Press Releases For Link Building

Conventional Advertising thinks press releases are for editors to reuse or republish in their print publication.

That’s fine, what Press Releases mean for Google rankings is quite another story.

Google’s algorithm , which is to say the computer program that powers the decision  making process to pick who gets to come in at #1 in Google Ranking, used to be X

I’ll explain what X is, but for the immediate purpose of this short post, we’ll address a change to the algorithm caused by elections.

It takes Googlebot roughly 6 weeks to circumnavigate the globe (index the entire internet, every country, every language): that’s a baseline, one more 6 week pass and now Googlebot has something to measure, ie. here is X and here’s the increase or decrease in traffic, visitors, buzz about X, interest in X.

So that means, from the perspective of someone wishing to improve their company website’s ranking, it takes 12 weeks to see a change in Google ranking

					Free				Paid
Count	URL	Login Required	Google Page Rank	Alexa Traffic Rank	Free Submission	HTML Anchor Tags	Images Accepted	Approval Time	Paid Submission	HTML Anchor Tags	Images Accepted	Approval Time	Pricing	Paid Features
1	pressreleasepoint.com			288272				1 Day				1 Day		Front Page, Other Sites
2	pressabout.com			157471				1 Day						One business day approval
3	free-press-release-center.info			187059				1 To 7 Days					2.99	Top spot for 7 days
4	pr9.net			129396
5	prlog.org			34969				1 Day						Automatic PDF version generation
6	pressreleaseforum.com			272461				1 Day
7	express-press-release.com			86255				1-3 days				Few hours	29	Published within few hours
8	postafreepressrelease.com			1452330				1 Day
9	pressexposure.com			281459				1 To 2 Days
10	speedypr.com			1188498				1 Day
11	sbwire.com			223562				7-14 Days				One Day	$39.95, $19.95	One business day approval
12	seenation.com			647266				1 Day
13	myfreepr.com			427649				1 To 7 Days
14	exactrelease.com			491041				1 To 2 Days
15	sanepr.com			129647				1 Day
16	prwindow.com			871995				1 Day
17	mediasyndicate.com			419015				1 To 2 Days					$15, $20	Highest priority
18	webnewswire.com			1352897
19	businessportal24.com			72616				1 Day
20	press.xtvworld.com			209013				1 To 7 Days
21	thepublish.com			1215758
22	newsblaster.com			1244874				1 Day
23	usprwire.com			496685									$75, $350	Posted to ClickPress, USPRwire, UKPRwire
24	i-newswire.com			69752				1 To 7 Days					25	Top spot on release date
25	pressmethod.com			189511									$5, $15, $29	Same day distribution
26	1888pressrelease.com			46440				1 Day					$10, $25, $50	Attach files, 5 Images.
27	clickpress.com			109722									$75, $350	Posted to ClickPress, USPRwire and UKPRwire
28	prnuke.com			526822				1 To 7 Days
29	24-7pressrelease.com			53383				1 Day					$49, $89, $349	Next day distribution.
30	pressreleasemonkey.com			1516649									25	Advanced html editor, images.
31	pressreleasespider.com			273261				1 To 7 Days
32	malebits.com			230856				1 Day					$1, $4.99 / Month, $14.99 / Month	1 url , 10 active urls, Unlimited publishing, unlimited urls
33	clicnews.com			393798				30 Days
34	pressreleasecirculation.com			992313				1 Day
35	pr2work.com			1799048				1 To 7 Days
36	prfocus.com			987388				1 To 7 Days
37	epicpr.com			2707780				30 Days					10	Expedited Release Review & Approval
38	press-network.com			13569892				1 Day					$69, $149	Edit, complete rewrite
39	pressbox.com			930365				1 To 7 Days
40	freepressreleases.co.uk			122166				1 To 7 Days					�30, �90, �180	Submission to 30 press release sites.
41	bignews.biz			679139				1 Day
42	ideamarketers.com			26704				1 Day					$5,$15, $36, $91
43	pr-usa.net			75052				1 Day
44	newsalbum.com			490012				1 Day
45	pr-gb.com			215253				1 Day					�400, �1000/month	Home page. Private category
46	caymanmama.com			262127									49.95	Immediate release
47	digg.com			166				1 Day
48	base.google.com			4				1 Day
49	prfriend.com			1610997				1 To 7 Days
50	theopenpress.com			115074				1 Day					$10, $50	Stars, Same day service
51	newsreleaser.com			1143815				1 Day
52	press-library.com			1030256
53	live-pr.com/en			116044				1 Day
54	prarticle.com			754172				1 Day
55	information-online.com			227868				1 Day
56	prunderground.com			382859				1 To 7 Days					24.99	Next Day Distribution, Media Attachments
57	openpr.com			57079				1 Day
58	prbuzz.com			181110				1 Day					99	Releasing your press release to a large number of search engines and online news sites
59	prleap.com			43848				1 Day					$49, $99, $149	Social Media, Media Attachments
60	pressmediawire.com			168189				Within 12 hrs					$59.95, $39.95, $19.95	Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search engines.
61	fastpitchnetworking.com			47071				1 Day					$50, $95	Direct Distribution to 50,000 Fast Pitch! members
62	pr.com			17821				1 Day					$199/yr, $499/yr	Full Company Profile, Business Directory, Product Directory , Service Directory

