Press releases for domain development

Continuing the series on resources for domain development, I want to turn to press releases in this post. Press releases are announcements of some significant event at a company e.g. new product release. They can be used directly as content for domain development or can be used as inspiration for articles.

How to find press releases

Almost every company will have press releases and if they have a website, they should have a “press room” or “media center” with a list of press releases, press kits and news items. Some of these are easily found while others are mysteriously hidden.

Lets say you have a domain you are developing that has a camera theme. To use press releases, we check Cannon and Olympus websites to see what is available.

Canon have a “latest news” link on their home page which can bring you to their press page. I will talk more about that in a minute.

Olympus on the other hand have a less obvious press center. You have to click on the “Our Company” link shown on the top left here and only then can their press center be seen.

How to use press releases to develop your domain

I took the two latest press releases on cameras from each press room: the Olympus E-30 and the EOS 5D MARK II DSLR. You can use these press releases as news items on your website or you can pull relevant information from the release and work it into a review article for example. You can cross compare different company’s models also. You should make sure you are making valid comparisons though.

What good is a review of a camera without a photo of it? Well here Canon has the upper hand. They offer images ready for download of the EOS 5D MARK II DSLR and such photo kits can be extremely useful when developing a domain.

Note also the Canon offers an RSS feed for their press releases and photos whereas Olympus does not. RSS feeds can take the work out of freshening your content but more on that another time.

The pros and cons of using press release to develop content for your domain

The advantages

Free content
Free photos
RSS feeds
latest information

The disadvantages

Company spin
Duplicate content
Many useless press releases

I think the advantages are self obvious to you at this point so let me touch on the disadvantages. When a company is issuing a press release, they are not writing an unbiased review article. They are promoting their company and their products and as such you will see a lot of corporate spin put into these articles.

For example, the first line of the Canon press release reads “Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging, today introduced the EOS 5D Mark II Digital SLR camera, the long-awaited successor to Canon’s highly popular EOS 5D, introduced in 2005.” I underlined the spin phrases above and once you take a moment to look they are very obvious. You will find press releases riddled with such phrases.

Press releases usually already exist on a major website and as such are already indexed by the search engines. You probably realise that many people will be reprinting this press release online in its exact form and so search engines will tend to downplay content that is reproduced over and over. This is called duplicate content and it is good to avoid it if possible.

As you skim through press releases on a company website, you will find many releases that you cannot use. A press release about the new director of microscopy imaging at Olympus is probably not going to be much use on your camera website. It can be tedious to filter through such press releases. Some websites are better than others and here again Canon wins out with a filter where you can choose releases by topic.

How to avoid the disadvantages of using press releases for website development

The key is to put some effort in and use press releases as inspiration for articles rather than use them as is. Sometimes pulling a few related releases together can help you give a more balanced view for your article. There may be quotes within the press release and these should be the only thing you use verbatim.

The most important thing though is to remember you are writing for an audience and the article needs to be useful to them. Always ask yourself if your article provides some compelling news or information, solves a need or provides a useful resource to visitors.

Personally I use press releases as inspiration for articles but never use them as the sole source of information. I put in the time to research around the subject. Press releases have helped me spot related topics I hadn’t thought about before so sometimes corporate spin can work for you.

Next time I will talk a little more about easier ways to find press releases to use for your website content.

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