Copyright 2005 Alexis Dawes

I’ve always been a big time press release aficionado.

And up until recently I’ve steadfastly taken the low tech route
by sending them out via snail-mail. Yeah, I’m a little
old-fashioned when it comes to certain things. But long-time
habits are hard to break when they produce great results.

Anyway, I was in the midst of launching a new piece of software
August 2005. As I prepared to begin my press release prepatory
ritual of labeling and stamping envelopes, it occurred to me
that since it’s the summertime, and people are always in and out
on vacation, perhaps I should give online press releases a spin.

(Okay the REAL reason I wanted to try it is because I was
feeling particularly lazy, and I didn’t feel like labeling and
stamping hundreds of envelopes. A girl has to get her mandatory
poolside hours in before the leaves start falling.)

In the back of mind I kept thinking what a waste of time this
online press release thing was going to be. But I decided that
it couldn’t hurt… I hoped.

I went through the web sites of around half a dozen press
release distributors.

Major fixtures like PRNewswire didn’t give me any toe curling
experiences. The price was high and they tend to deal with a lot
of corporate press material. My software is geared towards Joe
and Jane Q. Public, so I didn’t feel that it was going to be a
compatible match.

There were a few press release distributors that specialized in
software. And their prices were well within my targeted range.

However I decided against them because most of the outlets
they’d be mailing to weren’t within my target audience. I
could’ve compiled my own little media list for a lot cheaper.

But that wouldn’t work either. I had a chaise lounge with a
slowly fading butt imprint. I needed to fill it up again – STAT.
Compiling a list just wasn’t in the cards.

That’s when I arrived at PRWeb.com. I’ve known about this site
for several years now. But I’ve never given it much thought, as
I really hadn’t heard any super stellar reviews about it.

Now in case you’re wondering, PRWeb distributes press releases
in a variety of topical categories. You can submit your release
for free. You can contribute up to $80 and get some extra perks.
Or you can use their $119 PRWeb Direct service, which gets your
release in prestigious positions like Yahoo News and Google
News.

I opted for the PRWeb Direct service figuring that’s where I
would get the best results.

I wrote my own release, submitted my order to PRWeb, then took
out my Troll doll and rubbed him on the computer for good luck.

The next morning I got up and logged into my PRWeb account. They
have a stat’s program that tells you how many pageviews your
press released has received, and I was curious to see whether
I’d gotten 5 or heaven forbid 20 clicks. (I’m such a pessimist
at times!)

Well you could have pushed me over with a calm summer breeze
after I saw those numbers. At 7:30 am EST my press release
already had 40,000+ pageviews. By the end of day, that number
had surpassed 96,000.

Did that translate into thousands of dollars worth of software
sales? Well actually, it didn’t. But that press release wasn’t
my best work. It was good, but not great. Silly me.

However, I did get a nice little surprise.

Two days after the release I happened to be doing some searching
on Google using one of the major keyphrases mentioned in my
press release. Low and behold, there on page 1 was my press
release holding it down in the #5 position.

A similar search at Yahoo showed the release in the #8 position.

The number of keyword optimized sites for my targeted phrase
(which is “ebay seller software”) is 24,100 at Yahoo, and 531 at
Google. But that’s irrelevant news to me.

The point here is…

#1 – My marketing message made it onto the coveted first page of
Google for a nicely targeted phrase. No sandbox. No waiting for
my brand, new site to get spidered.

#2 – My marketing message made it onto the coveted first page of
Yahoo for a nicely targeted phrase. No trying to figure out
Yahoo’s algorithm, rhyme or reason.

#3 – The press release was delivering traffic to my web site
BEFORE it even got listed in the top 10 at Google and Yahoo. In
fact, the release was featured on many different auction
resource and news sites.

PRWeb is what I like to call a Back Road tactic. It get’s you a
top 10 rank, without having to go through the usual SEO
channels. And it’s probably some of the best traffic you can
get, short of somebody clicking directly on your site.

There aren’t many reliable and consistent Back Road’s. This is
only the second one I’ve come across that fancies both Google
and Yahoo. So it’s definitely worth taking advantage of.

So now back to my original question… Press Release + PRWeb =
Top Google Rank… True or False?

True.

Now excuse me while I soak in the slowly diminishing rays of
summer. PRWeb has got my back.