					Free				Paid
Count	URL	Login Required	Google Page Rank	Alexa Traffic Rank	Free Submission	HTML Anchor Tags	Images Accepted	Approval Time	Paid Submission	HTML Anchor Tags	Images Accepted	Approval Time	Pricing	Paid Features
1	pressreleasepoint.com			288272				1 Day				1 Day		Front Page, Other Sites
2	pressabout.com			157471				1 Day						One business day approval
3	free-press-release-center.info			187059				1 To 7 Days					2.99	Top spot for 7 days
4	pr9.net			129396
5	prlog.org			34969				1 Day						Automatic PDF version generation
6	pressreleaseforum.com			272461				1 Day
7	express-press-release.com			86255				1-3 days				Few hours	29	Published within few hours
8	postafreepressrelease.com			1452330				1 Day
9	pressexposure.com			281459				1 To 2 Days
10	speedypr.com			1188498				1 Day
11	sbwire.com			223562				7-14 Days				One Day	$39.95, $19.95	One business day approval
12	seenation.com			647266				1 Day
13	myfreepr.com			427649				1 To 7 Days
14	exactrelease.com			491041				1 To 2 Days
15	sanepr.com			129647				1 Day
16	prwindow.com			871995				1 Day
17	mediasyndicate.com			419015				1 To 2 Days					$15, $20	Highest priority
18	webnewswire.com			1352897
19	businessportal24.com			72616				1 Day
20	press.xtvworld.com			209013				1 To 7 Days
21	thepublish.com			1215758
22	newsblaster.com			1244874				1 Day
23	usprwire.com			496685									$75, $350	Posted to ClickPress, USPRwire, UKPRwire
24	i-newswire.com			69752				1 To 7 Days					25	Top spot on release date
25	pressmethod.com			189511									$5, $15, $29	Same day distribution
26	1888pressrelease.com			46440				1 Day					$10, $25, $50	Attach files, 5 Images.
27	clickpress.com			109722									$75, $350	Posted to ClickPress, USPRwire and UKPRwire
28	prnuke.com			526822				1 To 7 Days
29	24-7pressrelease.com			53383				1 Day					$49, $89, $349	Next day distribution.
30	pressreleasemonkey.com			1516649									25	Advanced html editor, images.
31	pressreleasespider.com			273261				1 To 7 Days
32	malebits.com			230856				1 Day					$1, $4.99 / Month, $14.99 / Month	1 url , 10 active urls, Unlimited publishing, unlimited urls
33	clicnews.com			393798				30 Days
34	pressreleasecirculation.com			992313				1 Day
35	pr2work.com			1799048				1 To 7 Days
36	prfocus.com			987388				1 To 7 Days
37	epicpr.com			2707780				30 Days					10	Expedited Release Review & Approval
38	press-network.com			13569892				1 Day					$69, $149	Edit, complete rewrite
39	pressbox.com			930365				1 To 7 Days
40	freepressreleases.co.uk			122166				1 To 7 Days					�30, �90, �180	Submission to 30 press release sites.
41	bignews.biz			679139				1 Day
42	ideamarketers.com			26704				1 Day					$5,$15, $36, $91
43	pr-usa.net			75052				1 Day
44	newsalbum.com			490012				1 Day
45	pr-gb.com			215253				1 Day					�400, �1000/month	Home page. Private category
46	caymanmama.com			262127									49.95	Immediate release
47	digg.com			166				1 Day
48	base.google.com			4				1 Day
49	prfriend.com			1610997				1 To 7 Days
50	theopenpress.com			115074				1 Day					$10, $50	Stars, Same day service
51	newsreleaser.com			1143815				1 Day
52	press-library.com			1030256
53	live-pr.com/en			116044				1 Day
54	prarticle.com			754172				1 Day
55	information-online.com			227868				1 Day
56	prunderground.com			382859				1 To 7 Days					24.99	Next Day Distribution, Media Attachments
57	openpr.com			57079				1 Day
58	prbuzz.com			181110				1 Day					99	Releasing your press release to a large number of search engines and online news sites
59	prleap.com			43848				1 Day					$49, $99, $149	Social Media, Media Attachments
60	pressmediawire.com			168189				Within 12 hrs					$59.95, $39.95, $19.95	Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search engines.
61	fastpitchnetworking.com			47071				1 Day					$50, $95	Direct Distribution to 50,000 Fast Pitch! members
62	pr.com			17821				1 Day					$199/yr, $499/yr	Full Company Profile, Business Directory, Product Directory , Service Directory

