If you have ever read any of the tutorials on getting more traffic to your site, increasing your backlinks, or simply getting buzz created about your site, no doubt you have seen press releases as one of the ways to do it. But are they really effective?
I recently created a new site which is a consultant directory, I am going to use it as a project for this article on the effectiveness of press releases in getting traffic. My newly created site is perfect for this, because it is a site which has little traffic, thus tracking an increase or lack thereof because of the press release will be easier.
This article will be broken into three parts.
- Part 1 submitting the press release to pr.com
- Part 2 submitting the press release to free-press-release.com/
- Part 3 comparing the two and weighing which one brought in more traffic.
Part 1 will be done today. I will wait a week, see the results , and post them.
Part 2 will be done a week from today, and the same the as above.
Part 3 will be done two weeks from today, I will take the two press releases and compare their effectiveness.
Here is the press release that I will submit to pr.com today. I posted a screenshot instead of posting the text to avoid muddying the waters so to speak.
Part 2 of the Press release Test
Last Monday, I started a, what will be a three part experiment. Today seven days later I bring you the results of the first week with the press release of valconsulting.com a consultant directory I started recently.
I submitted the press release to pr.com , using the free service. The results are in a word, meager.
Shortly after the first day of the press release I got maybe four or five inquiries into the website and that’s it. Actually, traffic has slowed since the press release. Below you’ll see the traffic stats for the site. Notice how from the 11-18 (the time after the press release) traffic actually decreased, while the week before saw a greater number of visits.
Today I will submit the same exact press release to www.free-press-release.com and see what happens.
*I initially wanted to release the second one through prweb.com, but they stopped taking free submissions in late October of this year.
Part 3 of the Press release Test
In the past two weeks, I’ve done a comparison of two identical press releases using two different press release websites. The site the press release was for is www.valconsulting.com. This week we’ll see how they stacked up and how effective they were.
The first week we released the press release to pr.com, as I had mentioned in the results were basically non-existent.
Now, let’s look at this week’s press release through www.free-press-release.com, below are the stats for traffic from 19th-26th of Dec. 2006.
There has been an up tick in traffic, but that in truth I had also submitted the site to a couple of directories. In all I have not seen one user come through the press release URL.
What have I learned from this experience? Well, for one, nobody is interested in the press release of another directory. I sort of had that feeling going in, but I wanted to test the waters and give it a shot anyway. I had heard from many people on forums and blogs dedicated to SEO that a press release helps. I’m sure it does, but it has to be something really different so that a big site or a journalist is willing to pick it up.
Another factor that probably contributed the lackluster results is that I chose to go the free route on both. Perhaps taking some funds to invest in a “premium” press release may yield better results.
Even though the results weren’t what I wanted, this was an excellent learning experience. Now, let me go and think up of something more unique to do a press release for this site.
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