Using Press Releases to build Links
One way of building backlinks to your website is by making press releases. When you make a press release, you aren’t writing an announcement for publication in real newspapers, instead you are writing text containing good keywords making an announcement related to your site or the products your company sells. You submit your text to a press release site like http://www.free-press-release.com or http://www.prweb.com and you end up with a whole page dedicated to your release with a link back to your site.
Submitting press releases is in similar in some ways to article submission or directory submission.
The advantage of press releases over article submissions are that it’s often easier to write a press release than an article since you can simply write about events happening on your site or the launch of a new product. Press releases can often be shorter (300 words or so) compared to an article. Another advantage is that you can submit your own press releases with links back to your own site. Article directories often require articles to be submitted by a third party.
The disadvantages of press releases compared to article submissions are that it’s usually free to submit an article and you can also include links with anchor text in the signature paragraph of the article. With press release sites you usually have to pay a dollar upwards to include a link with anchor text.
The advantage over directory submission is that you can make multiple submissions to a press release site whereas with directories you can usually just get one link with one set of anchor text back to your site.
In my experience, submitting to press release sites is pretty successful. Your release will be linked from the press release site’s homepage and will be indexed very quickly. Often the homepage will have a high PR - 7 or 8 in some cases - and your article will usually do pretty well in SERPs for the day or so that the article remains linked on the homepage. Some of the press release sites also provide easy social bookmarking options allowing you to build a few extra links to your press release, giving a slightly longer term SEO benefit.
For more link-building tips, see: Building links by commenting on blogs and Building links using forums.