Maryland Internet Advertising by Frederick Web Promotions on Yahoo

Maryland Internet Advertising on Bing

Frederick Web Promotions 6688 Canada Goose Ct, Frederick Maryland 21703

Bing Likes WordPress.com blogs

I’ve been preaching this mantra: you want your company website to perform in search engines? Get an external blog to support your main company website.

If you want to rank in Microsoft’s Bing, do yourself a favor and get a WordPress.com blog like this one:

Search Bing (or MSN) for this keyword phrase:

maryland internet advertising

MSN returns 18,000,000 websites that all purport to be on this subject.

Look who is number one:

You want your site to rank in Bing, get wordpress.com

Want results like that for YOUR company website?
Local Google Advertising

Organic?

I haven’t written a link building post in a while, because for the most part, I was off investigating other things. And getting way too complex. When I realized it’s the things I think are simple and run-of-the-mill that people really are looking to learn about. So as people ask me questions, I note them and try to write a post. I used to hate questions. Taking someone from “What’s a signature?” to viewing browser source in one sitting may be hard, but hopefully, it’s not impossible. Now I realize these questions are the master key to the type of traffic I want at this blog. So off we go.

Forums are basically where “social networks” started.

I talk to a lot of people who want to get traffic to their site. And they usually think I can tell them how in 10-15 minutes. So I try. Rarely do people listen. And out of those that listen, very few actually use what I tell them. I am not sure why this happens. Maybe they are lazy. Maybe they think, “How can something like that help me?”. But one guy I talked to I told to use forum signatures to build links. That was about all. I thought it was simple enough to get someone started. I told him to sign up for forums, add a signature file, forget about it and just converse. Put in your two cents where ever you can add something to the conversation. I did not list specific forums.

I told him that and I was thinking, yet another person not taking my advice. But I was wrong. A few weeks later, he came back to me and we checked the site. He has a micro business and is outranking local corporations here in Kansas City. He is doing this with a site built from templates. He doesn’t even know HTML. And what he used to do it, local business directories and forums. It blew my mind. One, for getting through to someone in 10 minutes. Two, for the results.

And since most people understand forums, I think it may be the best place for the average non-tech person to build links to his site, especially if you have the gift of gab. They have been around since they were called bulletin boards and some still are. You can find multiple forums on just about any topic you want.

