[ Updated December 06, 2011 ] You've launched that online business you planned, and it is time to market it to your audience. Your first approach is to write a press release and send it to your local or national media outlets: newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations. You fold the news releases and place them into envelops and then drop them at the post office, or you decide to send the press releases by fax to selected journalists. If you have their email addresses, you send the releases to your target journalists. Either way, if you're lucky, your news releases reach the selected journalists on time, and if they are interested in your content, they cover your story. If you are not so lucky, your news releases get trashed, and that, my friend, is the end of it. At least for now, until you adopt a second approach.

The second approach is to use online press release services. You conduct a search for online press release distribution services on Google, Yahoo, MSN or any of your favorite search engine. A list of news release distribution companies is generated; you do your research and decided to use one of the news release distribution companies, for example, Emailwire.com™. You submit your news release to Emailwire.com™, within minutes, your news release appears on Google News and many online major news media services.

1. Instantly publish your press releases
Are there any benefits between the first and the second approach? Unlike the first approach, the second approach enables you to instantly publish your business news online. The instantaneous publication of your news releases online is your number one benefit of using online press release distribution services.

2. Online newswire enable viral distribution of your press releases
The second benefit is when a service like Emailwire.com™ distributes your release to other online media channels. Top media channels like UPI, CBS, Google, Bing News and social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn -- just to name but a few, receive and publish news releases instantly, while some news sites will publish your release at a later date. News aggregators such as Google News and Moreover crawl EmailWire place press release summaries on their servers or news sites. These aggregators in turn syndicate their summaries to major and small news sites, online databases, intranets and individual subscribers.

3. Your press releases are featured on Search Engine Result Pages as Headlines
The third benefit is that your news release is featured as current top news in your industry. When Emailwire.com™ publishes your article on news sites; search engines such as Alta Vista, Alltheweb.com and Google prominently feature your release on the top spot when a user conducts a search with a key word that appears on the title of your release. Sometimes these search engines will display part or the whole title of your release – depending on the length of your title. When your release is highlighted, you receive the instant benefit of putting your business in front of millions of your target audience for days and sometimes up to a week.

4. Your press releases are archived for search engines
While not all search engines will feature your news, many major search engines such as Yahoo, Google, Excite, Lycos, WebCrawler, Live and Ask.will index news releases from Emailwire.com™'s archives. Hence, the fourth benefit is that, when you use online news release distribution service, your news release is indexed on major search engines, so that end-users, researchers or even journalists find information about your company at a later date.

5. Your press releases are distributed via RSS Feeds
The fifth benefit with online press release distribution services is through Emailwire.com's RSS feeds. When you publish your news release on Emailwire.com™, it is converted into RSS and syndicated to RSS news indexing sites. Several RSS search engines such as Yahoo, NewsIsFree, Blogdiggers, Bloglines and many others, pick news releases from Emailwire.com™ and index them on their servers. Online users, including journalists, researchers and consumers use these sites to look for information or breaking news on products and services.

6. Your press releases read on RSS feeds and Email Alerts
If end-users do not go to search engines for news and information, they receive it in their email boxes or in their RSS newsreaders. Many news sites, like Emailwire.com™, allow online users to subscribe to news based on their target interests. Google News enables its users to subscribe to news via email alerts based on keywords. These methods of news delivery is the sixth benefit you receive when you use online press release distribution services to spread your news.

7. Web 2.0 tools help viral distribution of your press releases
The seventh benefit is from web 2.0 tools and applications. End users are not only subscribers to news, but they've become publishers with the advent of bookmaking and sharing tools. When EmailWire.Com publishers press releases, online readers use Deliecious, Digg, Twitter or other bookmaking and sharing tools to publish and share press releases to their friends or followers. If the news they are sharing is interesting enough, the process become viral such that the sharing becomes endless. The end result is your news populated on the web and you get more leads from those online users who read and share your news.

8. Get back links to your website to increase SERP
When your press release is populated on over the Internet, you gain the eighth benefit of online press release distribution services by increasing back links to your website. The more you have back links the more you bump up the position of your website on search engines result pages (SERP). Many search engine optimization (SEO) companies use press releases to many target audiences and get reputable back links to websites they are promoting. As your press releases are published on reputable news sites and blogs, your website gets back links the site rises up on SERP.

9. Images Increase Brand Name and SERP
You can also increase your SERP and company brand with images. Images or logos illustrate your products or services – they project an image of your company. This is your ninth benefit. Include images or logos to your press release. Link your web addresses with “ALT”tags that contain keywords – this will help web and news search engines index your press release. Many news aggregating sites, blogs and social network news sites are now crawl and publish content with images. Blogers and journalists are likely to use images or company logos to illustrate their stories, so when you include this multimedia tool to your press releases, your news will not only be indexed for search engine result pages (SERP), but images also will help with the branding of your company online.

10. Increase your online visibility with Video
As the demand for online video continues to grow, there is a need for you to add video clips to your press release. This means that online users will find your video clips about your products or services. Note that major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Live and Ask are also indexing video files as well – hence more places for your press releases be found. Most video search engines not only index your video releases, they provide sharing tools that allows online users to send video clips to friends and followers.

In conclusion, when you use an online press release services, your news is published online instantly, archived and distributed to news channels that not only publish your news online again, but they syndicate it to other news sites and their subscribers. The advent of RSS feeds, Web 2.0 tools and multimedia publishing are facilitating online press release distribution to target audiences and online users. They in turn use these tools to share and distribute news among each other. The result is a continuous viral distribution of press releases that brings more clients through SERP to websites.

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