100's of Branded Backlinks for $0.19 Each

For the second Digital Surfer Insights email, I’m covering how one DIY press release got me 261+ branded backlinks for just under $50.

Each branded link cost me $0.19! 🤑 

In the first Insights email, I discussed getting branded backlinks using Featured.com. Today gets us even more branded links with digital press releases through EIN Presswire. As a reminder:

To get these branded links, we create and distribute press releases to journalists in the hopes of acquiring backlinks from high domain authority news sites to specific pages, usually the homepage.

A digital press release is a digital/online version of a traditional press release that shares news about a brand, product, service, or event.

Here’s what the general process looks like:

1. Create an engaging, link-worthy piece of content on your site (optional)

2. Create a press release highlighting the content or news about your brand

3. Send the press release to media outlets and journalists through the newswire (EIN Presswire’s in this case)

4. Media outlets will reprint the press release and/or write about the content

5. You get backlinks!

You may have noticed how I added “optional” in Step 1 of the process. That’s because this isn’t the “Digital PR” (Public Relations) type of content where you’re necessarily doing personalized outreach to journalists for - even though you should if you do Step 1.

If you skip Step 1, you just need to create a press release about something newsworthy.

Here’s an example of a standard digital press release:

Here are the links this press release got the brand:

1. ‘speaker’ (in image) - Goes to a “Speaking” page to hire the author for speaking engagements.

2. ‘book’ (in image) - Goes to a completely different(!) book called “Bouncing Back.”

3. ‘Connect’ - Further down the press release, this link goes to the author’s LinkedIn page.

4. Social Links - At the bottom of the press release, there are links to the author’s Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, X, and YouTube pages.

Each EIN Presswire press release allows for three custom links and 6+ slots for social media pages.

By the way, EIN Presswire’s site is a DR 84 and DA 69. You’ll also get multiple links from their subdomains that go into specific territories and industries.

Yep, a publishing company announcing that there’s going to be an update to the book.

That reminds me, I should’ve done a press release for updating the Topical Maps Unlocked 2.0 course AND when TMU 2.0 was released 😔 

Backlinks and brand awareness are the two main things that you get. It’s not a magic bullet for any digital marketing or SEO strategies, but if you have something that’s hot, it can dominate and really get your brand top-of-mind for a news cycle or longer.

So what do you get with press releases?

1. Hundreds of links (branded and non) from high domain authority news sites - 261+ with EIN Presswire

2. Potential for premium journalists and media outlets to cover your news

3. Chance to add well-known brands to your homepage’s “Featured On” section

The reason you get hundreds of links is because they’re syndicated through newswires. When a press release is sent out, all these news sites will put it on their site as-is or sometimes edit it. Some news sites will even remove links, but not many do that.

Syndication is why you get a lot of the local TV station affiliates for major networks like CBS and NBC. These are all high DA sites. That’s how the DFY press release services say they’ll get you hundreds of links and charge $$$.

Now, there are more premium sites like Yahoo Finance and Business Insider. They don’t syndicate EIN Presswire press releases because EIN releases don’t meet SEC requirements for publicly traded companies.

Only 2-3 press release platforms actually have their press releases syndicated through Yahoo and Business Insider like GlobeNewswire and PR Newswire. You can also get exposure through even better outlets as long as you’re willing to pay more.

Those platforms usually come with high annual fees and/or high per-press release fees. That’s why DFY services charge even more for those in a separate Premium package. If I want those premium outlets, I’ll usually go through a DFY service because they don’t usually put that high of a margin if it was DIY. They already pay all the annual fees for the newswire platforms like GlobeNewswire.

What we’re doing here is often a DFY service’s Basic or higher package.

I’ve seen some services offer Basic packages for hundreds that don’t even offer what you get at EIN Presswire - so be careful. Maybe they’re outsourcing through outsourcers who outsource who also outsource - you get the idea. So there’s a margin on top each time.

Digital press releases are really easy to create and send through newswire platforms like EIN. I use EIN for the price and the media outlets syndicated, plus their platform is simple.

Here’s what the process looks like with EIN Presswire:

1. Create a press release and fill out the form on their platform

2. Submit the press release for editorial approval

3. Their editorial team reviews it and lets you know if there are any issues

4. Once approved, the press release goes out and you wait for the links. That’s it!

There’s a specific press release format that the whole industry uses. You can learn a lot just by going through the ones that EIN pushes out in their feed. Here’s a list of what you can include:

• Press release body - up to 1,000 words

• 3 links in the body

• 6+ social links

• 1 Embedded quote up to 200 characters

• 3 images

• 1 video

• 1 Embedded website

• 1 Embedded Google Business Profile listing - Local SEO! 🔥 

• Specific industry, country, and US state newswires - EIN Has specific newswires that you can choose to go out in too. You don’t have to pay extra for this.

As you can see, there’s A LOT you can add to a press release. I have never used up everything, nor will I. What you use depends on the context and your brand.

