So earlier this month we launched about 18 new, FREE press release distribution services that cover some very specific subjects. By offering these new services, our intent is to reach a very targeted audience with your press releases.

When you post a press release to one of these new sites, it will also AUTOMATICALLY be posted to our flagship press release distribution site, BigNews.biz . We are also setting up Twitter accounts for each site. As an example, the Twitter page for the new PR distribution site BigTravelNews.info can be viewed here. We’ll also be setting up Facebook Fan pages for each Web site as well as offering the press releases you submit to Google News.

We will also feed your release via RSS to sites like 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. As well as all of the major search engines.

Here is a list of all the sites in our new network. Pick one and give it a try today!

• News-Antique.com - A free press release distribution service for the Art, Antiques & Collectibles trade

• News-Sports.net - A free press release distribution service covering all things sports related

• BigTravelNews.info - A free press release distribution service covering all things travel related

• BooksMovies.info - A free press release distribution service covering books and movies
• EatsNews.com - A free press release distribution service covering food and restaurants
• PetNews.biz - A free press release distribution service about pets
• PoliticalNews.me - A free press release distribution service covering domestic and international politics
• Real-Estate-News.net - A free press release distribution service covering the Real Estate business
• SEO-News.biz - A free press release distribution service covering Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• TechyNews.net - A free press release distribution service covering Technology, Computers, Cell Phones, Smart Phones, Tech Gadgets, Software, Games, etc.
• CraftingNews.biz - A free press release distribution service covering arts & crafts hobbies.

• Eco-News.info - A free press release distribution service covering the ecology of the planet and “Green” issues.

• GardenNews.biz - A free press release distribution service about gardening and plants.

• LINews.biz - A free press release distribution service covering Long Island, New York businesses

• Auto-News.me - A free press release distribution service covering the automobile industry
  
• Fashionews.info - A free press release distribution service covering the fashion, jewelry, accessories and clothing trade.

• Health-News.me - A free press release distribution service covering health, medical, fitness, diet and well being.

If you have suggestions for other targeted topics, drop me an email at phil@Bignews.biz and I’ll consider them.

In this latest version of the bignews.biz Web site you can create multiple email lists to send your press releases to.
This is an extremely powerful marketing tool for your press releases. Just login to your account and in the left column select “My Mailing Lists”. If you have not already been authorized for this feature, you will be prompted to type in a valid phone number to confirm that you are an actual person. Enter your phone number and I’ll give you a call to confirm the number. I’ll then authorize your account to create and send your press releases to your own private email lists. Every time you post a press release, you can also automatically send it to one of your email lists. If you need help or have any questions, drop me an email at phil@BigNews.biz and I’ll be happy to help.

In their ongoing effort to make their search results even better. Google search has been including news results within some organic search results.

How does this help you? Well, do some searches on Google for terms that people would use to find your business or event. Do any of these terms have news results lited as part of their page 1 search results? If they do, create a good quality press release WITH A PHOTO that include the term in the headline, the summary and the body of the release. Post the release to Bignews.biz or any of the other press release distribution sites on our list 

There are no guarantees, but you may just see your press release on page 1 for google search results. In some cases we’ve seen release hold that position for up to a week.

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.
————–

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

Once a week I hear from people who want to delete their old press releases on BigNews.biz. They want to know why there is no delete function on the site.

There are many old releases on the site that have links pointing to them from other sites on the Web and they are also indexed in the major search engines. If you check your weekly traffic reports on BigNews.biz, you’ll see that many of your old releases are still getting new readers. Once you delete your old releases, that traffic goes nowhere.

On BigNews, you have the ability to edit your old releases. So instead of deleting them, maybe add some text containing updates and a link to your latest releases. Keep the content intact, but at the top of the release, include a paragraph with an update. This allows you to drive traffic from your old release to your new release.

As an example on our sister site News-Antique.com, we often get press releases about an upcoming antiques & collectibles shows. The show promoters have a new show with new info and submit a new release each year. They write to me about deleting the old show info. I tell them their old release has great placement on Google and it looks like it is still getting lots of traffic. Instead of deleting it, post a new release witht he new info, then edit the old release with an update about this years show and link to the new release.

