There’s obviously a difference in the public relations world when it comes to writing a blog post versus content prepared for a wire service but in the SEO digital world, the similarities blur when analyzed from a content marketing standpoint. In this post, I’ll dissect when it’s best to use the corporate blogs or when it might be a good idea to use a wire service website.

First, let’s look at the similar components. Speaking for the digital wire services not the fax and other more traditional services.

Similarities of a blog post vs. a wire release:

• Headlines
• Timestamp
• Bylines
• Multimedia
• Body of Content
• Typically filed in some type of taxonomy or category system
• Sometimes both have comment sections
• Links

Differences:

• The wire release is typically paid for the use of their third-party service.
• A wire service is on a different domain altogether
• The blog is usually part of the corporate identity via the same domain name.
• The style is typically different although the content is often the same. Sometimes.

Again, I’m looking at this purely from content prospective. I completely understand why you would use a wire service if you were pitching a story and looking to reach a broad audience of potential journalists or bloggers. But let’s say I just want to put out some content for my business with the idea this content is going to be indexed by a search engine or Content Marketing.

Let’s take a look at the important part. What are we trying to do with both a blog post or wire release. We’re trying to get the reader to do something. Probably trying to get them to click a link or like a fan page. Either way, we’re essentially trying to use the AIDA Formula to make some type of conversion.

Probably one of the most standard conversions is to persuade the reader click that link. Maybe it’s a link to a checkout page or a contact us page. Either way, they need to become inspired to click now.

Now think about that link from a user standpoint. When it’s on the company owned and branded blog, it’s an internal link. When it’s on a press release on a third-party wire service, it’s an external link

The Internal Link:

On a blog post, there’s the familiarity factor. The user is already in your home, all they need to do is navigate one page. Simple enough.

The External Link:

Now, on the wire service, when they see that link, they’re readying to be redirected to a new website. Maybe in a new tab or maybe on the same page. They’re not sure. Thus, you’re giving them an excuse to NOT click that link/convert. It’s a risk you need to assess when it comes to using the internal blog or wire service for your content campaign.

There are times you do want an external link from a wire service as sometimes it can act as a third party endorsement. Think about how you can utilize this to generate more inbound links to your blog or business website.

Important factor for your company’s blog:

Careful where your WordPress site is installed. If your WordPress blog is not your main website CMS, it might be best to just pay a wire service to publish your content in press release format and link back to your static website. Especially if your blog does not coexist on same domain name as your full business website. If it’s not the main domain, the scenario I described above does not hold true because it’s again another external link scenario.

With this information, public relations pros should consider a combination of both corporate blogging and wire distribution for a well rounded digital strategy.