How do I get a press release listed in Google News Options

[ukdaz]

A client came to me saying that he had heard from a "friend" that there is a way to get Google News to list a company's commercial press releases.

Is this true?

If so how do I do this? I thought Google News picked up from newsfeeds such as Reuters etc etc.

If there is a technique here I would be interested (as I am sure others would) to know! 8)

Thanks

Daz

[kensplace]

www.prweb.com can do free press releases, and I am pretty sure they do a paid service that will get the press release into google news.

[whitemark]

Found the following resources:

Basically they all say the same thing - optimize your press release the usual way for Google - keyword in title, keywords in the text. Submit it so that it gets syndicated by Google News and others.

\"Learning how to write a press release for Google News is a five-step process that can be taught in a half-day public relations workshop. So, why haven't more public relations firms and departments seized this opportunity?\"

[Source: How To Write A Press Release For Google News ]

\"...  the trick is to give the release to a source that is syndicated by Google News. For example, if you get your press release into PR Newswire, then you can expect your press release to be found in Google News, since Google syndicates PR Newswire.\"

[Source: Getting into Google News ]

\" ... The key is to optimize your press release's title (include you keywords if you can) and then write your press release so that it includes as many variations of those keywords as possible without going overboard.

PRweb is a great place to start, but you will also want to get more coverage by submitting to the wires like Business Wire and PRNewswire, as well. Try some searches in the Google News and Yahoo! News areas for you topic and contact the reporters or news agencies directly to see if they are interested in your press release, as well.\"

[Source: Optimising press releases - You'll need to scroll down a bit ]

\"... I spent $100 on a PRweb release and man did it ever pay for itself..  

Note that you can use their service for free and still get a respectable amount of coverage; if you write a good release it will increase your chances of being picked up by the different news aggregators.\"

[Source: Getting a press release into google news ]

(Relevant extract from the page)

\"So how do you get into Google news? Press releases, articles about your company on sites that have a Google news feed, or your own news site with a Google news feed.

... Tip 2: Get your butt into Froogle and Google News. I didn't get the impression that they're booming the way Google web search booms, but results from both properties appear, when relevant, at the top of the web results page. I've personally seen traffic-doubling results for a news site that found its way into the Google news feed.\"

[Source: Peeking Into Google's Mind ]

[Update: Added a few more interesting tidbits. (Its amazing how even the addition / ommision of a single word can give different results on Google.)]

[bragadocchio]

Nice post, whitemark,

I have a suggestion to add.

The timing of when you send out a press release can be very important, too. If at all possible, try to send yours out so that it gets submitted into Google news in the morning, rather than the evening, in the area where your largest targeted audience might reside.

Chances are very good that it will get many more views that way. Google news can cycle through stories pretty quickly and a lot of people "sort by date".

[whitemark]

Thanks bragadocchio. Also, a very useful and important tip you gave there. I can imagine people sitting for hours together optimising their press releases and finally after releasing it wonder why they don't get any traffic from it, all because of the wrong timing.

[AainaalyaA]

This thread should get a RED STAR! Very resourceful. And thank you for sharing.

[ukdaz]

Wow!

Thanks for the advice there guys.

I'm on hols from this afternoon for 2 weeks and I will be unlikely to get close to a PC or the internet (g/friend will kill me if I do!)

I'll recheck this thread when I get back and let you know how I get with getting Press Releases into Google News

TTFN

Daz

[pressd]

We are syndicated to Google News and provide targeted press release distribution in the UK. But, as less of a shameless plug :roll: and more helpful to this thread, we have useful advice articles on press releases at http://www.pressdispensary.co.uk/services/advice.html

[pressd]

And now Yahoo! News http://tinyurl.com/3z23y

Looking at the site stats, Google News provides about 15% more hits than Yahoo! News - which I found surprising, thought it would be more.

[hungryfish]

PRWEB & SEO-PR have formed a strategic partnership offering you a comprehensive set of search engine promotion services. SEO-PR’s experts have both the PR experience and SEO skills to optimize news releases for news search engines. PR Web’s long term success with its technologies and infrastructure qualifies as the only newswire service that guarantees inclusion of your news release in major search engines.

[bragadocchio]

Hi Hungryfish,

That's the first paragraph (word-for-word) from the front page of th SEO-PR web site dated almost a year ago, today.

It doesn't look like that whole page has been updated since then, which is actually a little frightening to me, when it comes to an organization that wants to help with press releases.

[Grumpus]

Glad this came back up. I'm prepared to share with you how to get listed in Google news - with press releases or just generally newsworthy things.

1) Get a News/Press Release Area on your site. A basic CMS or a blog will do the trick nicely.

2) Make sure you're adding something AT LEAST once a week - daily is best. If you only put out quarterly press releases, this isn't going to work as well. (TIP: If you don't have a lot of news to report on a regular basis, invest in some sort of way to post RSS feed data into your news section - then find some decent and relevant RSS feeds and have them update daily).

3) Put Adsense on your news page(s). When you create a new page (or drastically alter content) the Adsense code senses this and sends the AdCrawler to come see what your page is about. (You'll notice that if it's a new page, you'll get a PSA ad the first time you load it. Wait 5 minutes and then there will be relevant ads there). Before I had Adsense on my site that has a news feed, the newsbot would come by daily at random times to have a brief look around. Once I put adsense on, NewsBot was there grabbing my new information within 10-15 minutes of first loading the page.

