Mynewsdesk is one of the larger services companies use to distribute press releases. What many people don’t realize is that it can also be a really useful resource in your SEO efforts.
Update 2022: Since I wrote this article in 2016, the situation has changed and the value of the service has shifted. We have ended our collaboration with Mynewsdesk and no longer offer help setting up an account. The reason is simply that the SEO value no longer justifies the cost. Today, it is always better to publish content on your own website rather than placing it on Mynewsdesk, and one of the reasons is that links on the site are now marked as nofollow. Links from Mynewsdesk therefore provide no value for you. Another reason is that competition for attention has increased significantly. Where journalists previously discovered content, it is now mostly spam sites that republish the press releases you upload. Mynewsdesk will of course claim otherwise, but you can reflect on what happens when the number of journalists in the country steadily decreases while the number of press releases on the platform increases rapidly (they also want growth).
We do not use Mynewsdesk today and have ended all collaborations. I personally would no longer pay for the service.
If you are still interested, the original article is included below with tips on how you can use the service to gain minimal SEO benefit:
We ourselves use Mynewsdesk to communicate all company news. This may involve new products in one of our stores, awards we have received, or similar updates. How to manage press releases and media relations is a subject with no room here, as it is of course a discipline in its own right. What we will focus on today is the impact on your search engine optimization.
Be careful about reusing content
To begin with, we need to agree that you cannot publish the same content in multiple places. So-called duplicate content will harm your SEO. You need to write unique material for Mynewsdesk in exactly the same way as you would for any other platform. That said, you also need to ensure there is a natural connection to your website. We will go into how and why.
You need a reason to link
Many newspapers and websites that use Mynewsdesk to find news have some form of outbound linking policy. This is a challenge, because one of the key reasons for using such a service for SEO is to gain links from trustworthy sources. If a major daily newspaper writes about you, you also want to receive a link from the article.
That is why you need a solid reason for the writer to refer to your website, beyond the fact that you are the source of the news. The solution is additional reading. This is easiest to explain with an example:
You run a coconut shop and want to give it a small SEO boost, so you put together a comprehensive study on Swedes’ coconut habits. You carefully analyze all coconut-related data you can find until you identify an interesting angle. “7 out of 10 Swedes take coconuts to bed” becomes your pitch. You write a press release based on that angle, supported by the data. You include a strong quote from a coconut enthusiast, and the release is ready.
The next step is to publish the full study along with much more material on your own website. You create charts and visualize all your coconut data on a dedicated page and reference it in the press release. Now you’ve created a natural reason for the journalist to link to your site. You provide additional value for readers who want to explore the topic further.
Another example
Take a look at this article on Fastcoexist.com. It’s an article about the six-hour workday, where they of course mention us. They also mention several other companies, but only one company received a link. Why?
The reason is simple: we had relevant material to link to on our website, while the others did not. I published a simple article in English at the same moment I noticed that we were starting to gain traction in international media. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that. A brief explanation of how I reasoned around our working hours, along with some data on how the company has developed. That is linkable material—something the others lacked.
We have a partnership
Finally, I also want to mention that Brath has a partnership with Mynewsdesk. It’s nothing more complicated than us having received a discount for our clients. So if you are a client of ours and interested in having your own press room on Mynewsdesk, get in touch and we’ll sort it out.
