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

Note: Last list Update 10-16-09

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 4 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.

Keeping in mind the 4 points listed above, here is my list. Feel free to send me additional suggestions, but they must fit the 4 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. PR-Inside.com -

3. PR.com -

4. Merinews.com -

5. 24-7pressrelease.com -

6. BigNews.biz -

7. ClickPress.com -

8. NewsWireToday.com -

9. OpenPR.com -

10. PR-USA.net -

11. free-press-release-center.info -

12. PowerHomeBiz.com -

13. TheOpenPress.com -

14. USPRWire.com -

Submit a site….

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

Other features you might want to have when selecting a free PR site…
a) Does the site also accept photos or other file types as part of the release?
b) Does this site give you reporting tools so that you can see your traffic?
c) Is the site fast and easy to use?

.:Phil:.