The updated list can be viewed here: http://www.bignews.biz/blog/?p=6

Notes on this update
Merinews seems to have slipped down on the list. Not sure why though. They offer a great service and carefully edit each submission prior to publication. They don’t usually allow backlinks but they do drive traffic.

PressReleasePoint.com seems to have been dropped as a feed to Google news, so until they get back on Google news, we’ve dropped them from our list.

Time increasing between submission and publication on many free pr sites. I’m probably going to start pulling sites from the list that take more than 3 days to process a free press release submission. I had one site recently send me a publicationconfirmation a month after the release was submitted. If you need a 24 hour turnaround some of the faster sites on the list include PR-Inside.com , Bignews.biz (our site).

THE PR HELP! Newsletter for August 17, 2009 - From BigNews.biz

A little help getting more people to pay attention
to your press releases.

In this issue:
1. 8-17-09 UPDATE - List of Top Free Press Release distribution sites
2. SPAM on press release sites - Why you should be concerned
3. Sending your Bignews.biz press release to Twitter.
4. Just 200 words is all it takes to get published
5. Watch the dates on your press releases
6. Need some help with your online PR strategy?
7. More good Stuff!!
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1. 8/17/09 UPDATE - List of Top Free Press Release distribution sites
More big changes to the list. We’ve gone from 18 sites previously listed, d own to 15. See: http://www.bignews.biz/blog/?p=6 . This latest evaluation of the list included posting several releases over tha pst week as well as reviewing past performance of releases that have been posted over the past month. As a result, I pulled 3 sites from the list that claimed to post free releases, but never do. They use the “free press release” claim to drive customers to their paid releases.
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2. SPAM on press release sites - Why you should be concerned
Another huge problem that I’m seeing on the BigNews.biz site as well as the other press release distribution sites, is the huge amount of SPAM that is being submitted. Hundreds of articles and advertisements that are not press releases are being submitted. Some contain content that has been stolen from other sites. As this SPAM has proliferated, publishers are becoming much more strict about what is acceptable and many are no longer offering to publish releases for free. I’m getting swamped by this unacceptable content.

If you are not sure that your content qualifies as a press release, please review: http://www.bignews.biz/blog/?p=13

On BigNews.biz we’ve started to become much more strict about what content we will accept. Please review our latest terms of service page at: http://www.bignews.biz/?go=terms . If you have any questions, drop me an email at phil@tias.com

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3. Sending your Bignews.biz press release to Twitter.

As I had mentioned in the last newsletter, you need to get a twitter account if you don’t have one already. To get an account, go to http://www.twitter.com and get one. It’s free.

After you have your account, note that on BigNews.biz there is a big blue button above every press release that we publish that allows you to post that release directly to your twitter account. Every reader on BigNews can also send releases from bignews to their twitter account as well.

Even if you don’t have anyone following your twitter account, people can still find the releases you have posted to twitter on twitter search at http://search.twitter.com . With 20,000,000 registered users, this site can drive alot of readers to your press releases and it’s growing fast.

Here are three things you can do NOW to drive traffic from twitter to your press releases.
1. If you don’t have a twitter account, get one here http://www.twitter.com it’s free.
2. Login to your BigNews.biz account and scroll down to the bottom of your account page where all of your published releases are listed. Click on the “preview” link. When the page reloads with your release, click on the blue “Send to Twitter” button that appears at the top of your release. Repeat this process for each release that you would like to send to twitter.
3. If you don’t have any releases, submit one and I’ll check them in the morning. After they are approved, login to your account and repeat step #2 above.

