It’s well known that media outreach is critical to businesses and organizations seeking to increase visibility, attract prospective clients or supporters, and improve credibility. Crafting well-written, succinct and – most importantly – newsworthy press releases is a major part of this effort. While press releases help start conversations with reporters and editors and assist with racking up coveted press coverage, they also provide a valuable tool for boosting SEO: backlinks.
Backlinks are simply links to your website from other websites, but they aren’t all created equal. A backlink from the New York Times, for example, is going to impress your target audiences much more than one from a private website or blog. Securing backlinks from national and regional media websites are the best way to improve your organic search rankings on search engines, which create top-of-mind awareness, enhance credibility, and generate more targeted leads.
So how do you get these backlinks to work for you? The answer: professional press release distribution. Most commonly, your public relations and marketing agency will send releases to local media contacts and, if appropriate, use a press release distribution service to send them “over the wire” to national (and sometimes international) media contacts.
Many times, hundreds of online news sites will automatically share the releases they receive from these distribution sources, so backlinks will start being reported almost immediately. This also increases the chances that major news organizations will post your release on their sites – providing the highest quality backlinks. It may also spur interview requests that will transform your press release into a feature story by a reporter – which is always the end goal for any public relations effort.
At the very least, using a wire service to distribute your press release will increase your organic search rankings. Yahoo! Business almost always shares releases it accesses from the wire, so that backlink alone will move your website closer to the top of the search results page.
Backlinks significantly increase visitors to your website, promote engagement, and provide long-term SEO value. If it’s time for you to consider a press release distribution service – or if you’d like to discuss fine-tuning your current public relations strategy – contact Just Flow Events & Marketing today!
