Use Press Releases and Syndication

10. Use Press Releases and Syndication

Press Releases are a fantastic way to get natural one-way links, and also attract fresh traffic. If they are done correctly they can be the main source for building traffic, gaining ranking positions and building trust with the search engines. But don’t just write them, send them to the right places.

In the United States I use PRWeb, and in the UK and Europe I use SourceWire to syndicate articles. Both originally started as PR companies before the web came around so they have excellent connections with real syndicated sources. The websites that they send the articles to, will re-syndicate them to even more websites. You will pay between £20-£40/$20-$60 depending on the amount that you send them.

The articles that you syndicate should be authoritative or about something that will attract people to it, like Top 12 SEO Tips for 2007, or Ten Reasons Why ______________. You should quote trusted authorities and always reference the source when possible. I use Wikipedia or news sources like Google News, BBC, or CNN. I believe this actually adds trust to an article and in 3-6 months when Google pushes out Page Rank, the probation period for giving you full value is reduced.

Valuable content will be a natural link bait and you will also get real traffic from it.

Pull a unique phrase from the article (mine is GaryTheScubaGuy) and add a Google Alert to it (#9 above). Choose to be alerted “as it happens”. When you get an alert (typically within 6-12 hours), go to the page and place a Social Bookmark on the page. (I will talk more about this technique in the next tip.)