So don’t delete your old releases, use them to drive traffic to your new releases.

It’s Thursday evening and I’m checking my stats on the BigNews.biz site. Traffic for the day was good, but one particular press release went to the top of the popularity list in less than a day.

As of this post, the press release located here was viewed 2891 times in one day. The reason for this is largely because of the image on the left (quite clever) that was posted by the Coltons Point Times. The Google News algo seems to test images in their search results and when an image gets clicked on alot, they show it more. If it does not get clicked on, they move to the next image inline, for the story their algo has associated with that image.

About 2 years ago, I saw something similar happen with a story on circumcision. A National Institute of Health (NIH) study had found that circumcision significantly reduced the risk of acquiring HIV. The NIH press release ran on the healthnews-stat.com Web site with an ancient Egyptian illustration of a man being circumcised. The release has been viewed on that site 58,545 times and a later release on the same topic with the same illustration was read 22,732 times. These are huge numbers for a press release.

In both cases the popularity of the release on the healthnews-stat.com Web site, was driven by traffic from Google News because their algo saw how many people were clicking on the image in their search results and continued to use the healthnews-stats image to illustrate that story.

So what does this mean for you?
Find interesting images to illustrate your press release. I have very detailed instructions on how to then optimize your photos and illustrations here.

What I don’t understand is why over 80% of press releases I see posted online have no photo or illustration associated with them when they can get so much more traffic with even a simple photo. Even if you can’t find something interesting, try to include some type of image with your press release. On BigNews.biz, there is no additional charge to ad an image, just keep it under 50K in size, jpeg format and no larger than 300 pixels wide or high.

What is a news release?
A news/press release informs the public and the media about news related to your organization or business. “News” is defined as information about a recent or important event. As an example, if your organization or business hires a new CEO or introduces a new product or service, you could write a news release about this event. However, if you wrote an article about what your organization does or what your business sells, this would NOT be considered a news release because it does not give information about “a recent or important event”.

What are the parts that make up a News Release?

