1. Have newsworthy information - if the information is not interesting, quality conscious Press Release distribution sites will not accept it. Try to come up with something YOU would be interested in, such as a new product introduction, recognition of your company or a milestone met.



2. It must be written correctly - though good Press Releases are relatively short, it takes a certain amount of skill to write them to grab attention. At the same time, they must be structured in the way the receiver of Press Releases expects to get the information.

3. It must be distributed - you can certainly use a Release on your own site, and you should (the more content, the better), but to get the real benefit, the Press Release must get in front of other people and on other sites.

Item Number One is up to you to find the genesis of what is newsworthy. No one knows your organization and its publicity opportunities better than you. Look at your company from an outsider's perspective, and then from your vantage point, to find an interesting way to present something that may even seem mundane to you. You can be creative in the presentation, but the news should be legitimate.

Item Two is trickier than it appears. One approach you could follow is to look at Press Releases that appeal to you and seem professionally written and then try to copy their approach. Whoever gets assigned the writing task should be both a creative writer to pack the most pizazz you can in a few word, and a journalist, in that they need to follow pretty strict formatting and structure.

For Item Three, there are three basic choices:

1. Expensive - There are traditional Press Wires that distribute to traditional channels such as Reuters or AP. These will cost several hundred dollars for each Press Release and do not necessarily result in back links or website placements, but if you have great information in your Release and you get very lucky, you might get Press coverage.

2. Free - there are a few dozen Internet Press Release Distribution sites that will accept Press Releases for free. You generally sign up for an account and submit the Release. The better sites have a nice Page Rank and manually screen the Releases for quality and interest. We have received dozens of placements in a matter of three weeks using this strategy. Though these sites are free in dollars, they are not free in the time it takes to do 50 manual submissions.

3. Small expense - if you want to have the submissions done for you, there are companies that will do so. The ones that are both most cost effective and most effective usually utilize labor in India. The costs are low and many of the workers speak English, so they can fill in the forms and place the Releases into categories accurately.

If you understand how Press Releases work and follow the guidelines listed here, you will be guaranteed to get added links, ranking help and, we hope traffic, just the same way you do with Article Distribution.