Archive for January, 2010

There’s a nasty rumor going around about those free press release distribution sites. Many people are out there arguing that they’re a complete waste of time and that you should only utilize the paid distribution options. They maintain that the free sites don’t really attract any legitimate media attention and that they aren’t going to do you nearly as much good as the pay-to-play big boys. Thus, they argue, you don’t need to fool around with the free sites.

These critics have a strong underlying argument. In fact, just about all of their premises are true. They use them to reach a faulty conclusion, however. They should be saying what we already know–that the paid stuff has more power and reach than the free. To jump to the conclusion that free press release distribution is a waste, however, is utterly inaccurate. Here’s why.

You can use them to get backlinks. If you have a good, systematic way of submitting your releases to a large batch of free sites, you can up your backlink totals in a flash. That’s good for search engine optimization–the lifeblood of most successful sites–but the critics of free sites overlook that because they’re focused almost entirely on the media coverage aspect. They’re traditionalists. They understand the ways releases can be used to get real-life media attention, but they’re just a little behind the curve in terms of their optimal use for Internet marketing purposes.

Plus, even the lower-grade free sites have at least a handful of people pulling their feeds and content to populate websites. There’s always some syndication value in the process. In other words, more backlinks. That submission to one site might net you many, many more links than you anticipated.

There are other factors, too. Sometimes you just need to fill the SERPs with as much information about your business as you can. There are times when that need for a more obvious “presence” is clear. There are also situations in which you may want to display irrelevant or inaccurate search results about your business or product. You can use the freebies to get the job done.

Look, free sites can’t replace the “oomph” of the paid distribution options. Not even close. The paid sites have greater reach, more power in the SERPs, and more staying power. But those little free sites aren’t useless. It’s just a matter of knowing how to use them.

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