How Forums Work to Boost Your Site’s Position in the Search Engines

There are many ways to get links to your site and links are votes. That is about the simplest way to think of them. Think of them as another site voting for your site to rank higher than other sites for a specific keyword. He who has the most votes, all else being the same, will rank the highest. It is not that simple and not the whole story, but if you are new to this, it is a good place to start.

Most other ways of getting links will get you one link from one site. You comment on a blog that uses dofollow and you get one link back from that post. You submit an article to an article directory and you get one link, most of the time. Run down the list of link building methods and it takes a lot of work to get one link. With forums, once you create a signature, that signature will now be under every post you add to a forum thread.

Detecting if the Forum Will Pass Rank to Your Site

Remember that the links to your site count as “votes”. Well, in the early days of blogs, getting a link to your site was as easy as commenting on any random blog you happen to find. It was not long before spammers caught onto this.

To prevent spam, the “nofollow” tag was created. A normal link in html looks like this: <a href=”http://www.website.com“>This is your link text</a> and a “nofollow” link looks like this: <a href=”http://www.website.com” rel=”nofollow”>This is your link text</a> . That rel=”nofollow” does a lot. What it does is tell the search engines that happen to spider that page this link is not a vote for your site. In other words, the link is worthless for your rank in search engines like Google.

There are some people that say this link still counts as a vote with a lesser value, but if you are new to this, we will stick to this rule: if there is a rel=”nofollow” around your link, it is worthless for building your rank in the search engine results. If it is a high traffic forum, people may click on your link but it is not helping you anywhere else. It’s value is limited to those clickthroughs.

Okay, let’s see if a forum is passing rank. Browse to a thread in the forum of your choice and make sure there are some signature showing. To detect if a forum is using nofollow tags, first right click in the middle of your browser’s window. On a Mac, this would be Control and your normal mouse click. After doing that, a menu should pop up for you. Now depending on your browser, you should see something like “View Page Source” or just “View Source”. Click that.

Now that you are looking at a bunch of html code, the easiest way to determine if a forum is dofollow is just search the whole page for “nofollow”. Ctrl+F usually brings up a search menu on most browsers and you can do this with source code. So push Control and F at the same time, type “nofollow” and hit enter. If nothing comes up, you are at a dofollow forum.

If your search does turn up a “nofollow”, check it to see if it is around one of the signature links. People nofollow links on their site for various reasons and some other links on the page may be nofollow. To make that a bit easier, go back to the real page, copying one of the signature links, search for that on the html source (the page we got by right clicking) and determine if the signature link itself has a nofollow tag.

And there are Firefox extensions that make this easier. But if you are not using Firefox and are not used to addons, showing you how to use them would have made this post a lot longer and involved, so I skipped that process.

And most forums I have run into are dofollow, so the manual process of right clicking and viewing the source may be overkill, but it helps to know before you invest in creating a profile there and fleshing it out.

Creating Your Forum Signature

This will be a general tutorial and some forums are set up differently then others, so you may have to do some looking around to edit your forum profile.

Usually on a bar, across the top of a forum, you will see various links like Forum Jump, FAQ, Search, Tools. There should also be a “Sign Up” or “Register” link. Obviously, this is where you sign up. Do that first. Most are basic forms and most will send an email to the email address you used to sign up. You will have to click on this link before your forum membership is activated.

Once you have determined that the forum will follow signature links, you have signed up and you have activated your account, it is now time to add your signature and flesh out your profile. Look around on that top bar for something that says “Edit Signature”, “Edit Profile”, “Control Panel” or something similar. While you are in there, you might as well fill out your whole profile, because it will get some traffic from other forum users especially if you are active and on most forums, every post you make will also link back to your forum profile.

