Valley PR Blog

Top 5 reasons to write a press release

By Len Gutman on May 15th, 2008 In Writing

I don’t know about you, but I seem to get a lot of free magazines in the mail. This week I received a copy of the May issue of Website Magazine, which I ordinarily flip through and then toss. But this time I saw a headline that grabbed my attention: Effective Press Releases and Distribution Channels. What does a Web site magazine know about PR?

A lot it appears. The article penned by someone named Milind Mody of SEO firm eBrandz has some great insight for PR practitioners to share with clients about why press releases still matter — namely for SEO. You can read the entire article if you like, but here are Mody’s top five reasons to write a press release:

Organic traffic
Link building
Reputation management
Bloggers and Web 2.0 audience
Traffic from traditional media

All solid reasons to share with your clients when they ask “why the hell are we doing a press release?”

Comments

If this is true, then Linda VandeVrede needs to write a new book: Press Releases Are Not a Web Strategy
The reason to write a news release because you have news. That news should support a specific business goal. If so, these are some of the benefits.

Thanks Len for your generous post.

I drop in occasionally to Valley PR Blog and am happy to see that you read Website Magazine.

Most definitely Len.
I find myself telling clients too often that there are two kinds of releases, ones that you want buyers to find online by using keywords, and then others that are newsworthy and are meaningful news to the market, press. Any PR strategy worth its salt shoudl have both kinds with appropriate accompanying distribution.

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