Should I Send Out a Press Release?

If you've been reading anything at all about driving traffic to your web site, there is no doubt you've heard about using press releases. But what you might not be sure about is whether or not using press releases to promote your business is appropriate. Here's what you need to know:

In the old days...

The "old days" being defined as the time before the Internet was used for commerce, the purpose of a press release was to bring some newsworthy event to the attention of print and broadcast media outlets.

Press releases were used to announce the opening of new locations, hiring or promotion of key personnel, mergers and acquisitions, and other "newsworthy" events.

The goal was to get assignment editors interested enough in whatever the event was to send a reporter out to cover it. The end result was a nice piece appearing in industry trades, newspapers, and on radio and TV. The golden rule back then was, "If it's not newsworthy, don't send it."

Today the rules have changed

Pre-Internet press releases were sent via fax directly to media outlets. They were sent either by the company issuing the release, or by press release distribution companies.

The press releases ended up directly on the desk of the editor responsible for handling the type of news being announced, or in the trashcan if the press release was judged not to be newsworthy.

Now you can distribute your press release to thousands of sites and search engines with the click of a few buttons on your desktop PR software program, or by using any of the online distribution companies.

And while it's still a wonderful thing if your PR ends up getting you covered by reporters, that really isn't the primary goal. Your primary goal is to get wide enough distribution that you end up getting a large number of backlinks to your web site as well as some real estate on Google and others search engine's result pages.

And since backlinks and search engine listings are always a good idea, the answer to the question, "Should I send out a Press Release?" is YES!