The press release has been around a long time, almost as long as there has been press, in fact. Businesses have used it for over a century to share information about new products, new events, and new services. But in the days of newspaper and print media, press releases were harder to submit, harder to get approved, and limited to available space. The Internet has changed all of that.

Press releases have become a key component to online marketing. Submission rates continue to climb every year, and research has shown that press releases are viewed, on average, 275 times every week by businesses alone, without adding in the number of consumer views. With this increase in attention comes a growing demand for press release writing services, so that businesses can focus on what they do best, and leave the PR to the professionals.

The demand is higher in part by the relative ease with which press releases are published. In the olden days of ink-and-paper, print space was limited, so not every press release made it into a publication. But cyberspace has no such restriction, and most (if not all) of the press releases that are submitted are published. This is, however, a double-edged sword: a press release may be guaranteed a spot in a publication, but the competition for readers is all the more crowded.

That’s where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into play. Many press release writing services offer their clients specialized SEO-oriented releases in order to better target their audience and thus maximize their ad dollars. Rather than writing press releases for the world at large, SEO press releases incorporate keywords that searchers are likely to enter into a search field, so that a given press release can rank higher in any search results that have to do with their particular topic.

While traditional newspapers may be on the way out, press releases are alive and well, and making the most out of this fertile new online medium, thanks to streamlined writing and submission processes and professional press release writing services.