In your signature, put your links or your links and a small blurb. Some forums limit the amount of links and text and a whole bunch of links there looks a bit spammy, so use good judgement when creating your signature. And here are the basics of your link:

<a href=”http://www.thesiteyouarelinkingtoo.com” Title=”This pops up when you mouse over the link and should have important keywords, if allowed by forum”>This is your anchor text and should have important keywords</a>

Finding Forums

Before the critical mass of blogs, if you searched for a very specific question on just about any topic, forums showed on the first page of results at Google. Now, chances are that blogs have taken that place in search engine results. But forums are out there and some still outrank the blogs.

Should you find forums related to your niche? Yes. That will give your most valuable backlinks because the content on both the forum and the site you are linking to in your forum signature are related. But if you find that this limits the amount of forums you can be active on, branch out to other forums and use them also. For example, if you only found 3 or 4 forums on “window and door repairs”, make sure you are active at those forums.

But if you have more time, go to unrelated forums and add your signature. And if you do, you might as well find ones on topics you like and can gab about for days. Most webmaster forums are full of members with signatures that have nothing to do with being a webmaster. The members still talk about webmaster things. But their signature point to unrelated sites.

One of the easiest ways to find forums is to use a keyword related to your niche and add forum to the end of it. Then search Google for that phrase, i.e “webmaster forum”. Basic and simple.

Another way is to use a forum search site. These sites search only forums. Just enter niche related terms and these search engines will search a bunch of forums at once and give you specific forum threads as results. Here are a couple:

• BoardReader
• BoardTracker
• Omgili
• And now, right in Google

Some DoFollow Forum Lists

I was going to build my own and still might, but there is a lot of forums out there and it is rare to run into one that does not give you a dofollow link. So instead I will lead you to other blogs. Use this list if you are lazy. These forums have already been checked for dofollow links.

• Zakpack
• SEO Marketing
• JR’s Internet Marketing Strategies
• Make Money Online
• Reviewer of Sites

How Not to Spam

Just don’t. That’s about it. The beauty of your signature at a forum is that you can forget about it. Do so. And start conversing. It may take a while. It’s like driving. At first, you stress out, thinking Step 1, Step2, Step3. But eventually, you’re a natural.

Don’t look for opportunities to get links. Just about any forum you land on will have hundreds of active threads. Browse them until something strikes you. Answer questions. Ask questions. Post tips. And mainly watch the other forum members. Learn from them.

Google SEO and Domain Authority
By Tom Greaves

To understand how to best optimize your site for Google you need to understand how the web’s link graph works and how Google places value on a particular site. One of the most common SEO techniques is to build vast amounts of links back to a particular page in order to boost its popularity and rank it higher on Google’s index.

Google’s world famous patent PageRank was designed originally to work out the popularity of a particular page on the web. It would take into account where the link was coming from and how relevant it was to the target page. A link from a popular trusted page would be worth a lot more than a link from a page hardly visible on the web.

Google has evolved in the last few years and is now making rank calculations based on a domain level as well as on a page level. Google will now assess how many domains point to your domain, how much authority these domains have and how relevant they are to your content.

So when we are building links back to our sites we need to think about the type of domains pointing to us as
well as the type of pages. For instance a link from a deep page of an authority site may well be worth more than a link from the home page of a less recognized site.

Also whilst thinking about the authority of our domain we need to think about where external links point to on our pages. A common mistake many newbie SEO’s make is by building all their links to their home page leaving their deeper pages to drop out of the index, however Google will specifically look to see where links are pointing to. Google may consider all pages without links to be of no interest and therefore not worth adding to the index. Sites with good amounts of links popularity to deeper pages will always rank better on Google.

When practicing any SEO technique be sure to think about trust, authority and popularity from the perspective of your domain as a whole rather than a particular page. Do you ever wonder why authority sites seem to be able to rank new pages quickly? This is because they have huge amounts of domain authority; Google trusts them fully and therefore fully trusts every piece of content that comes from those domains. It’s simple really build domain authority and rank higher on Google quicker.

If you would like to learn SEO techniques please visit the SEOwizz SEO blog

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tom_Greaves

If social networking were the prom then Facebook would be the king, and Twitter the queen. Or actually they would probably be rival queens. However you want to view it, one thing is for certain — MySpace is the candidate that no one is talking about, but might just get the bouquet of flowers and tiara at the end.

