The ins and outs of newswires

Newswires give you massive reach when you’re distributing your news, and can be particularly useful to those with restricted PR budgets. Here are some tips and insights…

Choosing a newswire
Only use newswires that carry high quality content – strong editorial controls need to be in place (verifying your identity, checking and providing feedback on your news release prior to sending, etc.).

Some simply churn out large volumes of uncontrolled gunk masquerading as news – they’re best avoided because it’s highly likely journalists will be giving them a wide berth too.

Before you use any newswire service, take time to understand how it works, and how releases and associated links are syndicated, so you can identify and evaluate any potential issues, including SEO risks…

Newswires and SEO
SEO companies have been heavy users of newswires from day one. Unfortunately, many have been short-termist and unwise, churning out poor-quality news releases with over-optimized backlinks.

These SEOs have focused on the benefits gained directly from backlinks embedded in the news releases, failing to deliver the powerful results achieved when journalists pick up newsworthy releases. Now that Google has come along with its Panda and Penguin algorithm changes, this approach can even attract penalties.

How could you attract a penalty? Well, If your news release is being syndicated across many websites by a newswire, there are potential problems with duplicate content and over-optimized backlinks.

Also, you could experience serious issues if your original news release is syndicated onto poor quality websites. Our SEO experts can provide you with additional information.

How do we do it?
Here at the Word Waiter we work with a shortlist of heavily researched newswires, tested from both the journalist pick-up and SEO angles. Our PR team knows exactly how news releases will be syndicated, and we backlink to domain names only, currently avoiding the use of keyword-containing backlinks.

Most importantly of all, we make sure our news releases are newsworthy, ensuring clients pick up the attention they deserve via media outlets, while benefiting from valuable third-party backlinks from quality websites.

UPDATE: Google has recommended news releases should only include nofollow backlinks: https://www.wordwaiter.com/blog/about/online-press-releases-seo-advice/

Contact the Word Waiter today to find out more…

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