Tips for Submitting Your Press Release to Free Press Release Distribution Services

Before you can submit a press release for free distribution, you must of course write a press release.

Here's the thing about writing press releases - it's faster than writing articles or hubs. And they don't need to be very long. Back in the day when press releases were submitted by fax, the rule was to keep your press release to one printed page, two absolute max. Nowadays, you can write longer press releases, but no one says you have to - 300 words is just fine.

So how do you write a press release? Well, first of all, if you want your press releases to get better online exposure, do a little keyword research.

In researching this hub, for example, I found that targeting the term "software for press releases" would be much easier to rank for than "press release software." In fact, not only would it be easier to rank for the first term, there are actually more searches per month for that keyword.

You see, a good keyword research tool will not only show you how many people search for a certain term, but it will also show you what kind of competition there is for that term. Generally speaking, the lower the competition, the greater the monthly searches, the better.

That way, your press releases have a fighting chance of showing up on page one of Google - and often within minutes or hours of submission.

Lost yet? No? Great - let's keep going.

Writing a press release is simple and formulaic. All you need is a title, a summary, four paragraphs, and a line that tells the reader where to get more information with a link to your site or hub.

The thing to keep in mind, you want your press release to be newsworthy - something that a member of the press would want to turn into a story. So your audience is journalists, not the general web audience.

Your title should have your main keywords in it, and it should be written in a way that announces some sort of news item. It can announce a new product, website, or some bit of information you have recently published.

The press release summary expands upon the title. Again, it's good place to put some keywords and synonyms of your main keyword.

The first paragraph gives the general who's, what's, when's, and how's of your announcement.

The second paragraph can be a quote - and it's fine to quote yourself. You might tell what the main idea is of what you're announcing and why you created the website, product, blog post, or what have you.

The third paragraph expands on the product or service that is being written about.

And the fourth paragraph is yet another quote.

Then, you add a line like "For more information, visit," and add a URL. Many free press release distribution services will create a live link from your URL. This will help get your URL indexed quickly by the search engines, create backlinks, and bring traffic to your page.

There are many sites that will distribute your press release for you for free.

One such free press release distribution site is prlog.org. As far as free press release distribution sites are concerned, prlog.org is the best. All you need to do is create a free account, create a "pressroom," which is like a profile, and submit your press release. Your press release will be published almost instantly.

There are many other free press release distribution sites, too. Some require registration, but others allow you to post your press releases without setting up an account.

I use PressBot to submit my press releases to 20 free press release distribution sites. It's a great little piece of software, and very inexpensive.

One thing I really like about PressBot is this: Using basic spinning syntax, you can easily submit press releases with unique content to each of the different distribution sites. That means, with very little extra effort, each press release has a better chance of showing up in the search engine results pages, as well as give you a backlink.

Going about it this way, submitting your press releases for free distribution has never been easier or more effective!