We've all heard that "free advice is worth what you pay for it..."

Shakespeare put it a little more eloquently in King Lear, when the aging monarch admonished his daughter Cordelia, "Nothing shall come of nothing..."

And when it comes to distributing press releases online, I now know from first hand personal experience that "if you're going to play, it's best to pay."

But the good news is, you don't have to pay much. In fact, compared to the return you get, your cash outlay is extremely well spent.

Here's what I'm talking about.

Last March I distributed a online press release through PRWeb.com

I paid $1.00, even though PRWeb's actual minimum is $0.00.

Now, PRWeb tracks results. You can find statistics on how many people actually accessed your press release, opened the link, printed it out, forwarded it to someone else, etc.

I was pleased with numbers. The link to the release was opened 4780 times.

Pretty good, huh?

But wait!...as they like to say in all those infomercials you watch when you have insomnia.

I submitted a similar release Tuesday morning, August 23rd. I paid $80 for it.

By noon Wednesday morning, August 24th, the release had been "accessed" 41,090 times.

Plus, when you searched for the word "publicity" on Yahoo News, links to my press release came number two *and* number three.

In other words, for 80 bucks I got a chance to tell more than 40,000 people about the Publicity Pro website.

Plus, think about all the one way, incoming links I got that will help raise Publicity Pro's search engine ranking.

Not a bad return on my investment, wouldn't you say?

All things considered, it's a whole lot of bang for 80 bucks.

I'm not the only one who believes in the power of online press releases.A number of friends and colleagues have enjoyed similar success using PRWeb and similar services.

All of them would agree, free is good. Free is very good.

But there's another proverb that you've undoubtedly heard, and it applies to online press release distribution.

"To make money, you have to spend money."

As much as I hate to admit it, I guess it's true sometimes.

But here's the good news.

When it comes to reaping the free publicity an online press release can bring...

A little money goes a long, long way.

***

Resources:

Marc Harty has a free special report called "The 7 Deadly Sins Most People Commit When Sending Web Press Releases And How You Can Avoid Them" Available at http://www.strategictraffic.com/7sins

Also see Shari Thurow's article on the Publicity Pro website at http://www.publicity-pro.com/articles/online-publicity.htm

and Ted Kushner's article "Online Press Release Mistakes" at http://www.publicity-pro.com/articles/onlineprmistakes.htm

George McKenzie is a former TV news anchor and radio talk show host. During his 33 year broadcasting career, his work appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, ESPN and CNN. He currently helps people get publicity on radio, TV and in newspapers. George offers a free 7-part email "Publicity Crash Course" at http://www.publicity-pro.com