire 2 great Indian SEOs at my company and this question is in no way meant to offend, or single anyone out. However It's come to a point where the amount of emails we receive for "Ethical SEO, High PR Guaranteed Link building Services, SEO professionals etc" from Indian based companies is costing us a lot of time on a daily basis to filter out spam from real enquiries. Blocking their emails is not even working as they use gmail accounts and multiple domain emails so we can't keep up with them. I have even spoken to some of the owners of these 'companies' and they admit using different email accounts so as not to be blacklisted. They also seem to believe that the opt-out option (which is legally required when sending out promotional emails) is itself optional!!!!! Now when I asked how exactly they were getting my email they said that they get info from the, and I quote "first page of Google"!!!!! So my question is the following; is there anyway I can block my site from showing up in a particular country altogether? Again this is in no way attacking ALL Indian based SEO companies, my beef is with the 74 (we counted) different 'companies' that are flooding our email with offers P.S. Is anyone else having these issues?
Industry News | | MassivePrime0 -
SEO Conferences - Which One(s) do you Attend ?
I have been in SEO since over 10 years now. And have been attending Pubcon since 2004 in Las Vegas. I think I have only missed 1. This year, I have been thinking of which conferences to attend and here are the options. I am looking for 1st hand experiences from people who have attended multiple conferences to kinda do a comparison. Here are the upcoming conferences by date. I am only listing the US Conferences. SES New York March 19-23* BlueGlass Los Angeles April 23-24* SMX Advanced Seattle Jun. 5-6* MozCon July 25 - July 27* SES San Francisco August 13-17* SMX New York | Oct. 2-4, 2012* Pubcon Las Vegas October 16 - 19* SES Chicago November 12-16* SMX Social Media Marketing Las Vegas | Dec. 5-6 Please let me know what conferences you have attended in the past and which ones of these people here are planning to attend ?
Industry News | | NakulGoyal1