PRWeb.com has always served multiple functions.  First and foremost, it has served to get customer news releases picked-up in search engines online.

In addition it has served the following primary functions:

1. To educate new users and help them sign-up and use the service.
2. Place for existing users to view their releases and log-in.
3. Destination for people interested in reading and subscribing to our news.
4. Resource for Web publishers interested in syndicating our news.

It has been over three years since we made any significant changes to the site and in that time, we have made many additions and subtractions to different sections on the site to better serve all the different audiences and as with most technical projects, the result had been something of a patchwork quilt.

At the beginning of the year we got together as a team and outlined several basic goals for redesigning the Web site:

• Organize the architecture of the site in a more unified manner;
• Simplify experience for all user groups by eliminating areas that don’t receive any traffic;
• Make it easier for new users to learn about our service and sign-up;

We then talked with our customers and learned about the different types of Web site resources and information they were interested in that we didn’t currently have.  We also looked exhaustively into how we could restructure the site to not only preserve the search engine visibility provided to our customer’s news releases but increase them as well.

The Web site you see is the synthesis of these different goals.

In addition to eliminating areas of the site that don’t receive any traffic we have rolled out a Tools & Tips section of the Web site that is exclusively devoted to providing freely accessible white papers and educational videos for new and existing customers and a customer examples section where we highlight examples of current customer releases as well as customer success stories.

Our initial results have been positive.  Not only has overall traffic to our site (and customer releases) increased, but the new tools and simplified architecture has made it easier for people to navigate our site and find the resources they need.

As mentioned, we spent a great deal of time studying the potential SEO impact of the changes before launching and our initial research shows that the simplification of the Web site is starting to have a positive net impact on the search performance of our customer’s content.

The updates to the Web site were a long time coming and we are confident that they will help provide an enhanced experience for all the different groups that use PRWeb.

• Electronic Retailing Association (ERA) Web Properties - The leading trade association for multi-channel marketers. PRWeb news releases will appear on their website, blog and online trade magazine.
• Website Magazine - Website Magazine offers website professionals information on how to succeed on the web. Reaching 135,669 qualified professionals, the publication has the largest audience of website owners and managers in the field.  Our news releases will appear on their main Web site.
• Acquire Media - Acquire Media specializes in news aggregation and real-time distribution for financial organizations, corporate enterprises, web portals, and publishers.

Read the full release on PRWeb.

We have already seen many customer news releases appearing on top Web sites through the partnership and expect to see many more in the days to come!

Read the full release.

We’ve recently taken a closer look at the volume of traffic we receive to our RSS network.  Our most recent data indicates:

• RSS Consumer Reach: In a typical week, our network receives over 3 million requests from over 250,000 subscribers around the world.  These are consumers, bloggers, journalists, analysts, etc. who want to receive our news.
• RSS Publisher Reach: In a typical week, our network receives requests from over 30,000 Web publishers who publish our RSS feeds on their Web sites.

This year, we were awarded the distinction of being named a finalist in the ‘Best Online News Service’ category.  Read the full release on PRWeb.

Our Approach to PRWeb UK…

Was guided by our vision of providing a localized experience while leveraging our global platform. Specifically, this meant the following:

First, we wanted to ensure that the user experience was tailored for customers in the United Kingdom.  This meant processing transactions in pounds sterling, using GMT as the time standard, using copy written in the Queen’s for a UK-based audience, and countless other details that required significant time and effort.

At the same time, our approach struck a balance between provisioning the user with a localized (UK) experience while keeping the core platform global.  For current customers, this means that they can use their existing credentials to log-in to PRWeb UK however their experience will be UK centric while in their UK console and US centric while in their standard PRWeb.com console.

Finally, from a distribution perspective, we made the decision to leverage our core online network while adding a layer of distribution focused specifically on the United Kingdom. This meant the creation of newsfeeds focused on topics and regions relevant to the UK, optimizing for UK search and creating direct channels to the UK media.

A major component of the media distribution piece is accomplished through a partnership with the Press Association that allows us to feed our content directly to the newsrooms at all of the major national and regional outlets throughout the United Kingdom.

It is our hope that the culmination of our efforts is an experience that is tailor-made for customers in the UK and results that will ensure industry leading visibility on both a global and regional scale.

PRWeb UK will be publicly available in early March.

Links:

• Official launch announcement on PRWeb UK.
• Launch announcement on YouTube.

So we decided to help make things a little more convenient for the PRWeb customers who are active on Twitter by introducing a new social media feature called TweetIt that allows customers to automatically share their news release through Twitter at the same time it is distributed through PRWeb.

To take advantage of the feature, you first need an account on Twitter. Once you have created an account, you simply add your credentials and tweet (a short blurb) and we’ll auto-post it to your Twitter account as soon as your release is published.

If you’d like to see how it works, we’ve prepared this quick video demo that walks you through the actual steps:

If you’d like to connect with us on Twitter we have an official PRWeb Twitter account.

The partnership will be rolled out in two phases: Phase 1, which is currently live, involves our public company press releases showing up in the quotes and portfolio sections of AOL M&F.  In phase 2, set for later this year, all of our private and public content will surface through a widget on the main AOL M&F page and through AOL news search.

AOL Money & Finance is one of the leading financial resources on the Web with over 15 million unique visitors each month.  This is one more blue-chip addition to our syndication network that includes outlets like the Associated Press, Yahoo!, Topix, and Entrepreneur.com.  Through our syndication network, PRWeb news releases are available to an online audience of more than 70 million unique visitors in the United States alone.