100+ Best Free Press Release Submission Sites List: Premium & Subscription Based

A good press release needs to have certain qualities if you want it to be read, let alone covered by journalists. What makes a good press release?

#1: A press release needs to be newsworthy: Think about it from the perspective of a stranger, or a friend or family member. If you are telling them about what you’re writing a press release about, would they be excited? Alright, so a family member might not be the best test case; they might be excited for you despite not understanding a word you said. Still, newsworthiness is incredibly important.

#2: A press release needs to use your relevant target keywords: Press releases are one of the few areas where keyword density matters, where you can at least think about inserting them more than your usual blog post. After all, you want people to grasp what your company does and what your announcement is about, so they don’t have to go digging to find a topic. Avoid overly-stuffed paragraphs, of course; those just don’t sound natural enough. Humans are reading these, after all.

#3: A press release should have relevant links with good anchor text: Don’t use a typical “click here” anchor, you need something targeted to tell people exactly what the link is for.

Unlike blog posts or guest posts, every link you include in a press release should lead back to your site. They’re one of the few kinds of content you can circulate that is entirely self-promotional, and expected to be. Link to your homepage with a link about who you are, link to your landing page for your new product or service, and perhaps link to one flagship piece of content when discussing why it’s relevant. Beyond that, you shouldn’t need more links.

#4: A press release should include media if allowed: Some press release distributors prefer to just promote text, while others will allow posts with media in them. If you find that a lot of the sites you want to use don’t want you to add media, you can include a link to a “press kit” that contains your sanctioned media.

#5: A press release should be written formally: These are essentially professional disclosures of information, not casual, brand-building blog posts. You’re also writing for people who might not know your industry, so minimize industry jargon advanced assumptions, or data. If you need to reference specific statistics, link to a case study analysis in plain English that supports your point. In all cases, you should be writing in the third person.