Posted in Driving Website Traffic	November 26, 2007

Free and paid ways to submit your press release as well as a how-to

Last October we published a list of online PR distribution services to consider for your next PR campaign. Well as the Internet winds change, so does the cost of free information, we suppose. However, lucky for us, just as a few of the previosuly free press release sites have turned paid, there have also been quite a few free sites to pop up.

Below you'll find our newest list of free and paid PR distibution services:

Learn how to use public relations and free products to drive website traffic, build email newsletter circulation and sell information products on the Internet in Making the Most of PR and Earned Media.

How to Publish a Press Release Online

You may want to to start with any of the free websites above. You'll see that there are a few websites that do not require you to log in, and you might want to start with those. Pay attention to the fields that allow and do not allow HTML. Some sites will allow you to preview your article, and some will not, so make sure that it's correct the first time around. Most sites that allow registration will also allow you to edit your press release.

You'll be given the following fields, so it's good to plan ahead before submitting your press release.

Headline: This is where your headline will go, many sites will give you a maximum space of 100 characters.

Summary: A brief summary about the press release, usually the lead paragraph. Many sites will give you a maximum space of 200-250 characters.

Body: The press release. Many sites request that you do not start off using the date because they will do it for you. This is not a limited character area, but some sites will either allow or not allow HTML so it's good to spell out any URL's that you are putting in with the full "http://www."

Keywords (optional): The keywords related to your press release that you'd like to be found on. This field is generally limited to around 100 characters and is not offered on every press release site.

About: This is where you get to put in your blurb about your company and link (or give a link) to your website.

Some sites will not ask that you log in or register to submit a press release, and thus will ask for the following:

Author
Company
Contact Info
Industry
Site URL
Location

Otherwise, they will ask for this information upon registration and will include it in your press release when it is posted. It's good to keep a list of your PR site URLs and Passwords.

Most sites will email you a link to your press release when it is posted. Free press release sites may have a 1 or 2 day delay in posting.

Subscribe to Google alerts at http://www.google.com/alerts to see when someone has picked up your release.

Paid press release sites follow similar steps as we just went through, except that you'll be treated with a little more courtesy, and will be able to preview, edit, and keep track of all of your press releases. Additionally, you are guaranteed a higher level of distribution. For example XPressPress.com will send your press release to their list of over 30,000 reporters as well as working with PR Newswire to get your press release included in AOL, Yahoo, Google News, e*Trade, The Los Angeles Times, Lycos, Hoovers, LexisNexis, and thousands of other syndication networks.