The past post on optimized press release services described how you can generate traffic on Google within hours. Now, what services should you use?

There are three press release distribution services we’d recommend for great search engine and syndication results. The best choice for you depends on what you want to accomplish, how widespread you want your reach to be and how closely you’re interested in following the statistical fruit of your labors.

Here’s a breakdown, from the least sophisticated and expensive to the most bells and whistles (with highest cost):

PRLOG
Cost: free
Analytics: basic
Distribution: Google News
Site: http://www.prlog.org

This service is the simplest to use and is completely free. You create an account online, fill in the blanks, upload an image or logo and submit it. That’s it. The PRLog.org editors will typically review your press release within two to four hours. If there’s anything they don’t like, they’ll send it back to you to revise. Once they approve your press release, it will go live onto their homepage and people will start reading your article. This service will distribute your press release to Google News and should get picked up by multiple search engines. You’re also allowed three HTML links in the press release body. These are important to build in ways for readers to navigate their way back to your Web site and find more information (or ways to act).

PR.COM
Cost: free & paid services (up to $100 per press release; “High Visibility” membership $199/year; “Maximum Visibility” membership $499/year)
Analytics: basic
Distribution: Google News, MSN news, Ask.com News, Yahoo! News and more
Site: http://www.pr.com

This service is similar. It has both free and paid services that give you various levels of exposure and functionality, depending on how much you want to pay. There are useful features for your money. For various amounts up to $100, they will submit to a number of the major news aggregators. Their paid offerings also include options for social bookmarking and even a professional editorial review. They also cash in on their “Gold” and “Platinum” membership levels, which give you higher placement, better distribution and more visibility.

PRWEB
Cost: paid services only ($80-$360 visibility packages)
Analytics: advanced
Distribution: The Associated Press wire, all major news aggregators
Site: http://www.prweb.com

This service is the “Big Kahuna,” if you will. It’s the one most companies utilize, and it’s strictly a paid service. The most expensive version of a submitted press release gets you all kinds of bells and whistles that are really useful, including submitting your press release onto The Associated Press wire in your region. This can lead to local papers picking up your story and giving you more key publicity. PRWeb also gives you far more advanced analytics that tell you how many people have read your press release, how many people downloaded it as a PDF, where your press release got “picked up” and where people are finding your article (according to a handy geographical Google distribution map mashup). You also have report creation tools.

They break their press release options into four price tiers (Standard Visibility, Social Media Visibility, SEO Visibility and Media Visibility). They also have “special handling” add-ons ($100 a pop) for options such as priority distribution, which will get an editor’s attention right away because you want to get it out there now. In that instance, you’ll see your press release on the Web within an hour. So, if you’ve got something really hot and you want to get it out there and onto Google pronto, you just pay extra for it.

All three press release services have a similar approval process. Meanwhile, Google is checking these sites on a regular basis and picks up the press releases quickly.

We put out a press release for the Bay Area Search Engine Academy in November and went with the most expensive package on PRWeb. We also submitted the press release through PRLog and PR.com. Ultimately, the comprehensive analytics you get with PRWeb made it the most useful service-and allowed us to determine if we were reaching our target Bay Area audience as opposed to readers in New York or Houston.

The important thing is that press release lives out there for a really long time. Our analytics show that people are still reading that article from November, and some of them do click through onto the Bay Area Search Engine Academy Web site. So, it does generate traffic for a lengthy period of time. And if you were to run a search on the actual press release title, you’d see that it has been picked up and syndicated about 1,200 times. So, we submitted it to three services, but we ended up with 1,200 copies of the press release floating out there. That’s a lot of opportunities to find the right readers and a lot of eyes on your story.

If you’re someone who has never done a press release with this purpose in mind (or done a press release at all), just start with the free distribution services. Practice and see what happens. If you’re not getting the results you want, we can help through our Bay Area Search Engine Academy courses. When you have an item that’s really crucial, you can pay PRLog or PRWeb for the more advanced tools and higher visibility.