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As part of their effort to move online, many marketers have jumped on the internet press release distribution networks and learned to use them quite well. The most famous of these is PRWeb, an innovative, web savvy service with which all public relations people should already be familiar.

There are many other online news wires, as well. On her Naked PR blog,  Jennifer Matten provides a Big List of Free Press Release Distribution Sites here. Steve Mullen gives his evaluations of some of the more popular online news services on his blog Media Relations and SEO PR .

However, don’t just send your news out to these wire services and consider the job done. There are other ways to make your media distribution rock.

Look for websites relevant to your business that will accept press releases directly from you. Sites like these crave news stories (not sales copy) pertinent to their locations and topics. Study them and send them the type of news they usually publish. Here are a few examples:

• Michigan Business Directory - News about Michigan businesses
• Philadelphia Magazine - Lifestyle magazine for the Philly area
• Lake Tahoe Visitor’s Authority - Information for tourists to Lake Tahoe

I haven’t yet found a consistent formula for finding these types of websites. I just keep my eyes open and bookmark them as I stumble across them.

Using Google for Media Research

Today, nearly every newspaper, radio station and TV station has a website- even smaller local ones. Feed them your news! This applies to media in both your own location and the media that serves your feeder markets.

Use Google to identify the media outlets that have strong online rankings and are most likely to appear high in the search results. Search for your location and your location+keyword in Google News and see what pops up in the results.

For example, a recent query for hilton head in Google News showed 7 stories from the Hilton Head Island Packet in the first 10 results. If I have news pertinent to this location, I definitely want to get it into their hands. There’s also a people story on WSAV-TV listed and entertainment news about a concert on Hilton Head Island from ConnectSavannah.com. I’ll keep my eye on those two, as well.

Then, I tried a query for golf hilton head and found the Island Packet again, along with some sites that probably aren’t really relevant to my business or very interested in Hilton Head. However, I do see TravelGolf.com, Golf Vacation Insider and Cybergolf National. These are worth checking out further to see if my news is something they might be interested in, as well as whether or not I can submit it to them directly.

Next, I go over to Google web search and ask for hilton head news and hilton head golf news. For the former, the Island Packet ranks 1 and number 2, along with 8 site links. It’s definitely earned a top spot on my distribution list! I also see WSAV-TV again, with 2 listings-another powerhouse for this area.

Some new players emerge from the last search, as well. HelloHiltonHead.com and the Hilton Head page for Topix.com appear in the results, two locally focused sites that I’ll check for submission possibilities. The Island Times Newspaper (based out of Hilton Head) and The Beaufort Gazette (published in a neighboring town) have positions on the first page of the results. It only takes a few minutes to add them to my email distribution list. I follow the same pattern with my hilton head golf news search and with a few more targeted keywords that aim at niches relevant to this business.

Now I know what news sources Google feels are important to this location and type of business,  and can place them on my media list with confidence. I’ll look in the website tracker and identify the locations where most of the site visitors come from and repeat my research for those locations. The larger the percentage of visitors coming from a specific area, the more time I’m willing to devote to this type of research. I also keep in mind that I can use the information I uncover over and over again throughout the year, as I build buzz, traffic and links to the website with press releases.

Other Resources

The websites below provide you with lists of media. However, they give you just about everything, without any regard to if and how well they may rank in Google. This makes them somewhat less useful to me as an SEO, but they can still be very valuable for getting attention for your business and visitors to your website.

Bachelor Media maintains a free online data base of media outlets classified by state.

Mondo Times’ tagline is “Find newspapers, magazines, radio and TV worldwide”. They sell contact information for the media at various membership levels and the more contacts you buy, the cheaper they are. A single contact runs about $8 and if you order 100, the price goes down to about 80 cents each. However, a free membership will get you lists of links that take you to specific websites, where you can dig around and find the contact information yourself.

Easy Media List is another place for quick answers about who does what and where. In addition to being able to specify the media you want by location, you may also do so by niche, such as golf, winter sports, travel and affluent lifestyles. For a fee, users can quickly create massive lists of media contacts that include email addresses , phone numbers, etc.

MediaPost maintains a media directory on their site, along with tools, social networking and more. Registration is cumbersome (but free) and gives you access to good sortable lists of media that include email addresses.

Whether you pay for media contact information or do the research yourself depends on whether you have more money or more time and what value the lists will have for you once they’re compiled.

By all means begin your media distribution list with PRWeb and at least a few of the other online newswires. Just don’t make the mistake of stopping there. Make certain you’re getting your news out to the websites, newspapers, magazines, radio stations and TV stations (including cable stations) that may be interested in sharing information about your with their audiences. You’ll get more attention, more links and more traffic for your website and your business.

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