The great thing about press releases is that lots of people see a temporary increase in visibility on the search engines just because of the fact that your company or product name is mentioned in a press release that’s out there on a lot of different websites. However, this effect is ephemeral. News sites don’t list stuff permanently. You’re quickly going to drift back downward anyway. If you get any SEO benefit from press releases, and we know a lot of customers who swear by it, we think it should be viewed only as a temporary side effect or bonus. It should NOT be the reason for doing press releases. The goal for press releases should be to get that media coverage, and to stay committed to the process of engaging the media with varying types of press releases.
We believe that the SEO game is just that. If press releases were a magic wand in which you achieved long-term rankings, Google would change their algorithm. Google is smart, and we think that rather than “gaming the search engines,” you should simply issue great content, make sure you put those press releases on your own website, because they are keyword-rich, with a lot of great content, and you are the author, but we wouldn’t waste any time chasing press release services that promote that they can have you rank on page one of Google, because you will generally see that happen for your company and product/service name anyway.
A company that touts that they’ll get you on the front page of Google isn’t a real press release company; they are an SEO voodoo company who’s likely to get your website penalized in the search engines, and that’s another red flag indicating that’s not a company that you want to work with.