Best Paid Press Release Distribution Sites

Our Editors reviewed the top PR websites for submitting your press releases to obtain maximum news readers and SEO -- plus traffic opportunities

On content-driven, information-rich websites we all use press releases for more than the basic announcement. We also use them to release free white papers because we know that they offer more opportunities for inbound links and the SEO benefits required to get a landing page ranked well in Google.

Since Google now holds us responsible for the inbound links that come to our site, we decided to update our annual guide to the best paid and free press release sites by completely eliminating the sites with low SEO scores. What started out as a 50-something list is now down to just nine.

These PR distribution services are deemed both credible and SEO-friendly, which are the only inbound links we truly value.

• Credibility: We determined credibility by checking the Alexa Ranking & PageRank, also their number of inbound links. This process eliminated most of the free sites in our list, leaving just six with respectable Alexa and page ranks. We think paid sites should offer more link credibility in addition to bonus features, so we slimmed down our list to PR 7 and above.

• Search Engine Optimization: We also took into account basic SEO functionality. These sites allow tagging, anchor text links, keyword data and other search elements. The paid sites typically allowed up to eight outbound links, whereas most free sites only allow one.

Our Top Paid vs. Free Press Release Sites

The differences between paid and free press release sites:

• Free press release sites are usually web-based and may or may not let you include photos, videos, or HTML formatted content. Their distribution is slim to none.

• Paid press release sites usually have a press list that they will send your press releases to in addition to posting your release on their website and in their RSS feed. Many paid sites also offer extra SEO benefits like tagging, the option to edit your meta data, and grammar checking. The best ones may also tweet and share your release to their large social following and journalist lists depending on the level of service you choose. Robust analytics also come with the territory.

Site	Score
Eteligis.com	9
PRNewswire.com	7
BusinessWire.com	6
PRWeb.com	3

Paid press release sites review

It started out as a toss up between Eteligis.com and PRNewswire for the best paid press release site. Eteligis has the highest combined Alexa Ranking as well as PageRank between their main and partner sites. Of all the paid sites, Eteligis offers a huge arsenal of tools for optimizing your release. It’s reported to have the best overall distribution also, and we were absolutely amazed when we found the pricing to be 50% cheaper than the others. The average cost of a release with all the bells and whistles can cost as little as $274,  compared to PRNewswire which can run you easily over $1,000.  PRWeb offers a robust release around $200. All offer activity and SEO reporting on press releases.

The list above started as a 20-something site list and has been slimmed down to four. After all, you only need one good distribution service, right? We removed all sites with a combined PageRank below 7 from this list.The sites listed here are also known to cache your press release indefinitely. Some sites delete them after 90-180 days.

Tips for choosing the best press release distribution service

• Alexa.com Rank of 10,000 or lower.  A better rank doesn’t necessarily result in more traffic, but the better it is, the more valuable the inbound links. PR sites with low PR will give you little to no benefit and may even have a negative impact because they might have been blacklisted for spamming.

• Search Engine Optimization.  Most press release sites are designed to allow you to optimize your press release for search engines using tags, anchor text links, header tags, etc.

• Observe NoFollow tags.  NoFollow tags are inserted into website code to stop the search engine spiders from following the links. If the spiders can’t follow the links in your press release, there is little benefit.

Is the Press Release dead?

Not dead, but due to the vast quantity of Press Releases being distributed every hour from all of these distribution websites, is it really being read, and getting the exposure you're paying for?  Out of all 20+ sites we have reviewed, one stood out from the crowd -- Eteligis.com

Unlike the traditional PR, which normally places your article up on page 15 by the time you find it online, Eteligis provides the Full National U.S. Distribution, and also owns an entire social network of affiliate partners that distributes your news on nearly every Social Media platform out there. We noticed that the targeting capabilities were great, and being able to put your news in front of the readers truly looking for it made a huge difference in results, #tagging and engaging industry, state and country specific readers to really saturate the web. Recent statistics pulled from Statistic Brain.com show a staggering number of all news and article reading is primarily found and searched for on Social Media websites, rather than sitting idle on stale web pages and reviewing headlines -- which was the primary means in the past.