4) Once you have some content in your News Area, ask Google to include it. Go to the "News Contact" page, select "I'd like to suggest a news source" and fill out the form. Be honest, and mention how frequently you update it, the general topic of your news, and so on. This is the ONLY way I know of to get listed in Google News unless you are syndicated by someone already in there. If you don't tell 'em it's news, they won't know. And make sure you've got some news that they feel will be worthy of indexing. It's rather like getting a DMOZ listing - if the quality isn't there, they won't list you and if you aren't listed, nothing I've written here is worth a halfpenny.

5) Timing is Everything: If your news is in an area or covers a "breaking story" where you're going to have lots of competition, "how long ago" is a key ranking criteria. 6:00am ET seems to work well for the US. If it's not in a "hot" area, timing won't matter as much - but then again, you won't get as much traffic, either. I've had my movie reveiws from Rock-n-Reel appear on the front page of Google news - if only for a half hour or so based upon good timing. This will generate a few dozen or more hits during that half hour - though I'm in the entertainment sector - if you can do it in business and other "morning heat" areas, you'll probably get more.

6) Make sure there's a decent amount of text in your articles.

7) When you post an article, make sure you load the "permanent" location of that article as well as your front news page. This'll trip the adsense monitor which, in turn, will send the newsbot.

G.

[ukdaz]

Bloody hell mate! 8)

The value of this post is amazing - I for one am very grateful.

Grumpus thank you so much for sharing.

CHEERS

Daz

[pressd]

optimize news releases for news search engines.

I was reading about the above topic recently. In my opinion, there's a fine line between key wording a press release for SEO and compromising on the style and quality of the resulting copy. I'd be interested to hear how the same might apply when adding key words/phases to web pages.

If you're distributing press releases in the US, this is most likely done via the newswires. To reach the correct publications and journalists, distribution in the UK is mostly done via email. The emails should be individually addressed to each journalist and sent in plain text format without attachments. If the journalist thinks they’ve been individually targeted, rather than just BCCd, this creates a more personalised feel and is likely to achieve a better result.

How you approach press release writing and distribution depends on what you're looking to achieve. If the intention is just to drive traffic to a site, then key wording a release and issuing it to a major distribution point should provide the results you're after. If, however, the purpose of your announcement is to create awareness amongst the press, raise the profile of your company and produce actual coverage, then I'd consider to how the media is being targeted and the source of your announcement. Remember that releases remain online and searchable for a considerable time. I'd also recommend finding a distributor that won’t just syndicate content without vetting it first, and which the media considers to be a reliable and credible source.

the only newswire service that guarantees inclusion of your news release in major search engines.\" 

Oh I didn't know that. Our releases appear simply because our site is spidered and the major news search engines accept our feed. I see no reason why we shouldn't offer the same guarantee and will look into it. Thanks for pointing that out.

[toprank]

A talented writer should be able to incorporate keywords into the release as well as satisfy any creative requirements for a compelling read.

The source of the release is indeed an issue as PRweb has been promoted quite heavily and has very liberal/loose editorial guidelines.

pressd makes a good point. The objective of the release should guide how aggressive you are at "optimizing" the release and what newswire service you use. PRweb is great for building links, and only so so at getting actual press coverage. PR Newswire and Business Wire are two other "traditional" news wire services.

If you want media coverage, then do some homework to identify target publications and their editorial calendars. Send journalists personal emails/pitches on your story. Be succinct and include a url to the full release. It doesn't hurt to have an online media kit either.

Keep in mind, that journalists receive an abundance of emailed press releases every day. A very high number of journalists, writers, bloggers, etc search News search engines (Google News, Yahoo News, MSNBC Newsbot as well as Topix.net and syndication via Moreover.com) when researching stories. So visibility on News search engines from a keyword standpoint does support the effort to gain editorial coverage, at least indirectly.

Another quick way into Google news is to write articles and submit them to publications that are already getting picked up by Google newsbot on a daily basis.

If you publish frequent news and articles, by all means, follow the suggestions made by Grumpus above and request Google to add your site as a news source. Keep in mind, Google News wants you to have an "editorial review process" and more than one person writing content. They rarely include sites that only republish news from other sources any more. If you get in, Google Newsbot will hit your site multiple times per day.

[AbleReach]

This forum continues to amaze me!!
You guys know, ask or find the most useful, interesting stuff!


Elizabeth

[pressd]

If you're considering doing your own press release, we have the following advice articles available at http://www.pressdispensary.co.uk/services/advice.html

Tips on writing a press release
Tips on when to issue a press release
Tips on liaising with journalists

Hope it helps!

[hungryfish]

You are right Bill, The post was meant to be Factual. Also Pr-Web has a way to rank the releases before distribution. A 1-5 score only 4,5 will be submitted to G,Y news. I had a release a year ago that was in the top 5 for the day, after a week 48,000 journalists picked it up....pretty cool . We also have found that a minimum of an $80 contribution really helps.

jb

[norbiu]

Google usually adds my headlines in the news section in 15 minutes tops, but I have a problem with msn and yahoo news ...

I recommended my site to yahoo and msn 3 times already. I wrote an email to the tech section over on msn. they haven't even answered.
Yahoo did, but just to tell me something completely different.

I remember when I wrote to Google about suggesting my news source. 3 days later I got a reply.

My opinion is that it's much harder to get into yahoo/msn than google. Do you guys know any tips on doing this ?

Thanks a lot !

[AbleReach]

One word - wow!

And a few more -- all in one thread, too!!


Elizabeth