Here is more info on the new BigNews twitter service http://www.bignews.biz/?id=798640
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4. Just 200 words is all it takes to get published
The shortest press release we will accept at BigNews.biz must contain a minimum of 200 words in the body of the release. This is the minimum number of words that Google news will accept, so it’s also the minimum that we will accept.
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5. Watch the dates on your press releases
I’ve noticed that sometimes Google News will reject press releases that start with a date that is not current. This makes sense since they are interested in publishing current news, not old news or future news. So make sure that when you submit a press release that starts with a date, that the date is correct or Google news may not accept your release for publication.
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6. Need some help with your online PR strategy?
You may have noticed that this online PR stuff is changing from day to day. We specialize in quality, affordable, online press release distribution and marketing. If you want some help sending your press releases online, drop me an email at phil@BigNews.biz or give me a call at 516-578-1386
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7. More good Stuff!!

Google news only runs press releases for 30 days, so if you have not published a release in the last month, your old release has been deleted from Google news. So, login to your account today at: http://www.bignews.biz/?go=login

THE PR HELP! Newsletter for April 20, 2009 - From BigNews.biz

A little help getting more people to pay attention
to your press releases.

In this issue:
1. 4/20/09 UPDATE - List of Top Free Press Release distribution sites
2. Twitter. Why you should use it with your press releases.
3. More eyeballs for your releases
4. Did your release get rejected?
5. Need some help with your online PR strategy?
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1. 4/20/09 UPDATE - Some HUGE changes in the top 18 free press release distribution sites. See http://www.bignews.biz/blog/?p=6 . All the upward movement over the past month or two has slowed down for most of the sites in the middle of the group. Some have even slipped backwards in traffic and popularity.
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2. Twitter - Why you should use it with your press releases.
Over the past month I’ve been experimenting with posting approved releases from BigNews.biz to Twitter. I’ve seen traffic to some releases double just from a twitter link. First, if you don’t have a twitter account, go to http://www.twitter.com and get one. It’s free.

After you have your account, note that on BigNews.biz there is now a big blue button above every press release that we publish that allows you to post that release directly to your twitter account. Every reader on BigNews can also send releases from bignews to their twitter account as well.

Even if you don’t have anyone following your twitter account, people can still find the releases you have posted to twitter on twitter search at http://search.twitter.com . With 20,000,000 registered users, this site can drive alot of readers to your press releases and it’s growing fast.

Here are three things you can do NOW to drive traffic from twitter to your press releases.
1. If you don’t have a twitter account, get one here http://www.twitter.com it’s free.
2. Login to your BigNews.biz account and scroll down to the bottom of your account page where all of your published releases are listed. Click on the “preview” link. When the page releads with your release, click on the blue “Send to Twitter” button that appears at the top of your release. Repeat this process for each release that you would like to send to twitter.
3. If you don’t have any releases, submit one and I’ll check them in the morning. After they are approved, login to your account and repeat step #2 above.

Here is more info on the new BigNews twitter service http://www.bignews.biz/?id=798640
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3. More eyeballs for your releases - On BigNews.biz we are now pinging these search engines once a day with our RSS feed that contains your press releases. Weblogs.com, Blo.gs, Technorati, Feed Burner, Syndic8, NewsGator, My Yahoo!, PubSub.com, Blogdigger, BlogRolling, BlogStreet, Moreover, Weblogalot, Icerocket, News Is Free, Topic Exchange, Google Blog Search, Spinn3r, Bloglines, AideRSS, SkyGrid, Bitacoras.

If that’s not enough to get you to post a new release to BigNews, remember Google news only runs press releases for 30 days, so if you have not published a release in the last month, your old release has been deleted from Google news.
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4. Did your release get rejected? - If your release was recently rejected or deleted, it’s probably because it was in violation of our terms of service. Every release is reviewed before we publish it. We don’t edit releases, but if it is in violation of our terms of service, it will get rejected. Please see: http://www.bignews.biz/?go=terms
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Need some help with your online PR strategy? - We do consulting. Drop me an email at phil@BigNews.biz or give me a call at 516-578-1386

How to Hire Writers

If you don’t have the time or are just not comfortable writing press releases and articles about your business, then outsource the writing to someone else. There are many sources you can use to find freelance writers. The most common online path is to go through a specialty online service that matches up freelancers with people needing their services. A few to check out would be:

• Getafreelancer.com
• Guru.com
• Digital Point Forums
• Elance.com

Each site has its own process, but they are all fairly similar. You will register with the site, and then create a listing similar to a classified ad. Once the ad is completed, it will go live for all prospective freelancers to see and respond to. Just like a job candidate applying for a job, you will need to discern the good from the bad.

