Press Release Success for Website Owners Made Simple — Misconceptions About News

As a journalism & public relations degree holder and “worker in the field” I’ve written my share of upper-level press releases—you know, the ones that get looked and used by major media outlets. These companies pay top dollar for PR writing and distribution.

But, as website owner, did  you know that you can leverage the power of press releases without spending hundreds to thousands of dollars per release? I’m writing a book that will help you take advantage of this promotion vehicle with little work and certainly no college degree or experience needed, but I wanted to get the ball rolling by giving you a lot of great pointers.

This is my first article of the mini-series about how to leverage the power of press releases for any website on the planet—including yours.

Here’s what’s coming (I’ll update this list to links as posts are released):

• Misconceptions about “News” — hey, that’s this article!
• Saving a Warren Buffett Sized Fortune in Press Release Distribution Costs
• Turning Your Press Release Operation into Manny Pacquiao—Faster, Better, Easier
• You Can Either be “Wall Street” or “Dumb and Dumber”—How Not to Look Like a Complete Idiot in Your Press Releases
• Super Hero Press Releases—3 Must-Have Attributes
• What the Movie “Other People’s Money” has to do with the Success of Your Press Release

Misconceptions about “News”

In J-school we were taught what “news” was and what it wasn’t. Those going over to the PR side expanded on what journalists viewed as news a little, but the definition of news was still fairly small.

Traditionally, PR writers told their clients that the release needed to be newsworthy. Some common themes were: new product launch, new office appointment, etc.

Unfortunately, many site owners feel paralyzed by this—often wondering how in the heck they can take advance of press releases if they aren’t some big company that CNN would love to hear about. Maybe that describes you.

Here’s the problem. Stop thinking about big news companies. Instead, start thinking about search engine traffic, bots that scoop up news releases and the plethora of bloggers and site owners out there who scan the news for something to write about.

For years, you as the site owner were told, unfortunately, that it’s foolish to submit a press release for your new site. I mean, who cares about some little site opening, right? You were told that unless your site or business had an “event” that neatly fell into one of the newsworthy categories, a press release was pointless. This is all wrong.

There are many, many reasons to write a press release for your site right now—even a site that’s just sitting there running along without any new activity. It doesn’t matter if the site isn’t new, if you’re not moving to a new office, etc.

In my upcoming book, I go into this into more detail and list tons of ideas on how to play off others to promote your business. It works like a charm.

But, I don’t want to leave you high and dry, so here are some general ideas to get you going:

1. Have you released any new content lately? That can be a new press release. You could talk about a collection of items or one in more detail. As an example, I wrote press releases for a content distribution site each time it added new content for sale. Even though this was years ago, those press releases with links still remain today.

2. Have you written an article or guest blog post for another site? If so, this could be the subject of a press release. This actually hints at what my book details—playing off others.

3. Can you create a free PDF for your site? This would be another great idea. Depending on your site’s purpose, it doesn’t need to be some upper-level handout. If your site is just there for AdSense mainly, you could put together a collection of 5-7 articles you have the rights to (PLR, etc) and there you go. Of course, for sites that are more “identity sites” I’d put more work into your handout.

There are so many ideas you could be missing out on. That’s why I’m releasing my book. It’s going to be an eye-opener.

You might be thinking, that’s nice, but all these press releases are going to dent my wallet. I’m glad you brought that up. Sure, you could spend $40 to $100s just for the distribution of the release, but there are many free sources out there that will do the trick. I’ll talk about this in an upcoming post.

Wait, wait, I know another excuse that might come to mind—writing. You have two options: write it yourself or get someone to do it. My upcoming book will give you an easy template to follow, plus plenty of ideas and examples. It will also make the outsourcing process a snap if you choose to go this way. I’ll expand more on this later in the series too.

I hope you’ll join me throughout this mini-series. Don’t forget to tweet and comment. I’d love to hear from you.