It’s amazing how far PRWeb has come since becoming part of Vocus back in August of 2006. Back then, PRWeb was primarily differentiated by its search presence, a host of innovative features and its willingness to experiment with emerging technologies. At the time, PRWeb was a scrappy, agile alternative to the traditional wire services that had dominated the market for so long.

Over the past six years, PRWeb has steadily matured as a product. The user experience has become simpler and more refined; the product has become fully integrated into the core Vocus platform; and its reach has steadily grown.

Today, we’re excited to announce a large step forward that reinforces PRWeb’s position as a leader in the news distribution space. This milestone can be categorized into four areas:

Social Enhancements

The rise of Social Media has served to further disintermediate the traditional media ecosystem and has brought organizations closer to the individuals they wish to communicate with. Alongside its emergence, PRWeb has constantly looked for new ways  to help organizations harness the power of Social Media.  From letting customers sync their release with their Twitter account to increasing the reach of customer news to top bloggers through our Zemanta partnership, we have continually set the bar when it comes to social media and the results speak for themselves.

Blog references to PRWeb stories versus other leading wire services (Google Blog Search)

Today, we are announcing several updates that will bring organizations even closer to the customers, journalists and bloggers who are vital to their growth and success.

A. Showcasing customer social profiles – The contact information block on the news release template has been updated to include links to customer social profiles (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus), making it easier for people who are engaged by a story to connect with the customer through social media.

B. Highlighting leading social sites – The leading social sites will now be highlighted on the release template to increase traction in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Plus.

C. Deeper integration with customer social accounts – Building upon the popular TweetIt feature that allowed customers to sync the distribution of their release with a post to their Twitter feed, we will now be enabling customers to sync their distribution with posts to their Facebook and LinkedIn feeds.

Search enhancements

The past year has witnessed some fundamental changes to the way that search engines evaluate and rank Web pages. While some newswire sites have seen their traffic fluctuate, PRWeb has seen steady growth and is currently the most highly trafficked news distribution site in the industry.

PRWeb traffic versus other leading wire services (Compete)

These results are a testament to our dedication to complying with SEO best practices regarding quality, Web site architecture, performance, syndication and more.  To ensure continued compliance, we have made several “behind the scene” changes as well as one update that will be more customer-facing.

In the past year, Google has publicly stated that site speed is a variable in their ranking algorithm.   One feature that has increased the load time of news releases is the iFrame.  To help improve the long-tail performance of customer releases in search, we have decided to institute a six-month time limit on the iFrame.

Local enhancements

The increasing importance of “localization” has been something we have been studying carefully for several years.  The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently released data indicating that 72% of American follow local news closely.

As the online experience evolves to become more local, we have responded by making corresponding enhancements to our distribution network.  By partnering with some of the largest players in the local media space such as Hearst, we have extended the reach of our distribution network to include 200 of the top local and regional sites.  Customers will now see their news release appearing on sites like the Houston Chronicle, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Albany Times-Union and much, much more.

Introducing Financial Visibility

The one feature differentiator that the traditional newswires have clung to, is their financial reach.   PRWeb has made significant strides in this area over the past five years, engaging with partners such as AOL Money & Finance, Comtex, FinancialContent and more.  Today, we are announcing a quantum leap forward in this area and will now be offering a new level of distribution called Financial Visibility, which will include distribution to all of the major, leading financial sites.  Customers interested in reaching the financial community will now see their release appearing on sites like Yahoo! Finance and MarketWatch.

Our recent earnings release on Yahoo! Finance (via PRWeb)

The last five years has seen some remarkable changes in the communications landscape.  Our passion to continually improve and find new ways of better serving our customers has driven us to accomplish many things.  We feel confident that with this latest release, PRWeb has become firmly entrenched as the leader in this space.  Whether you are a local business trying to attract new customers or a Fortune 500 company interested in reaching new investors, PRWeb is the solution for you.

Filed under: Updates by Jiyan