Online Public Relations: It Pays!

In this society fuelled on information, Internet news sites are being increasingly visited by news-hungry readers. Largely abandoned by advertisers after the dotcom slump, news sites are now rebuilding momentum. The revival of their popularity is so strong and advertisers are so eager to cash in on Internet users’ interest in their content, that certain news sites lack enough advertising space to sell. In fact, the rush to find ad space is so intense that Dow Jones, for instance, had to battle fiercely to acquire the CBS MarketWatch news site. [1]

The leading search engines also offer news sites and, thanks to the engines’ strong notoriety among Internet users, these news sites benefit from high traffic. According to a recent study performed by Nielsen NetRatings, Google News and Yahoo News now rival other well-known news sites such as BBC News or CNN. [2]

So how can you tap into the search engines’ new role as an important source of information to reach more consumers and businesses? The answer: publish your press releases online.

Sending press releases is one of the many PR activities that can be performed online. For the moment, however, this tactic is largely underused despite the fact that many journalists and individuals use the Internet as their primary source of information. These people will almost certainly never see your press releases if you do not publish them online. Doing so will not only accelerate their availability to the public, it will also enable them appear on news sites such as Yahoo, Google and MSN at minimal cost.

But you can do much more than that. These news sites are based on a search engine, which means that Internet users can find your press releases when they search the engines. For this reason, your press releases should be addressed to both your target readers, as well as to the search engines’ robots.

By applying certain referencing principles and ergonomics to your press releases, your PR will be much more efficient since it will reach readers you didn’t even know you had. There are numerous referencing principles to follow, and they will vary depending on your objectives and on the nature of your press release. Nevertheless, note that a common technique is to place relevant links and frequently used search terms in the first paragraph(s) of the press release.

Still not convinced of the efficiency of online PR? Then simply implement performance metrics to verify whether the operation was profitable or not. For more information on this topic, see Guillaume Brunet’s article entitled: “Understanding Web Performance Metrics”

Several case studies have been written on this matter and the reported results are impressive. For example, SouthWest Airlines calculates that it has earned over $1.8 million in sales thanks to the online press releases it issued during a 2004 campaign.

To conclude, publishing press releases online is a simple operation that could be incredibly profitable for your company. And, contrary to many other PR operations, the results will be very easy to evaluate.

[1] Eric Dash, Internet News Sites Are Back in Vogue, January 24, 2005.

[2] The Importance of Search Engine Promotion of Your Press Releases, http://www.nsti.org/press/sep.html, February 1st, 2005