09-19-2021, 09:21 PM
Hi Folks
In last couple of months, I have talked to at least 4-5 people who were interested in my PR service. But after talking to them about their objective of PR, I had to politely stop them from ordering one.
There is a lot of confusion on how to use press releases, especially the digital marketers. Most use it randomly, ordering 1 PR once in a while, and then see no result.
The goal of this post is to share the various goals PR could be used from digital marketers' perspective. And also invite intelligent discussion from other Pro marketers in this forum.
In short, Press releases work in 2021, just as web 2.0 links work, and just as Xrumer links work.
They all work ONLY if employed as part of a overall strategy.
I will cover 3 scenarios that I know from my own experience and by talking to some underground SEO marketers who prefer to stay under the radar.
Case 1 - Exposure
--------------------
If your goal of the PR is brand exposure, then you must know that exposure is not the direct outcome of publishing a PR. You have more work to do.
PRs help, but indirectly.
Most press releases, inherently, get no traffic after getting published, unless a a very careful keyword strategy is used.
So without traffic, you brand is not going to be seen anyway.
Indirectly, it is helpful though. It is a 3 step process.
1. What people do is - publish a PR on FOX, CBS, ABC network outlets.
2. Then legitimately claim on their website - " As seen on FOX, CBS, ABC etc"
3. And then they market that logo on their website going around various social media channels.
So in this process, you still have work to do to market yourself. PRs inherently don't do any marketing for you.
One common misconception is - FOX, CBS, ABC outlets don't mean foxnews.com or abcnews.com. Rather press releases go to their network sites like wpgxfox28.com, wboc.com etc. No paid press releases go directly to parent sites. These network sites belong to the parent company, and use the FOX, ABC logo on their site. So you can legitimately publish " As seen on FOX, NBC, etc". This is true for all press release distribution services including the top ones of PRweb.com or Prnewswire.com etc.
So essentially, if brand exposure is your goal, then look for press release that gets you into a lot of premiers outlets like Fox, ABC, CBS, Yahoo finance, Google news, Associate press etc. Then do your follow up marketing.
Case 2 - Traffic
-----------------
This strategy is used by some smart marketers who are good at keyword research.
In this case, digital marketers leverage the trust and authority of certain press release sites like prnewswire etc.
Here if your keyword is carefully chosen, you can use these PR sites as parasite property and rank among 1-3 in Google.
You won't be successful every single time, with every single keyword. So you have to keep practicing this for sometime before you master it.
In one of my own niche, I have seen one long press release of around 2000-2500 word dominating for a lot of long tail keywords.
This strategy is not for everyone, but this is a method that works.
Case 3 - SEO
--------------
The biggest misconception among SEO - get links from press release and rank higher in Google.
However, if you make it sound so simple, you will fail every single time with press release. You won't know when to order a PR, how often to order, what to use as anchor text etc.
As of now, Press releases serve one goal in SEO. To increase trust and authority of domains.
You have other methods to do the same, but with PRs, it is easy, quick and affordable.
As you would have noticed, with no trust and authority of domain, even keyword difficulty 0 keywords are difficult to rank in days.
So in our overall SEO strategy, PRs help increase trust and authority.
While PRs help increase trust of the domain, you need far less offsite optimization work in terms of number of backlinks to rank for your intended keywords.
So if the goal of using a PR is clear, other decisions become easy. Excessive use of keyword anchor text is not necessary.
You use naked URL, branded anchor texts, and images/video with right positioning of website link.
Another common mistake is, fire 1 random PR to a new domain and then stop. One random PR does very little towards the goal of increasing trust/authority.
You must keep firing at least 3-4 PRs , stacking each one of those PRs.
PR stacking example ,
Fire PR 1 linking to money site
After 10-15 days, Fire PR 2 linking to PR 1 and money site.
After 10-15 days, Fire PR 3 linking to PR 2, PR 1, and money site.
After few more days, Fire PR 4, linking to previous 3 PRs and money site.
Every PR you fire, don't leave them isolated. Fire as much tiered links to all those PR URLs.
Ensure with your press release distribution service that retention is at least 3 months to allow you to stack your future PRs linking to previous ones.
In this case, the result of PR is intangible immediately. But increases trust and authority of a new domain requires less backlinks to rank for your keywords.
Best Time to Order a PR
You can order anytime, but the best time to order a PR is when you purchase the domain.
Linkbuiliding in the first month for any domain is crucial. And Press releases are the best and safest links during this period. You have the best chance to avoid sandbox by firing the safest, most trusted links of PR. I have never faced sandbox when I follow this principle for my domains.
In the first month, keep the links to branded anchor texts and naked URLs. As i said before, the goal here is to flow the authority from PR sites to your domain. So don't try to stuff in unnecessary keyword anchor texts at this phase of your link building.
Your other offsite link building can continue simultaneously in the first month. Let them index naturally while PRs are the first link to be discovered by Google spiders.
Some top marketers use PRs to maintain their current ranking of website and GMB. They just fire 1 PR every 2-3 months to their GMB to maintain their top GMB ranking. Keeps them insured against constant competition.