Points To Remember

1. Before writing your ad, take a look at other ads already posted. How much are they willing to pay for a writer?

2. Look at the details in the different ads so that you can see what you need to have listed in your own ad.

3. Make sure you have an email address that is checked regularly and also be sure to check the sites regularly for any questions asked by potential writers. Answer them as quickly and honestly has possible. The more detail the writer has about your project, the better your article will be.

4. Many freelancers will lowball an offer just to get the work. While this doesn’t make them a bad writer, you should consider asking for a sample of their work to make sure you won’t “get what you paid for.”

Your goal should be to build a relationship with a good writer and keep them. Like any good employee, knowledgeable writers can be hard to come by. If you find one, keep his or her contact information handy, as you may be able to use them for future writing projects.

We can do it all for you!

Bignews.biz also offers press release writing and distribution services. We specialize in online public relations and marketing. We also have a large number of clients in the auction business as well as show promoters and businesses in the antiques and collectibles trade. Our sister site at http://www.News-Antique.com is the largest press release distribution service for the antiques and collectibles trade, serving 60,000 unique visitors a month. For more info, give Phil a call at 516-578-1386 or send an email to phil@BigNews.biz

Yesterday I got an email from one of our press release publishers asking me if we distribute the news releases that we publish on BigNews.biz to the Associated Press (AP), Reuters and Agence France Presse (AFP). I sent him the following list so that he can forward his press releases.

Contacts info for wire service:
AP - info@ap.org
Reuters - http://tinyurl.com/74udk6
AFP - http://www.afp.com/afpcom/ar/afp/?pid=contact

Now for the reality check. This info is fairly useless. When submitting your release to the wires, consider that they get thousands of submissions each day. Unless your release is incredibly interesting and has national or international implications, they are probably not going to assign a reporter to write a story about it.

When releases from BigNews.biz have been picked up by the wires in the past, it is because they found our releases on the Web while doing research on a specific topic.

For more info on what the wires are looking for take a look at: http://www.ap.org/pages/contact/contact_pr.html

“I posted my press release to 5 different press release sites and it only shows up once in Google News. What am I doing wrong?” I get questions about this problem all the time. First off make sure that the press release distribution sites you are submitting to, feed their content to http://news.google.com . To check this, read the instructions here: http://www.bignews.biz/blog/?p=6 this page also includes a list of sites that feed content to Google news.

Once you are sure that the sites you are submitting to do feed their content to Google news, go to http://news.google.com and do a search for a phrase or group of keywords that can only be found in your press release. Once your release comes up in the search results, click on the text link in the upper right corner that says “Sort by date with duplicates included” the search results will then list all of the press release and news sites that published your release.

So I took some of my own advice and posted a press release about our new list of the top 13 press release sites (See http://bignews.biz/blog/?p=6) , to the sites on the list. Guess what, most of them ran the release

Within 2 days, if you did a search on Google for “List of Free press release sites”, out of 24,000,000 pages listed for this term on Google, we moved up to #5 on page one, from having an extremely low placement in the SERPs for this term. As time passed and our release slowly migrated off of the home pages for these 13 press release distribution sites, we moved back in the SERPs (Search engine results pages). As of this posting, we are now listed as #4 on page 3. Which is not too bad at all, but we’ll try to do better.

To me this shows that Google search results are more dynamic than ever. The SERP’s are updated daily (maybe hourly) instead of weekly or monthly. So a site can have great placement in search result on one day, but as sites that link to it change, the search results in Google can change just as quickly.

So the list of top free press release sites does work and has given us a very interesting insight into how Google search results work as well.

.:Phil:.