Which PR submission service should I use?

The best press release services

I recently made a couple of press releases – one for my book and the other for a couple of new services on FormatClick.com, a sister site to this one. The first was release through PRWeb using their SEO service and the second through PRLog.com, which offers a free service.

Along the way I also tried using The Open Press (their site said that they had been hacked and hence it was impossible to retrieve a password or register a new account) and Free Press Release Center (I issued one of the releases on Wednesday, by Saturday it was still pending. The functionality of this site is also lacking in that you cannot edit a release that has already been submitted.)

The SEO service I used at PRWeb cost $200 and included the following features (at the time of writing):

Your release on top sites like Yahoo! News and Google
Permanent hosting on PRWeb.com
Attach images and documents
Track results with statistics on reads and impressions
Two-day distribution
Distribution on industry- specific Websites and blogs
Premium placement for enhanced search results
Social bookmark links for increased distribution
Embedded news image
SEO tools including anchor text for search optimized results
10 industry and 5 regional news feeds
Advanced SEO statistics
Next day distribution

The PRWeb was easy to use, although I initially forgot to add several images. I was able to edit to press release and re submit. It appeared that in each case the PRWeb staff scanned the press release before approving it.

Overall, apart from writing the release, it was a very easy and smooth process. I am able to check the SEO statistics to find out information such as headline impressions and full page reads. From an SEO perspective I have gained several in-links, but there is some industry debate about how useful PR generated in-links are. In this case it appears that there a lot of sites that reproduce the press release (often without the included links).

PRLog was also very easy to use, but with the added advantage of being free of charge. I could not find follow-up statistics and I do not know yet how many sites will have actually received the release. This will ultimately be the most important factor as to whether this is a viable service.

Update 03/09/09

Free Press Release Center approved my release today (i.e. 2 – 3 working days after submission) which is fine. I suspect that the reality is that unless a press release service has some review mechanism then they will put out so much garbage that people will cease to take them seriously.