Hope that helps.
In last couple of months, I have talked to at least 4-5 people who were interested in my PR service. But after talking to them about their objective of PR, I had to politely stop them from ordering one.
There is a lot of confusion on how to use press releases, especially the digital marketers. Most use it randomly, ordering 1 PR once in a while, and then see no result.
The goal of this post is to share the various goals PR could be used from digital marketers' perspective. And also invite intelligent discussion from other Pro marketers in this forum.
In short, Press releases work in 2021, just as web 2.0 links work, and just as Xrumer links work.
They all work ONLY if employed as part of a overall strategy.
I will cover 3 scenarios that I know from my own experience and by talking to some underground SEO marketers who prefer to stay under the radar.
Case 1 - Exposure
--------------------
If your goal of the PR is brand exposure, then you must know that exposure is not the direct outcome of publishing a PR. You have more work to do.
PRs help, but indirectly.
Most press releases, inherently, get no traffic after getting published, unless a a very careful keyword strategy is used.
So without traffic, you brand is not going to be seen anyway.
Indirectly, it is helpful though. It is a 3 step process.
1. What people do is - publish a PR on FOX, CBS, ABC network outlets.
2. Then legitimately claim on their website - " As seen on FOX, CBS, ABC etc"
3. And then they market that logo on their website going around various social media channels.
So in this process, you still have work to do to market yourself. PRs inherently don't do any marketing for you.
One common misconception is - FOX, CBS, ABC outlets don't mean foxnews.com or abcnews.com. Rather press releases go to their network sites like wpgxfox28.com, wboc.com etc. No paid press releases go directly to parent sites. These network sites belong to the parent company, and use the FOX, ABC logo on their site. So you can legitimately publish " As seen on FOX, NBC, etc". This is true for all press release distribution services including the top ones of PRweb.com or Prnewswire.com etc.
So essentially, if brand exposure is your goal, then look for press release that gets you into a lot of premiers outlets like Fox, ABC, CBS, Yahoo finance, Google news, Associate press etc. Then do your follow up marketing.
Case 2 - Traffic
-----------------
This strategy is used by some smart marketers who are good at keyword research.
In this case, digital marketers leverage the trust and authority of certain press release sites like prnewswire etc.
Here if your keyword is carefully chosen, you can use these PR sites as parasite property and rank among 1-3 in Google.
You won't be successful every single time, with every single keyword. So you have to keep practicing this for sometime before you master it.
In one of my own niche, I have seen one long press release of around 2000-2500 word dominating for a lot of long tail keywords.
This strategy is not for everyone, but this is a method that works.
Case 3 - SEO
--------------
The biggest misconception among SEO - get links from press release and rank higher in Google.
However, if you make it sound so simple, you will fail every single time with press release. You won't know when to order a PR, how often to order, what to use as anchor text etc.
As of now, Press releases serve one goal in SEO. To increase trust and authority of domains.
You have other methods to do the same, but with PRs, it is easy, quick and affordable.
As you would have noticed, with no trust and authority of domain, even keyword difficulty 0 keywords are difficult to rank in days.
So in our overall SEO strategy, PRs help increase trust and authority.
While PRs help increase trust of the domain, you need far less offsite optimization work in terms of number of backlinks to rank for your intended keywords.
So if the goal of using a PR is clear, other decisions become easy. Excessive use of keyword anchor text is not necessary.
You use naked URL, branded anchor texts, and images/video with right positioning of website link.
Another common mistake is, fire 1 random PR to a new domain and then stop. One random PR does very little towards the goal of increasing trust/authority.
You must keep firing at least 3-4 PRs , stacking each one of those PRs.
PR stacking example ,
Fire PR 1 linking to money site
After 10-15 days, Fire PR 2 linking to PR 1 and money site.
After 10-15 days, Fire PR 3 linking to PR 2, PR 1, and money site.
After few more days, Fire PR 4, linking to previous 3 PRs and money site.
Every PR you fire, don't leave them isolated. Fire as much tiered links to all those PR URLs.
Ensure with your press release distribution service that retention is at least 3 months to allow you to stack your future PRs linking to previous ones.
In this case, the result of PR is intangible immediately. But increases trust and authority of a new domain requires less backlinks to rank for your keywords.
Best Time to Order a PR
You can order anytime, but the best time to order a PR is when you purchase the domain.
Linkbuiliding in the first month for any domain is crucial. And Press releases are the best and safest links during this period. You have the best chance to avoid sandbox by firing the safest, most trusted links of PR. I have never faced sandbox when I follow this principle for my domains.
In the first month, keep the links to branded anchor texts and naked URLs. As i said before, the goal here is to flow the authority from PR sites to your domain. So don't try to stuff in unnecessary keyword anchor texts at this phase of your link building.
Your other offsite link building can continue simultaneously in the first month. Let them index naturally while PRs are the first link to be discovered by Google spiders.
Some top marketers use PRs to maintain their current ranking of website and GMB. They just fire 1 PR every 2-3 months to their GMB to maintain their top GMB ranking. Keeps them insured against constant competition.
Hope that helps.
