It may sound like an ideal for your business and your budget: the free online press release site. But in truth, these sites carry a number of hidden costs. And their costs can seriously undermine your bottom line.

Once you’ve written your online press release, you’ll want to distribute it effectively. You can use a paid service, a free service, or other combinations.

Now the purpose of this article is to examine free press release sites-and more importantly -to realize that free doesn’t always mean no-cost. As a ongoing user of online press releases, consider me amazed, even dumbfounded when a new blog post or tweet surfaces with a BIG list of free online press release sites.

So I wondered, am I missing something? Only one way to find out – dig in and do some due diligence. Curious about what I discovered? Well, my search turned up more questions than answers.

A sampling: first, where’s the context? Do I submit an online press release to all those sites? Some of those sites? Which free press release sites do better with the media? Is there software available that will mass submit to those sites? How do free online press release sites perform vs. paid sites? What metrics do these sites provide or am I on my own in determining the release’s success or lack thereof?

Yes, my mind was whirring with questions each in search of answers. Here’s the challenge: most of my experience is with paid press release sites and newswires. Of course, some of you reading this now have limited experience in online press release distribution either free or paid.

So consider this foray into the free press release world an educational experience for both of us. And with that in mind…

Presenting 5 Hidden Costs of Free Press Release Sites

1. Extra time investment
Time is money. When you pay to distribute online press releases you can often rely on just one service, especially if you use big, established newswires like PR Newswire, BusinessWire and Marketwire. Even PRWeb can provide enough coverage to justify just using a single provider.

However, those newswires are often not budget-friendly, especially for small businesses. So it’s only natural to turn to lower cost or even free press release sites. A common practice is to submit to multiple free sites.

So instead of using one provider now you’re using several. Each press release site has its own interface, its own unique requirements, its own nuances, upgrades, etc. Now there are software tools that mass submit to these free sites. I’ll be testing different software programs and report my results.

WARNING: free press release sites often require more advance notice and planning. That’s because many free press release sites have limited editorial desk/customer service hours, often requiring you submit your online press release 48 hours in advance.

Takeaway: is the extra time you’re spending on increased labor worth what you’re saving by going the free route? With some economical press release sites, we’re talking anywhere from $20 – $100 for more robust performance results.

2. Online exposure and visibility

One reason to use multiple free online press release sites is that you can’t rely on a single free press release site to deliver the typical coverage and exposure you receive from a paid site. Granted, you can increase visibility by paying to upgrade (see #3) but then that’s not a free press release site and it is costing you, right?

Even with the upgrades, I’m not convinced you’ll duplicate the exposure you’ll receive from the quality paid press release sites.

So how do you know what kind of online visibility to expect? One performance factor is the level of penetration in Google News and Yahoo! News. Such exposure is impacted by the following factors:

1. Quantity of releases submitted. That’s one reason why PRnewswire typically has the greatest number, simply because that’s the preferred choice of many companies and PR companies.

2. Quality. Search engines give preferred treatment to more established newswires and press release sites.

3. Syndication/aggregation. Some press release sites (PR-Inside.com for example) often pick up newsfeeds from other newswires and press release sites.

If you’re considering using a free press release site, do a quick search in the news search engines and see what exposure that press release site is getting. Just search site: (insert press release site URL). If you don’t see a lot of listings, I’d go with a newswire that has more activity and better search engine penetration.

Takeaway: Again, there is a time component, since you’ll need to submit to multiple free sites to get the exposure you’d receive from one of the paid sites.

3. Upgrades = extra cost
Now this is an area that gets right to the bottom line. How do free press release sites stay in business? Well, advertising revenue is one way. Another is an upgrade fee.

Here’s the rub: just about anything extra is an upgrade. Even worse, the upgrades are not consistent from site to site. You’ll need to invest some time just familiarizing yourself with the various upgrades, if they’re worth the investment and how that impacts your marketing budget.

In fact, in a review of about 15 different free press release sites, I counted 25 different upgrades. Here’s a sample:

1. Speed of approval
2. Speed of distribution
3. Higher placement on page (above free listings)
4. Preferred/showcased listing
5. Distribution: more sites
6. Other/social media
7. More industry categories
8. Placement in additional newsfeeds
9. More words
10. Formatting: bold / italic text
11. Archiving
12. Media Attachments: images, video, pdf, mp2
13. Ad-free page

Takeaway: free sometimes costs money, especially for features and functionality that are already bundled in with paid newswires. Again, compare and contrast. Ordering numerous upgrades ala carte may end up costing more than a paid newswire that includes several at one fixed price.

To be clear, I’m not 100% anti-upgrade. Yet, in the spirit of transparency, we are talking free vs. paid. So freebie seeker and buyer beware.

4. Performance metrics/course correcting
At a high level, you can view online press release metrics in two camps: external and internal. External includes search engine performance, keyword ranking, press release views/downloads and backlinks. Internal refers to how that traffic shows up to your website: visitors, conversions, etc.

Many of the paid press release sites provide helpful website stats. (Although I find the “number of reads” stat suspect. These are not human eyeballs, often it’s a site that receives a press release constitutes as a read. )

Still, if you use the same press release sites consistently, key benchmarks begin to emerge. For example, when I use PRWeb, I consider a number of reads plus headline impressions of 75,000 a good indicator of decent exposure.

Takeaway: with free press release sites, performance metrics range from sketchy to non-existent. Many free and even paid providers offer more robust metrics for-you guessed it – an upgrade.

Another takeaway: there’s an old saying “you can’t improve what you can’t measure.” Because of the limited nature of free press release metrics, you gain less market knowledge and insights that you can funnel into future releases, thus improving performance over the long term.

5. Staying power
One of my most effective online PR strategies is creating evergreen content somewhere in the press release. That way, when the release is found via a keyword search, there is content still deemed relevant to the user.

Whether it be from my own experience or that of my clients and customers, there has been a consistent phenomenon: when journalists are performing research for a story, they turn to the same place we do for information: the search engines. In so doing, it’s possible to get media coverage days, weeks, months, even years after your release was originally submitted. (Assuming you optimized the online press release correctly.)

Your goal should be to increase the ranking of your online press release via keyword searches. The higher the rank, the more likely journalists will discover your release. By and large, the big winners in keyword searches are the more established newswires. As a result, an online press release posted on a free press release site may rank lower and not on the first page.

With Online PR, using free press release sites can certainly be tempting, especially if you’re trying to cut costs. But it’s important to keep in mind: you get what you pay for. A free press release site may, by itself, deliver less than you expect.

Author Bio: Got PR 2.0? Visit http://www.30minutepr.com for the latest Online PR tips, trends, tools and techniques – on a time budget. Marc Harty is an Online PR expert, professional speaker, Internet marketing strategist and CEO of MainTopic Media, Inc.

Category: Marketing
Keywords: marketing,online pr,web pr,internet pr,publicity,branding,public relations,pr