Editor's blog

The week beginning April 19, 2009 saw the publication of a mobile-friendly version of Press Release 001 at m.pressrelease001.com.

This satellite website will feature all press releases published on the frontpage of the parent body rather than mirroring all the contents.

Public relations - from which the use of the press release sprang - is constantly modifying its strategy to meet economic and cultural changes.

One of the biggest economic and cultural changes over the last 10 or 15 years is the spread of the World Wide Web, and public relations is in a continuous state of flux to meet the new demands and opportunities as presented by the net.

There are a number of items posted on Squidoo that will give you ideas and guidance on best practice when it comes to writing a press release.

They are, in no particular order:

How to Write a Successful Press Release

I was listening to a recent edition of the often excellent For Immediate Release in which they were discussing PR as spam.

Basically, this means the use of PR that borders on annoying irritation and that ends up in the bin rather than leading to results and coverage.

1. It is the only site - bar one other - that allows users to tag and create their own categories as opposed to merely picking from a list that the website owner has created.

2. It is the only site that allows users to use their own anchor text in the link to their website.

3. It is the only site that allows users to create their own meta keywords and description content.

The Who, What, When, Where, Why of a press release

Who should write a press release?

Once you've published your press release make at least one link to the item. Preferably, a good quality link from your own site, but failing create a link from onm of the social bookmarking websites.

The more links that you find pointing to your published press release, the more it will help in its search engine rankings.

Several years ago, when I was working for an agency, I was fired from an account. What that means is the client didn't want me writing for him anymore.

Another writer, a friend of mine, got the account and life went on.

Check out the article entitled Using Free Press Release Distribution Services at GoArticle.

Today there are scores of free press release distribution websites. They are an effective way of reaching new customers as well as gaining some important backlinks in the process.

But there are thousands of press releases being published across the internet in any one day, so what can you do to effectively make sure your item stands out from the crowd?