Why Free Press Releases Are So Damned Expensive
Why All the Fuss About Press Releases? A press release is a short, compelling news story written by public relations professionals and sent to targeted members of the media. The goal of a press release is to pique the interest of a journalist or publication so that they publish the press release on their news outlet to garner the attention of consumers.
Due to the digital age we are in, consumers want to get their information instantly and this puts pressure on media companies to try and output as much material as possible. This often causes them to heavily rely on the use of press releases in order to create their stories. So press releases if properly completed from beginning to end, and pushed to the right outlets via a Tier-1 network can be viewed by potentially millions of people.
Although many in the industry will avoid connecting press releases to SEO rank, or outright deny it, press releases are an extremely powerful component to increase a person, business or organization’s rank on the major search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing). The higher your rank, the more often the search engine is likely to return your website and information as the answer to a query or search. The more often your site is returned as a recommended answer to the search, the more likely someone will click on your site and be exposed to your business. More clicks to your site this way (organically), thereby increase your rank even more.
A press release should be considered a very powerful public relations tactic, not a complete strategy. Press releases can do some real heavy lifting in getting you indexed permanently all over the internet, and that is the bottom line goal of every SEO or public relations firm, and should be your grand obsession.
What is Really Free? Free press release distribution websites pop up everywhere and may seem like an easy public relations tactic. However, public relations and branding experts always recommend avoiding them and for some very good reasons that I shall point out to you.
Right up front, let me make it clear that I am Co-Founder of an all-in-one digital branding and business centric company that promotes paid press releases as a part of an overall SEO strategy. I believe in press releases so passionately that we even diversified our parent company to include a fully functioning licensed media outlet that has journalists, editors and a graphics team on our payroll. We also have contracted and subscribed to a Tier-1 network so that we have access to the largest reach possible with over 500+ news outlets and 100,000+ professional bloggers that we distribute press releases to.
And, we charge for press releases. So now that I have made a point to disclose this, allow me to explain something else quite important. We could have just as easily and for a lot less investment started a ‘free press release’ company. We know how they operate, and we know that they are very profitable. But wait, aren’t they free? How can something that is ‘free’ be profitable to the company operating all the levers and dials? Really, didn’t your mother teach you better than that? There is a cost for everything. Writing this post is costing me my time. And a ‘free press release’ will cost you in many ways, and the biggest price you will pay is the damage to your brand!
Most sites that promote themselves as free offer very little for nothing. Many free sites frequently do not actually distribute news to media outlets, but only post the release on their website and sometimes for only a limited time.
Or they may send out massive emails to news outlets with which they have no relationship or credibility with, so their incoming mail, which will be YOUR press release should you go that route, are ‘D-listed’ as spam and discarded.
We have followed studies within our industry whereby press releases from free press release companies were sent out to their reportedly massive lists. In one such study Vitis Public Relations completed the leg work, spending a month researching and monitoring 60 press releases sent via varied free distribution sites throughout the U.S and U.K. A total of only 3 publications occurred during an entire month.
You will have to pay additional fees to publish the press release or to upgrade for additional services, (which every press release needs) such as:
If you want your content to be professionally written (and you better)
Proper white-hat placement of keywords and meta-tags and title tags
Going over their word limit which is usually very low cost extra per 100 words
Including live backlinks to your website (what’s the point of a PR if not linked?)
Including your photo’s, logos, graphics or videos
Posting the release beyond a minimal time period that they see
Okay. They are pretty much going to charge you for everything – get it?
What is the Real Cost to You and Your Brand? Sometimes the cost you incur isn’t just a dollar amount that is disclosed and you pay willingly upfront but rather the damage you will incur. Many of these sites merely run advertisements that link to other press release sites or back to their own site to gain additional business or are riddled with pay-per-click ads that have nothing to do with you. That basically makes your press release junk and will be filtered out by reputable news publishing outlets as spam. So great, now your website URL is getting labeled by Google as spam. Death sentence.
Now besides all of that, they are only using your content to push their agenda. I mean they have to make money, right? So, use them and you will see for yourself that they will transform your press release to a pay-per-click advertisement on your competitor’s free press release … and can also put their ad on yours … it’s brilliant! At least it is for the pay-per-click company, and for the free press release site. Allow me to repeat this: they advertise all over YOUR press release. And serious readers and searchers don’t pay any attention at all to spam-riddled releases.
Worst of all is that the sad reality is that many smart entrepreneurs (the ones who value their time) will never try press releases again and enjoy the actual huge benefit that is possible after playing the free press release game, having decided that press releases just don’t work.