You might be thinking that I’m crazy; hasn’t MySpace been out of the limelight for quite awhile? If you’re talking about professional social media coverage, then yes MySpace has taken a backseat to big brother Facebook and the up-and-comer Twitter. The numbers don’t lie though, and we have to acknowledge that MySpace is still very much relevant. Actually, in terms of unique visitors it’s 2.5x more relevant than Twitter (MySpace – 59m vs. Twitter – 23m).

As professionals I believe many times we feel alienated by MySpace. It seems to be the least productive in terms of networking for a business. The profiles are notorious for being tacky, and highly obtrusive. Finally, and most importantly I believe that MySpace’s focus on music hinders many visitor’s focus. They look to be expanding at least, as it’s been stated they’ll be involved with video games.

It’s a bit early to tell what MySpace’s direct future is. With their clean up efforts, and video game direction it will be interesting to see if they can salvage their image with professionals.

What says you? Are you a MySpace user, and if so have you noticed many of their clean up changes? Is it too late for you, and either Facebook or Twitter owns your soul?

Johnny V from WebProWorld

I didn’t write this post, I haven’t had the experience this small business owner had because I’ve not paid Yellowbook the $250 a month he says he paid but I thought his retelling of his story was noteworthy so I’m republishing a snippet of his post here:

There are all kinds of different ways to advertise your business and keep the name out there without spending a fortune, there are also plenty of advertising area’s that seem inexpensive and for good reason, lack of results.

 In a little over a years time I have written about numerous forms of advertising on my site, in addition to the many local area business’s that I review as well. Advertising is by far my favorite thing to do, I love starting ad campaigns from the ground up, and figuring the potential cost and profit of doing such ad campaigns. My palms sweat just thinking about putting a special on a Clear Channel Billboard from Mikey B, no really they do.

Anyway, before this post gets way out of hand the main reason for this article is to take a moment and review the experiences I have had with YellowBook.com and our advertising with them over the last few months. 

When we first opened Extreme Tan and Smoothies we had a paid advertisement in the actual Yellow Book that was delivered to all of the local homes in the area, this was about five years ago and let’s just say that ad campaign was hardly worth it. A few months ago while we were in the height of our season and aggressively advertising we had a YellowBook.com representative come into the office pushing advertising in the online version of Yellow Book.com

My initial answer was of course absolutely not, especially after my first experience with them and how they have continued billing that is a major pain in the ass to get them to stop. After talking with the representative he assured me that the deal we signed would allow us to break out of it and cancel at any time, this sparked my interest because I rarely ever sign contracts.

We decided to buy the top spot on all searches in the specific counties that we wanted the ad to appear when people plugged in a search on Yellow Book.com, I figured it would have to return some excellent results with a placement like that. Our spots continued to run through out the entire tanning season as well as the entire limousine season, we have yet to have any customer mention those ad spots for either business.

Now I will say that one of the hardest things to track when it comes to advertising is advertising placed in the Yellow Pages or any place that doesn’t offer some sort of redemption, like a coupon to make tracking easier. The spots ran for enough time that had the advertisement made that much of an impact we would have heard about it, this ad campaign was very much like the ad campaign we ran five years ago.

In addition to the poor return on investment from advertising with Yellow Book and Yellow Book.com over the years…

Original Post at http://www.extremejohn.com/out-with-yellowbook-com/

Want YOUR company to rank #1 in Yahoo?

Google isn’t the only show in town… the deal between Microsoft and Yahoo means you’d better be looking at your companies place in Yahoo!

Go to yahoo and type in Maryland Search Engine Optimization, take a peek at who is #1 and #2

Internet Advertising is not Internet Marketing.

Because advertising is only a small part of marketing. When you speak of Internet advertising or marketing what you’re talking about ultimately boils down to search engine marketing.

I cannot emphasize enough that marketing is a lot more than advertising or selling. I am not saying advertising is not important. Advertising is one important way to attract new customers