Introduction and Contents

Congratulations! You have completed an Online Press Release and have achieved a number of benefits to improve your online marketing efforts. The final step in the process is reading your Online Press Release Statistics Report and understanding what the numbers and graphics mean and gauging the success of the release. 

Your release was submitted to PRWeb.com® via RSS feed, which means that the release was syndicated across the World Wide Web to news websites and weblogs with a short description of the release and a link to the full page. For a few weeks, the release is displayed on various sites and may show up in the search results of Google® News, Yahoo!® News and others.

Your press release was optimized for keywords that have been researched and are determined to have high traffic and relatively low competition. This may help the release be found by more people, but it is highly unlikely that it will boost your website's search engine rankings alone, as it is a small amount of text. However, your Optimized Press Release included backlinks to your site from these keywords. These keyword-rich quality backlinks are a valuable addition to your website's overall SEO strategy.

With wide variances among the different industries and depending on the nature and content of your release, other outlets may pick up your release and post it to other sites or reference it. Other interested parties may contact you for further information about your announcement.

Reading and interpreting the Statistics Report is the best way to see how the release was picked up by other sources. Read on for details on each section of the Online Press Release Statistics Report and to understand what the results mean.

Where Your Release was Picked Up

The first step in compiling your report is to conduct online searches for your headline and URL to see where and how other sources picked up the release. We include links to search engine results pages (SERPs) and/or links to specific sites that picked up your release. It is an important measure of success that a release was picked up by relevant sites.

Click on the links for the two news site-Google® News and Yahoo!®. These sites will have your release displayed. We also include the SERPs for Google.com, Yahoo.com, and Bing.com. These results pages will show which sites have linked to your release. This clearly indicates the reach of your announcement.

How Your Release was Read

Lifetime Activity

The Lifetime Activity is the total number of all release reads, headline impressions, etc.

Headline Impressions

This table and the details show how many times the headline (often with the summary) is displayed at any of the distribution points PRWeb® has the ability to track. This includes PRWeb's® home page, the news feeds, and other outlets.

Typically, a successful press release client will see 10,000 to 200,000 views.

Full-Page Reads

A read refers to any time the full body text of your press release has been displayed at any of the distribution points PRWeb® has the ability to track. In general, a read means someone opened the full press release.

The normal range for most clients is about 200-600 reads, depending on the timeliness, the content, and the industry of the release.

Other Statistics and What They Mean

Visits by Country

The "% Visits by Country" lists the countries of origin of the visitors to your press release. The list is ordered from high popularity to low popularity by country.

Search Engine Hits

The Search Engine Hits statistics show you which search engines readers have used to access your press release. These statistics estimate visitors to your press release who found your press release through a search engine.

Search Terms by Engine

This section indicates the terms that were used by web visitors to find your release online. These keywords are sometimes those that were included in the release and others that searchers may have used.

What Happens Now?

The statistics report is the final component of Network Solutions'® press release services. Your Online Press Release Activity typically peaks at seven days and begins to diminish, which is when we send you the Statistics Report, but you will always have the permanent backlink with PRWeb®.

Press releases are intended as short-term services that generate immediate publicity and interest in your site or business. By nature, they typically peak quickly as editors and news service subscribers seek out and gather the most recent headlines. They are similar to news stories: Once a newsworthy topic has been covered and picked up by all the papers and TV stations, interest in that topic begins to wane. This is the natural life-cycle of press releases as well, and is to be expected.

People will still be able to find your press release online, and this will improve your odds of receiving valuable links to your website, which in turn helps improve the odds that people surfing the Internet will be able to find you. While this benefit is difficult to measure, it is a valuable benefit.

Further Actions to Use Your Online Press Release

You will have the final version in a Word document that is sent to you just prior to the release, as well as the live link to you release on PRWeb®. This link will remain on PRWeb® indefinitely, unless you decide to remove it. You can utilize your release in a variety of ways, by emailing the Word version, emailing the link to PRWeb®, or sending hard copies of either version.

If you wish to print and distribute hardcopies of your release through the mail or send out PDF versions, we recommend putting your contact information and Web address at the bottom of the release since there will no longer be electronic links to your website.

You may post a link to your press release that will be archived indefinitely on PRWeb®. This protects your site from a duplicate content penalty, but offers visitors to your site the opportunity to see what's new.

You can call us at 877-438-8599 to order another release. You can also ask your copywriter or account manager to assist you with ordering another release or answering any questions about the Statistics Report.

Glossary

Full-Page Reads: The number of times the release was opened and read.

Headline Impressions: The number of times the headline was displayed.

Lifetime Activity: The total number of headline displays and full reads.

Keyword: The terms used to find your release.

PRWeb®: The location of your release that feeds other sources.

RSS: Really Simple Syndication

Visits By Country: The countries of the visitors that accessed your release.