1. Headline - Like a newspaper story a press release needs a brief yet memorable headline that summarizes the topic of the news release in one sentence. As an example: A fictitious business, FreeFuel.biz just started selling a new widget that turns water into automobile fuel. The headline for the press release that announces this new product to the media and the public might be “Revolutionary Invention from FreeFuel.biz turns water into automobile fuel eliminating need for gasoline”. It’s important that the title also contains important keywords that pertain to the topic of the release.
2. Summary - The summary is a bit longer than the headline and allows you to give more details and include more keywords that pertain to the release. Some public relations professional just use the first paragraph of their news release for the summary. My personal preference is to write something a bit different from the first paragraph of the release. Again, using our fictional company and their new product as an example, the summary for their press release might be “After 5 years of research, FreeFuel.biz begins distribution of their revolutionary converter that turns water into automobile fuel, eliminating the need for gasoline”. As with the headline it’s also important that the summary contains important keywords.
3. News release body - This is the body of the press release. In this section you want to answer the questions: who, what, why, when and where, as if you were writing a story for a newspaper. Make your release interesting by telling your target audience how your news will have a positive impact on their lives. Above all, avoid the temptation to sell them something with your release. Don’t get caught in the trap of turning your press release into an advertisement. Your release should read like a story in a newspaper. The body of a press/news release has several different parts….
   • Location and date - At the beginning of the first line of the release, you want to give the geographic location that the press release is originating from and the date. As an example the standard format usually looks something like: “Key West, Florida - September 07, 2008 - … “
   • Who is sending the release - The date would be followed by the name of the company or organization that is publishing the release. This can also include the URL or Web address of the company. Using our original fictitious company again, the first line might look something like this: “Key West, Florida - September 07, 2008 - FreeFuel.biz (http://www.FreeFuel.biz) today announced…..
   • What is the release about? - Following the location, date and who is sending the release, is the topic of the release. This first paragraph is very similar to the summary mentioned above. For this first paragraph, you want to give the reader a very concise outline of your news and you want to grab their attention as well. You should also be careful to include keywords that pertain to the subject of your release. Using our fictitious company again, The first paragraph of their news release might look something like this:”Key West, Florida - September 07, 2008 - FreeFuel.biz (http://www.FreeFuel.biz) today announced that after 5 years of research and development they have eliminated the need for gasoline as a fuel. The company has developed and is now manufacturing a small, inexpensive, revolutionary device that converts water into automobile fuel. The new converter is expected to hit store shelves in October of 2008 with a suggested retail price of $29.95.”
   • More details about the product or service - In the paragraph(s) following the first/opening paragraph, give more details about the product or service. Using our fictitious company once again as an example:”The “FreeFuel” water converter uses proprietary technology to convert common tap water into fuel for most gasoline powered vehicles. The converter can be easily installed by the owner of the vehicle or their local auto mechanic, in about about 30 minutes. The converter also allows the driver to switch from conventional gasoline to water by simply flipping a small switch on their dashboard.”Feel free to ad more paragraphs as needed to tell your story, but keeping it brief and factual will serve you better than long and commercial.
   • A quote from someone of authority at your company or from outside your company - Following the details, include a quote with 2 to 3 sentences from someone of authority. Example:”As you can probably imagine, our new FreeFuel water converter is going to change the world as we know it.” said James Smith President and CEO of FreeFuel. “We are very excited to be able to bring such a revolutionary product to market.”
   • Closing paragraph and a call to action by the media - If you distribute your press release online, it is going to be read by both the public and the media. In your closing paragraph you may want to reiterate some of your important points and then encourage the news media to contact you about this story. For our fictitious release the closing paragraph might look something like this..”The FreeFuel water converter will be available at retail outlets across the U.S. beginning October 1st, 2008. For a detailed list of locations, visit the FreeFuel Web site at http://www.FreeFuel.biz .Accredited media interested in scheduling an interview to discuss this press release in more detail are encouraged to contact Bill Smith at bsmith@xyzprcompany.com
   • Boilerplate - This section contains a paragraph or two about your company and appears after the closing paragraph. Once again, using our fictitious company as an example…”About FreeFuel.com
     FreeFuel.com was founded by Tim and Tom Turner in 2003 after the fraternal twins obtained doctorates in chemistry from MIT at the age of 16. The company is based just offshore in Key West Florida on a repurposed oil drilling platform. Twenty million dollars in first round funding was secured through WeFundAnything partners in 2004 allowing the company to secure 32 patents and begin manufacture of their water fuel converter. The company is currently privately held.”
4. Contact info - This can appear at the top of the page above the release or at the end of the release and would look something like this…Contact Info:
   Bill Smith
   XYZ PR Company
   1-888-555-1212
   bsmith@xyzprcompany.com
5. Keywords - Many press release release distribution service will give press release publishers the option of including keywords with their release. If you have this option, ALWAYS include keywords with your release. This may help your release with search engine optimization as well as other features offered by the service you are using. For the Fictitious release we have been creating, the list of keywords might look something like…Alternative fuel, gasoline, water, converter, FreeFuel, fuel, automobile, car, petroleum, revolutionary.
6. Photos & Graphics - Including and optimizing graphics and Photos for Internet distribution of your press release is extremely important. Proper optimization has the potential to more than double the number of readers your press release will get. Be sure to review our blog article about how to properly do this here: http://bignews.biz/blog/?p=11
7. Putting it all together - When you take all the parts and put them all together, you get a press release that looks something like this…

—————————-
Headline:
Revolutionary Invention from FreeFuel.biz turns water into automobile fuel eliminating need for gasoline

Summary:
After 5 years of research, FreeFuel.biz begins distribution of their revolutionary converter that turns water into automobile fuel, eliminating the need for gasoline

News Release Body:
Key West, Florida - September 07, 2008 - FreeFuel.biz (http://www.FreeFuel.biz) today announced that after 5 years of research and development they have eliminated the need for gasoline as a fuel. The company has developed and is now manufacturing a small, inexpensive, revolutionary device that converts water into automobile fuel. The new converter is expected to hit store shelves in October of 2008 with a suggested retail price of $29.95.

