Are there any legitimate ways to do press releases?

[KempRugeLawGroup]

In the past month, we won a "Small Business of the Year" Award and the managing partner is up for "BusinessWoman of the Year Award" for the greater Tampa area. I would like to send out two press releases, because I think these are appropriate uses of press releases. However, I'm nervous because I don't really know what all the implications of using press releases are. I don't want us to get hurt or flagged as doing something spammy.

I also don't know which company to go through if they are still a good idea. PRWeb looks good to me, but then again, I don't really know.

Any thoughts on either aspect of this question would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Ruben

[WilliamKammer]

I still find PRWeb safe to use and haven't experience any noticeable penalties.

Press releases are still safe to use, just not as link-building technique. You can still utilize them to get newsworthy information about the company out to the public. Distributing it on your website, some online place like PRWeb, and also sending it manually to larger publications that your information is relevant to can be very valuable.

[Travis_Bailey]

Straight from 'The Cutts': You sure can throw press releases out, just don't use exact match anchors.

If you haven't used press releases extensively, just for the sake of links - you should be in the clear.

[EGOL]

I would wait until you have BOTH  the "Small Business of the Year" Award and the "BusinessWoman of the Year Award".  Then I would get in touch with editors of some Tampa area news magazines, business development organizations, chambers of commerce, etc who have websites and newsletters that are published online, plus some websites in your industry.

I would send them suggested article text and several nice photos and quotes from a few of your well known customers.

Before I did that, I would have a great page of information bragging this up on your website and linked to obviously from your homepage.  This article page would go well beyond the biz-of-the-year and the biz-woman story to tell about other staff.  This page is great for a newsletter to give you a mention and a link to this page for people who want to know more.  That gives you both a linkbait story for other sites plus a landing page for people who just want to give you a mention.

Don't underestimate biz development organizations.  Part of their job is to beat the drum for great stuff happening in their community.  They probably have a person who is supposed to tell about this in their newsletter, annual report and on their website.  They are also content providers to the local newspapers, area websites, etc.  Find the person over there who is their media relations director.   Big city like Tampa should have a few of these people.  Help them do their job and they will love you.

[KempRugeLawGroup]

Thanks everyone! And, EGOL, I really appreciate the detail in your response. That is very helpful!

Best,

Ruben