The Skinny on Press Releases

Press Releases are a great way to get recognition – especially when what you have to say is news worthy. Not only do they get people’s attention they also provide back links to you website – and that is (as you know) gold.

One of my clients recently received (for the second year in a row!) an award for Best of Salt Lake City 2009. We are both thrilled - we have worked hard to get high visibility and build a client base (second to none) in her industry.

Last year when we won this award - we sent out Press Releases to the free PR sites – and even though it was a bit time consuming the results were fantastic. This year I am finding that it is a little harder to get in and submit them. In fact a lot of the free press release sites are no longer free.

This really isn’t a big deal (I do believe in paying for good service) except one of the best websites (PRWEB.com) has gone from a free service to a paid service and the starting point is $ 80.00 and up – Because of their sterling reputation – it may be worth it to pay – but make sure your Press Release is one that is top notch – and if you are on a shoe string budget you may want to start with the Free PR Sites.

The purpose of this article is to give links to some of the Press Release web sites – and also valuable information on the experiences I have had trying to submit to each of the sites.

If you are not familiar with how to write a Press Release don’t waste your time, read my – report on how to write an effective press release - one that works!! Click Here

Then come back to this article and get the list!

10 Press Release Websites – the Good, Bad and Ugly…

http://www.PRWEB.com

One of the best for getting a lot of exposure – you use to be able to submit free press releases – as well as buy extended services. This service is no longer free – the fee’s range from $ 80.00 - $ 360.00 you will get good visibility but it can be pricey for a business that is new or marketing on a shoe string budget.

http://www.prlog.org/

Truly a free site – I loved submitting on this site just register and the rest is really easy – a must when submitting your Press Release.

http://www.1888pressrelease.com

Once you register this website is easy to submit to – they do have some paid plans that are far less expensive than PRWEB if you are on a limited budget but not totally strapped you may wish to get one of the enhanced plans they range from $ 10.00 to $ 50.00 check out the website to see all the options.

http://www.bizeurope.com/pressrelease.htm

Very easy to submit to – no registration, just submit – once submitted it just disappeared – so I am not sure how effective this is… I tried searching several days later – could not find the link?

http://www.PR.Com

This web site is a bit cumbersome – You are require to register – I When I was registering they had you fill out a lot of sub-topics - good in refining the search results – however I didn’t read the fine print and I ended up with a $ 60.00 bill at the end.

To be fair I was able to back up and re-do the Press-Release and it was simple. I paid 0 but once again you can pay to have pictures and different keywords and regions selected. I have heard this is a good site to get listed with Google News so perhaps really picking some good categories would be worth the small price.

http://express-press-release.net/

This is no longer a free site – however it only costs $ 29.00 and claims to do the same as PRWEB for quadruple the price.

Expressly published within 24 hours on all 12 State-based PR sites across U.S., on our EPR Blog Network of more than 30 Blogs, on our PR forum all part of EPR Nationwide Network as well as on 3rd party social media and bookmarking sites

http://freepressindex.com

This is an interesting site – you just access the press release link and you fill it out – no up sales at all. Very easy, no registration - -

FreePressRelease.co.cc

This was a very straight forward free site. It gave me a choice to submit to different countries – I choose England because I had already submitted press releases all over the place and I want to attract people from overseas to what my client has to offer.

http://www.i-newswire.com

This was another “free” service but it looks like it costs $25.00 to submit a press release because I have decided to pay to Prweb for my press release (I know they work) I skipped this – but you may want to pay a few lower fee press release sites – let me know how it goes if you use this particular website.

http://www.IndiaPRWire.com

As you can see this is a place to submit international press releases this may benefit you or not. When I registered it offered a place to put my company profile and it will be placed below the actual piece. I like that – I did have to register and it seemed to be a lot more info then a lot of places I registered. Once it was submitted it said waiting approval, I like that it shows me that someone is looking at the quality of the actual content.

********************************************************

There are many more press release websites some free some for a fee FYI: I did use prweb.com for my client’s press release – it was a paid inclusion - I get progress reports and they have submitted it to a lot of social media sites.

We went live with the press release on 2009-04-22. So far we have release has received 62340 impressions and 944 reads. This is in only 7 days not bad – it is well worth the price we paid – you will have to decide what is best for your business…

.Pamela Jacob - Artista Design