What Press Release Distributors Don’t Want You to Know About Press Releases and SEO
I write and distributed scores of press releases for clients every week without problem. But one that I recently wrote for my own company SEO Content Solutions was rejected by almost half of my regular distribution points.
It appears that the press release titled SEO Copywriting Expert Reveals Secrets to First Page Results hit too close to the truth and didn’t sit well with many PR distributors.
Some made it to the news, but nearly as many as usual.
SEO’s are a group that people love to hate. PR distributors are just another group that can’t stand us – with good reason though.
When advertisers flood the submissions with keyword-spammy ads disguised as press releases, it devalues the integrity of news.
Further, these press release distributors have the privilege of their content appearing on Google News because they have been approved as newsworthy content providers. Start letting lots of advertising through, and they could lose that privilege.
This press release wasn’t spammy or full of advertising lingo. Instead, it was a little too true. In the hands of advertisers that care more about optimizing for search engines as opposed to optimizing for humans, this type of information could cause a nightmare for PR distributors.
As someone who values information more than advertising, I understand this. When writing press releases for SEO, follow the advice in my rejected PR:
“For a press release to truly be successful, it’s critical that it be focused around providing useful information for human readers. Distributing press releases that don’t offer a real value to your target audience is a waste money and effort.”
May 19th, 2009 at 9:25 am
How do you deal with that balance of news integrity and spam? It is tricky… Embarrisingly, I am far from a good writer and a lot of my article posts get rejected. The more truthful I am and the better I write the article the least amount of backlinks I end up getting from the. It’s almost like, the more spam I put in, if they are accepted, the better they do. It is such a tough balance and really takes some serious skill. A fine art.
May 20th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Hi Boston!
I wholeheartedly believe that quality content will always win out in the end. Since the goal of a search engine is to promote quality content, non-spammy type content seems to always win out in the end. What a bummer to hear that most of your article posts are rejected! Are you writing them in a non-promotional, informational manner? From my experience, if you publish content intended to really help readers solve a problem, you see great results from your content marketing efforts
December 19th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
I agree, quality content should and I believe will always win out in the end. The search engines will catch on to any spam techniques but humans will as well. It is only a matter of time before the necessary adjustments are made to even the playing field again. Press releases should be an integral part of any SEO strategy.