Press releases as a promotional method

[corn2015]

HI,
Are press releases still a viable promotional tool? If so, what is the best press release service(s) that you recommend and should you only submit to one?

Corn

[BradsDeals]

Press releases are worthwhile if you have something that's actually newsworthy to promote. But as an SEO tactic they've been abused into almost total uselessness.

As for what service to use, it really depends. I would look at the sites where you'd ideally like to see your press release get picked up, see what services the press releases they are picking up are using, go from there.

[michelle888]

PR Newswire - yes, be sure to use http://www. in your release for automatic linking when publishing online.

[OptiBacUK]

Press releases are a good way of getting quality links to your site from authoritative domains. Like Rebecca said, first start by identifying if you have anything news worthy to promote then you can plan to reach out to journalists (there are many looking for news to sell).

A good way to start might be to identify if you offer a service or goods that are seasonal, look up trends and find something that can make you stand out based on those trends and try to make a story out of it

[TimHolmes]

PR sites are a bit less used compared to a few years back as I believe Google made some algorithm changes based around PR sites. (correct me if I am wrong on this) so tread carefully with where you choose to place any PR.

As for linking on PR articles Google I believe treats any links back to your site as advertising, so although it is good to link to your site for brand awareness, this is all it should be used for. Place a rel="nofollow" on any links back to your site to enable you to use this PR as advertised article. Google thinks it should kind of be a paid for link.

Hope this helps.