Understand that as much as Google loves content, Google hates spam. So by using a free press release service, guess what you actually are doing to your SEO rank if you put your website URL on it? Media companies refer to that as Google Jail, or being punished in the Google basement. That’s right. Google won’t think twice about dropping you down to page 50 on search results and keep you there for about 12 months.
A legitimate, paid new release distribution service such as MaxGroup Media has far greater credibility among journalists and search engines. The paid press release services get your company news directly in front of actual journalists, resulting in placements in print, broadcast and online news outlets. MaxGroup Media has arranged for automatic publication of press releases to influential online news sources with high ranking.
Is It Worth the Money? You Decide. You may or may not become a client of our company. But when you decide to start issuing press releases, consider that because we DO charge for our press releases, we can say:
☑ We will accept your written information and/or interview you to obtain the facts. ☑ Our professional writer, who is an actual news Journalist will create the content. ☑ Our editor will review and oversee the project and insert keywords, backlinks and more. (‘Backlinks’ are links that come back to your site when clicked on-very important.) ☑ Our graphics team will select the best images of photos that you send, or from stock images and insert them into your press release to bring it to life. ☑ We will send you the final draft for your approval or for changes to be made. ☑ We will provide info on you, your company, products/services, your website URL and how to contact you by website, email and phone. ☑ The press release will be distributed to the largest Tier-1 network of news providers in the country. ☑ We guarantee placement on ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CW and many more. ☑ If MaxGroup created your website, we will insert "As Seen On,…logos”. ☑ If MaxGroup didn’t create your website, we will supply you with the code for the logos and link them permanently to each network’s individual article. ☑ Your press release will forever be featured in our Newsroom which receives enormous traffic and we’ll keep building your internet footprint for you forever. ☑ We will be available to answer any questions by phone or email and coach you for maximum effectiveness because we need YOU to succeed for our reputation which makes us partners to the extent of your news publication and branding.
In essence, we make you ten feet tall, bullet proof, and able to leap tall buildings.
Oh, yeah, and for all of that we charge $399 per press release payable in advance. (Consult your accountant to see that this would be 100% tax deductible.)
Let me save you some more time. There are only three other media companies that I would even consider using. Their releases are $795, $995 and $1,600 respectively and they WON’T GUARANTEE syndication to ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CW and Google News as we do, and won’t generate a report to with links to where you got published.
By Now You Get That I Am Proudly Promoting MaxGroup Media, Right? Using free press releases distribution websites is a fruitless public relations and SEO strategy, in my opinion and as I have illustrated, does more harm than good. Paying to distribute news through a legitimate service will surely produce better results that can be tracked through media monitoring and measurement. “You get what you pay for” when you chose a news distribution service.
The bottom line as they say is that press releases aren’t free at MaxGroup Media, and they aren’t the only thing we do. But we do them flawlessly written by a content writer with a Master’s degree who will take your information and turn it into a compelling news story worthy of the most well-known outlets picking it up and publishing it. We will build in the right amount of SEO keywords, photos, backlinks (to your site) meta-tags, title-tags and how to contact you.
MaxGroup Media will guarantee that you will be published at a minimum by ABC, CBS, NBC, CW and Google News as well. We’ll supply you with a report that will list every major news outlet that published you and a link to your actual story (press release) on their outlet.
Additionally, if we created your website, we will publish, and if we didn’t create your site, we will provide you with the code, for the famous “As Seen On,…logos,” and link each of them to the appropriate news outlet which we will host permanently. What would THAT be worth to your business? Talk about bragging rights! Impress your customers and employees by printing one in color, and put that framed copy in your office.
How can we possibly guarantee that? Our distribution is significantly larger than our competitors, and we are able to publish you at 25% of the cost of the competition! We invested heavily to make certain that our distribution network is the biggest, and that the most influential news sites were included. We established the highest form of relationships with the most extensive network of 500+ news outlets and 100,000+ bloggers so that we can do the job better than anyone in our marketing space.
And if you should decide to use another paid press release service, I sincerely wish you a great return and experience. But I have just one question for you: Are they going to do all of the above that MaxGroup Media does?
“Relationships and access to journalists via the media company’s network will always be where a press release succeeds or fails. It’s this relationship and expertise that makes a great publicist or media company invaluable. It’s also where free press release websites will always fail.”
-Mark Skovron, Ph.D. | MaxGroup Media, Editor in Chief
You can obtain more information on our press release service by going to our Press Release FAQ on our website. You are welcomed to contact us at any time by emailing: Support@MaxGroupMedia.com or by calling us at: (888) 670-7771.
Let us prove to you that we are the company that you will want to be in partnership with. And thank you for reading our post!
“MaxGroup Media Press Releases Generate Buzz Online…Forever!”