Press releases are not advertisements, but promotional tools.

The main reason for using them is to create “buzz”, announce new product offerings and generate quick streams of traffic as I mentioned to you in the earlier paragraph.

The power of a press release rests on two things:

1.    Press releases are syndicated content, which means wide distribution for your message.

2.    Search engines love them.

Depending on which distribution service you use, and whether you pay the fee for premium distribution, your press release can end up on seriously high traffic sites. Think CNN, Google and Yahoo news, Wired.com, AOL, NBC…you get the idea.

So instead of you having to spread the word about your business alone, you are recruiting the help of media sources such as those listed previously, to do all the “grunt work” for you.

Even at the free level of distribution, you’ll still reach the thousands of sites that subscribe to the pr service’s newsfeed.

Search engines tend to be fond of press releases as well. If you optimize the release for your target keywords (provided those keywords are of the less competitive variety) you can sneak into the top ten on Google almost overnight.

You’ll need to learn the art of writing a good press release though. It’s not the same as writing an article or an advertisement.

There are certain journalistic standards you must adhere to, as well as a speci