The “FreeFuel” water converter uses proprietary technology to convert common tap water into fuel for most gasoline powered vehicles. The converter can be easily installed by the owner of the vehicle or their local auto mechanic, in about about 30 minutes. The converter also allows the driver to switch from conventional gasoline to water by simply flipping a small switch on their dashboard.

“As you can probably imagine, our new FreeFuel water converter is going to change the world as we know it.” said tom Turner President of FreeFuel. “We are very excited to be able to bring such a revolutionary product to market.”

The FreeFuel water converter will be available at retail outlets across the U.S. beginning October 1st, 2008. For a detailed list of locations, visit the FreeFuel Web site at http://www.FreeFuel.biz .

Accredited media interested in scheduling an interview to discuss this press release in more detail are encouraged to contact Bill Smith at bsmith@xyzprcompany.com

About FreeFuel.com
FreeFuel.com was founded by Tim and Tom Turner in 2003 after the fraternal twins obtained doctorates in chemistry from MIT at the age of 16. The company is based just offshore in Key West Florida on a repurposed oil drilling platform. Twenty million dollars in first round funding was secured through WeFundAnything partners in 2004 allowing the company to secure 32 patents and begin manufacture of their water fuel converter. The company is currently privately held.

Contact Info:
Bill Smith
XYZ PR Company
1-888-555-1212
bsmith@xyzprcompany.com
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Once you have a press release, you can post it online to a general press release distribution site like BigNews.biz or a topic specific press release distribution site like News-Antique.com . This blog also keeps a list of the top free press release distribution sites, which is updated several times each month. You can view the complete list here. If you want someone to write and distribute a press release for you, drop me an email at phil@bignews.biz

If you were given the choice of selecting one of two similar newspaper stories and one of them had an interesting photo, which would you select. Like most people, you would read the story with the photo first. This same principle applies to press releases. People are drawn to illustrated press releases, so each release you publish should include a graphic or a photo whenever possible.

I probably edit about 200 press releases a day on the press release distribution sites that I run. Surprisingly most of them don’t have photos accompanying the release. From the statistics I see, releases that do have photos consistently get more readers than those that don’t. If the object of a press release is to get people to read it, the people who submit these releases are making a huge mistake by not including a photo or an illustration with each release they publish. Any photo or illustration included with a release is much better than none at all.

Another reason for including a photo with your press release is that it gives people another way to find it online. Believe it or not, Many people use Google images to search for things online. One of my press release sites actually get about 40% of it’s search referrals from Google Images. That’s a huge number and represents more referrals than this site gets from either Yahoo! or MSN search. Press releases also show up in Google News and releases with photos are MUCH more likely to get seen than those that don’t.

Now that you understand how important photos and illustrations are to the visibility of your release, here is what you need to do….

1. Make sure that you include a photo or illustration with every press release you submit online.

2. Whenever possible, use a press release distribution service that also accepts photos along with your text.

3. The image/photo should be in JPEG format at 72dpi. Try to get it larger than 200X200 pixels. google news seems to be sensitive to the size of the image and the format of the image. If it’s too small or not a jpeg, there is a chance that it will not show up in Google News.

4. Give the image a filename that describes the photo and also includes keywords that are important to the press release. Don’t make it longer than 4 keywords.

5. The title of your press release should contain keywords that are in the filename of the photo.

6. If the press release distribution service you are using allows for “Alt Text” for the image or a photo caption, be sure to fill this in and include keywords that are in the filename.

7. Use the most interesting image you can find. From what I have seen, I suspect that Google news actually tests the popularity of different images to see which are clicked on the most. It then selects the most popular image to illustrate all of the stories on that topic. So pick an interesting image to go along with your press release.

