Online Business

The internet has become increasingly crowded as of late - according to somewhat recent statistics compiled by boutell.com; there were an estimated 29.7 billion web pages online as of February 2007 - over four times the world's population! Because the number of web pages online increases every minute of every day, this means that online business owners have their work cut out for them when it comes to promoting their website and securing top rankings. Competition online is fierce and only savvy internet business owners can hope to survive this day and age.

One method of website promotion, often overlooked by internet business owners, is press release services. Press release (PR) services, while not meant to be a stand-alone website promotion method, hold a number of benefits that can improve a website's visibility and may be able to help increase a website's rankings. We will explore just a few of the benefits of press release services for today's online business owners. However, first we will briefly cover the differences between an online press releases and traditional press release services.

Online press release vs. traditional press release services
Traditional press releases offer a number of benefits, though their ability to affect a website's visibility and rankings are hit and miss. Traditional press release services rely on submission of a news story to journalists, reporters and other "for print" media outlets where the news stories can be spun, and published by these journalists in their newspapers or through their online distribution channels.

Online press releases rely on submission to prominent press release and news-focused websites. While it is possible that journalists and reporters will pick up an online press release and "spin" it, this is not something that should be counted on. Rather the benefits through online PR distribution come through direct links to your website within the press release.

Benefits of online PR services
Online PR services can have a number of benefits, mostly depending on the channels where the press release is distributed. However, some frequent benefits of press release submission services include:

1. Increased visibility in search engines
2. Increased link popularity
3. Increased "crawling" of your website by search engine robots
4. Can speed up discovery of a brand new website by search engines
5. Can help with branding, either reinforcing a brand name or defending it
6. Have the ability to reach targeted parties directly, rather than relying on news locations to spread the word
7. Can increase natural search engine traffic to a website
8. Can offer both a short-term and long-term rankings boost in search engines
   

Press release services are an affordable option for website owners looking to boost their website's visibility and help with search engine optimization (SEO). While press release services should not be used as the only marketing and optimization tactic by website owners today, this one-time service offers a great number of benefits for internet business owners who are looking to increase the visibility of their products or services online.