Using everything up also looks spammy as …

So here’s what part of their press release creation form looks like:

It’s a simple step-by-step form to fill out.

One of the bigger pains with filling out the form is their “Keyword Anchor Text Links” because you need to be careful with wording in your press release. You can’t reference the links inside the text of the press release, so they have input fields for it.

It will look for exact match keywords you fill out and create links out of the first exact match keywords. In the book update news above, if they wanted to link to a later “book” to use as an anchor, they would need to avoid using the word “book” before their desired location or make it longer-tail by adding to it like “great book.”

Two other things that you’ll also need to be watchful of is promotion vs news and a real address.

Promotion vs News

This is usually the hardest part of creating a press release - not sounding “sellsy.” You can’t put in stuff like “amazing product” or “buy it now” or “don’t miss out.”

I’ve gone back and forth with EIN’s editorial team sometimes because the press release can sound like an advertisement, instead of news.

EIN has a whole list of editorial guidelines to follow. It covers a lot of things, but as long as you’re not planning for certain niches, the main thing you have to worry about is wording your press release to pass the editor review. But isn’t that what ChatGPT and Claude are for? 😁 

Real Address for your Brand or Agency

To verify the account and allow you to send press releases, you’ll need to get your company address approved. It can’t be a virtual or P.O. box either - I’ve tried.

If you plan on creating press releases for multiple brands or sites, you’ll want to say that you’re an agency. What I needed to do at the time was to prove I was a real agency and did marketing work for clients.

I have an agency website with a landing page and real address. It doesn’t have to be a full site with multiple pages. My homepage just describes the agency, includes a contact email, and has an address at the bottom. I also added a “Please excuse our dust…” sentence 😅 

You might have a lot more questions about EIN, so you can check out their FAQs page. Many of those questions are broad about press releases too, so you can use it to learn more about Digital PR-lite.

Digital Press Release Distribution

Once your press release is approved and distributed, you’ll get a distribution report minutes later.

Why only minutes? Because of the syndication. Many of the sites will reprint what’s been sent out on the newswires.

Here’s an image of what an EIN distribution report looks like. If you’ve ever looked at DFY services, it may look similar to what they give you 😉 But you can see how there’s a specific state and country newswire.

To be clear, the search engine boxes are just links that will search for your exact press release title in the search engines.

Just below that are the individual outlets that have reprinted your press release. You’ll notice there are some specific industry outlets like agriculture, Chicago, and Illinois because of the specialized newswires.

Are Digital Press Releases Worth It?

Why bother asking if digital press releases are worth it if everything looks too good to be true for the price? Shouldn’t we all be lemmings and jump off the bridge together?

As long as you know what you’re getting and you can justify the price, it’s well worth it.

The main drawback is that the links aren’t sticky. They don’t last. That’s just the nature of press releases. They come in hot with hundreds and will die out as time goes on. Don’t expect these to have a shelf-life of years.

Occasionally, the news sites will take them down, but what’s more common is they are not indexed in Google any longer. Bing might still have them indexed (more likely), but Google won’t. I’ve seen ranges from ~15-35% of the pages are still indexed in Google.

And it’s not because this is the DIY approach. It’s just the nature of press releases.

You can always do things like build backlinks to those pages, especially the ones that just aren’t reprints, to get more impact out of them. Even just getting social links pointed to them and other secondary links could help.

Think of it like this. As a brand and real business, if a media outlet covers what you do - wouldn’t you be sharing their articles on your website and social media? You’d also hope that others will help you spread the news through their socials too.

So if you’re just looking to get branded links here and there, and to put search engines on notice initially, then press releases are good.

AND if you have something good, that’s going to get you even more exposure than just the base reprints from the hundreds of sites. Since the press releases go out on the major newswires, if a journalist picks up your story, they can write about your brand and get you more awareness.

Here’s an exercise:

EIN also has a free AI Press Release Generator, but I wasn’t too impressed when I tried it out. This was when they first released it though.

There it is, my take on digital press releases and how I get branded links with EIN Presswire.

For pricing, I’m paying $50 per press release because I got a deal with their Pro+ plan that’s $399 for 8 links. It’s normally for 5 links (~$80 per link).

They currently have a close deal where it’s $399 for 7 links ($57 per link). Or if you get their Corporate plan, it’s $999 for 25 links ($40 per). You can also get a one-time release for $99.95 if you just want to do one.

I haven’t tried out that many other newswire platforms, but I tried the major ones and this is the easiest to use. It’s transparent too with everything clearly laid out.

When I tried to use GlobeNewsWire for the premium outlets, everything seems hidden and they push you to talk to their sales teams to get things like annual subscription fees, pricing and clarity on where press releases go.

GlobeNewsWire pushes for full-service instead of self-service too. And you need to be a registered business too, so no looky-loos. That’s why I mentioned earlier it’s just easier to go with a DFY service if you’re looking to get on the premium sites.

Anyways, if you want to get in on DIY press releases, check out EIN Presswire - it is an affiliate link 😁 

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