Case Studies: How to Get Traffic

When done correctly, a press release can provide thousands of visitors to your site in a very short period of time. However, if you don’t understand how to optimize your press release for Google News, there’s a chance you won’t see any visitors at all.

90% of all the traffic to PRunderground press releases, comes from Google News. But unlike regular Google search, Google News only keeps articles indexed for 30 days, after that they’re removed. So it’s not SEO that’s going to bring you instant traffic from a press release, it’s the subject of your press release (SEO is still good as a long term plan in regular Google search).

Below are two press releases that used Google News to their advantage. Both used a news angle that was not only a popular hot trend keyword, but their news was relevant to their business/site. Keep in mind that basing a press release around a hot trend keyword that has nothing to do with your business, is a great way to get your press release rejected.

Study One: Octagon Global Recruiting National Recruitment Drive Will be in San Diego

Fans of ABC’s popular television series LOST might recognize this press release. During the 2008 season finale, a commercial for “Octagon Global Recruiting” appeared during a 30 second spot. The commercial promoted a fake Web site, designed by ABC to promote LOST and the 2008 Comic-Con.

The day before the commercial aired, ABC submitted the press release as a way to help people who searched Google News find their site.

The strategy worked. Immediately following the end of the commercial, the fans of the show started searching for news on “Octagon Global Recruiting”. As the first (and only) result in Google News for the search term, the PRunderground press release provided the fans with an easy way to find the site. In less than one hour, the release managed to receive more than 17,000 views.

The following day traffic naturally died off, because the commercial never aired again. However, thanks to the PRunderground press release, ABC managed to get nearly 100% of the Google News traffic (searching for information on the “company”) to read what they had to say . . . ultimately leading to about 25,000 additional visitors clicking through to their site.

Study Two: Samsung Instinct Releases June 20

While they might not have the backing of a national television network, the people who issued this press release knew how to use a hot trend keyword to their advantage. Submitted 15 days before the launch of the Samsung Instinct, a new cell phone from Sprint, this release capitalized on the fact that a ton of people would be looking for news on the phone.

The press release had a lot of competition in Google News, but it still managed to stay in the top three for more than three days. As you can see from the graph below, the release had more than 500 views in the first 24 hours and has maintained at least 200 views since it went live (the graph shows fewer views for June 9th, because that’s the day we took the screenshot and the day had not finished yet).

Just think how much free traffic this site could get if they put out a similar press release every time a new Samsung phone was about to be released.

Conclusion

As you can see from the two examples above, a PRunderground press release can be a wonderful way to increase your traffic. By basing your press release on a newsworthy topic, you can literally gain thousands of visitors overnight.

However, a word of warning. Trying to draw people in by using a hot topic, which has no relation to your business, will only get your press release rejected. Try to think outside of the box. Hot trends is a good place to start.

Put yourself in the place of a Google News user. . .are they searching for information on your site specifically? Probably not. Do you care about some guy’s new Web site that sells Samsung products? Nope. However, if you care about a hot new phone about to be released, you’ll definitely care what’s on that site if you find it via an announcement like the one above.