Press releases used to be a fairly direct SEO tactic: write one, submit it to a wire service, collect a batch of backlinks from syndicated copies scattered across dozens of sites. That direct link-building value has mostly evaporated — most wire services now use nofollow links, and syndicated duplicate copies don't carry the weight they once did. But that doesn't mean press releases are useless. It means their value moved somewhere else.
Where the Value Actually Is Now
What's mostly gone: treating a press release as a link-building tactic in itself, expecting SEO value purely from syndication and submission volume.
What still works: a genuinely newsworthy release, sent to the right outlets, can earn real coverage — and it's that earned coverage, written independently by journalists and industry sites with their own authority, that carries real SEO and visibility value. The press release is the pitch, not the payoff.
When a Press Release Is Actually Worth Writing
- A genuine company milestone: funding, a real product launch, a notable partnership
- Original research or data a journalist could build a story around
- News with a clear local, industry, or timely news hook — not routine business updates dressed up as news
A Simple Framework
- Confirm the news is genuinely newsworthy to someone outside the company, not just internally exciting
- Write it the way a journalist would want to read it — factual, specific, no marketing fluff
- Pitch it directly to relevant journalists and industry publications, not just a mass wire distribution
- Treat any resulting coverage as the real asset — that's what's worth linking to and promoting further
> Tip: If the release wouldn't interest a journalist with no relationship to the company, it's not going to interest one with a relationship to the company either. Genuine newsworthiness is the actual filter, not how the release is written.
Common Mistakes
- Treating routine updates ("we redesigned our website") as newsworthy press releases
- Relying purely on wire service submission instead of direct outreach to relevant journalists
- Expecting significant SEO value from syndicated copies alone
- Writing in obvious marketing language instead of a factual, journalist-friendly tone
The tactic that died was press-release-as-link-farm. What replaced it — a well-targeted release earning genuine, independent coverage — was always the more valuable version anyway; it just requires an actual story worth telling.