8. If possible, include the name of your Web site on the image, along the bottom. This is often called a watermark. So if someone uses the image or sees just the image without the release, it will always point viewers to your Web site.

Update: 10/26/09

To EASILY resize your photos for your press release. Go to http://www.shrinkpictures.com/ . In the resize images box
1. select the file on your computer that you want to upload to BigNews with your press release.
2. Select New Maximum Image dimension by clicking “Custom” and enter 300
3. Do not check the special effect box
4. Set the resized image quality to “good”
5. Click the resize button

The page will reload, then select “Download this picture now” and save the file to your computer. BE SURE TO
RENAME THE FILE USING AT LEAST TWO KEYWORDS THAT PERTAIN TO THE PRESS RELEASE! Do not use
more than two keywords. Use this photo when you upload your release to Bignews.

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If you have any comments or suggestions regarding the techniques I’ve outlined, please don’t hesitate to post them here.

.:Phil:.

Last list Update 4-16-10

First off, yes I do design and sell Web sites that distribute press releases online. I also use free press release distribution sites for my PR clients, so I’ve seen both sides of the online PR distribution business.

Based on this experience, I have a bit of a bias about what I am looking for in a press release distribution service. The number of Web sites in this space seems to change from day to day. Sites disappear, change policies and appear daily. So this list needs to be just as dynamic.

Before you post a complaint that I’m missing a site, keep in mind that this list is a work in progress. It had to start somewhere so consider this a first draft. PLEASE don’t hesitate to submit a site for consideration. We’ll probably include it, as long as your submission fits the 4 criteria outlined below.

There are quite a few free pr distribution sites on the Web. Many of them are not worth the time it takes you to submit a release. However, there are some that are quite good. Following are the 5 criteria that I used to create this list of the top free press release distribution sites.

1. Page Rank - What is the Google page rank of the site? I’m only listing free PR sites that have a page rank of 4 or higher. To determine the page rank of a site,

2. Google News - Are most of the press releases that are published by the site picked up by Google news? To find out if a PR distribution site is getting their content indexed by Google news, go to Google News and do a search for “site:sitename.com”. This will show all of the stories by that site that have been indexed by Google News. As an example, a search for all press releases for the free PR site BigNews.biz, would look like this “site:BigNews.biz”

3. Traffic - Does the free press release site get any traffic? For this list we used Alexa.com to check traffic. You will have to set your own standard for what you feel is acceptable. For this list, I’m using any site that is ranked above or around 50,000 by Alexa.

4. Cost - For this list we are looking for sites that are primarily free. However, they may offer additional premium services for a fee.

5. Rejection - We found that some sites seem to reject or delay posting a release even though all of their rules have been followed. If a site accepts valid submissions but never posts them, we are going to remove it from our list.

Keeping in mind the 5 points listed above, here is my list. Feel free to send me additional suggestions, but they must fit the 5 criteria listed above. The order listed here is loosely based on the sites Alexa rank and can change from day to day.

Note: All of the following site statistics are updated daily and all of these sites feed their content to Google news.

1. PRLog.org -

2. BigNews.biz -

3. PR-Inside.com -

4. 24-7pressrelease.com -

5. Onlineprnews.com -

6. ClickPress.com -

7. PR-USA.net -

8. OpenPR.com -

9. PowerHomeBiz.com -

10. SBWire.com -

11. Live-PR.com -

12. free-press-release-center.info -

13. NewsWireToday.com -

14. TheOpenPress.com -

15. USPRWire.com -

Again, this list is a work in progress. So if you have suggestions for sites to include, please forward them to phil(at)BigNews.biz.

Notes:
On 3-29-10 I added Live-PR.com to the list

On 3-1-10 I removed two sites from the list. The first was PR.com because almost all of the recently submitted releases to that site had been rejected. This was a good sites to get listed in because it had a Google pagerank of 6. The second was Marinews.com another good site with a pagerank of 6 but they have been very inconsistent in when they post releases and they appear to be rather heavy handed in editing releases as well. I’m still listing them here, because your experience might be different from mine.

.:Phil:.