Link Building Guide

Media Placements and Press Release Backlinks: What Works

Media placements get your brand into news sites and publications. Earned coverage vs paid placements vs press releases, and what each is worth for SEO.

Joe DaviesBy · Updated

A media placement is a mention or feature of your brand in a news site, magazine or industry publication. There are three main ways to get one: earn it through PR, pay for it as a sponsored or contributed feature, or distribute a press release through a wire service.

All three can put your name in front of readers. They are not equal for SEO, and press release links in particular are widely misunderstood.

Three ways to get media placements

Earned coverage Paid placement Wire release Who decides Link should be SEO value The journalist You, for a fee You, for a fee Followed, editorial rel="sponsored" No keyword anchors High Brand, not rankings Low
Earned coverage is the only one of the three designed to pass ranking credit. The other two buy visibility, which can still be worth having.
Earned coverage Paid placement Wire press release
How you get it A story or expert comment a journalist chooses to use Pay a publication for a sponsored or contributed feature Pay a distribution service to syndicate your release
Editorial control The journalist's Mostly yours, within the publisher's rules Yours
Disclosure None needed Usually labelled sponsored or partner content Labelled as a press release
Main benefit Authority, links, credibility Guaranteed visibility on a known title Fast, wide distribution of an announcement
Main limitation No guarantee Links should not pass ranking credit Links carry little SEO value

Earned media placements

Earned placements come from giving journalists something they want: a story, data or an expert voice. That's the territory of digital PR and of answering journalist requests through services like those covered in HARO link building.

These are the placements that matter most for SEO. A journalist chose to cite you, the link is editorial and the site is usually one that never sells links.

Many publications sell sponsored articles, partner content or contributor slots. These can be worth buying for the audience and the credibility of appearing on a known title.

For SEO, Google's position is clear. Its spam policies list "advertorials or native advertising where payment is received for articles that include links that pass ranking credit" as link spam, and say paid links are fine when qualified with rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow". Reputable publishers tag sponsored links accordingly, which is covered in sponsored posts and dofollow vs nofollow.

So treat a paid placement as advertising. Judge it on the readers it reaches, not the link.

Before paying, ask the publisher how sponsored content is labelled, whether it appears in the site's main sections or a separate partner area, and what audience figures they can share. A placement that's hidden away from the site's real readers gives you neither rankings nor reach.

Not much, on their own. A wire service syndicates the same release across many sites, often low-traffic news pages that republish everything they receive. That's a lot of duplicate copies of one page, not a lot of votes.

Google's spam policies specifically name "links with optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts, or press releases distributed on other sites" as an example of link spam. A press release stuffed with keyword anchors is the textbook case.

Where press releases do help:

  • Real news gets picked up. If a journalist reads the release and writes their own story, that article can link to you editorially
  • Brand searches and mentions. Coverage builds familiarity, which feeds brand mentions
  • Announcements that need a public record, like funding, acquisitions and launches
  1. Have something newsworthy. New data, a strong opinion from a credible expert, or a genuine company milestone.
  2. Pick the right publications. Trade and specialist titles in your niche are often easier and more relevant than national papers.
  3. Pitch individual journalists who cover your topic, with the story in the subject line.
  4. Make it easy to cover: key facts, quotes, images and a page on your site to cite.
  5. Follow up on unlinked mentions with link reclamation.

How much do media placements cost?

Route What you pay for Cost level
Earned (in-house) Staff time and any data or research Low to medium
Earned (agency) Campaign fees or retainer High
Paid feature The publication's advertising rate Medium to very high, depends on the title
Wire release Distribution package Low to medium

Publication rates vary enormously and are often only shared on request. For link building price ranges more generally, see link building cost.

The short version

  • Media placements come in three forms: earned coverage, paid placements and wire press releases
  • Earned coverage is the only one designed to pass ranking credit
  • Paid placements are advertising, and their links should be tagged rel="sponsored" or nofollow
  • Press release backlinks carry little SEO value, and keyword-anchored ones are named in Google's spam policies
  • Use press releases for genuine news and pitch the story to journalists directly

See the link building strategies hub for how media placements compare with other tactics.

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