The problem
Press-releases-news.com is an English-language site where companies and PR people publish their press releases. A site like this lives on volume: it has to accept many submissions from many authors, put each release in the right place, and push it out to search engines and social networks, without the owner editing every post by hand.
What I built
I built the site on WordPress as a magazine-style press release hub.
- Sector sections — releases are filed in 8 categories, from Hi-tech and Financial to Lifestyle, Home, Family, Sports and Art, so readers and journalists can browse their beat.
- A large archive — the October 2012 sitemap lists 781 releases and 552 tag pages, with entries going back to 2009.
- Author pages — each submitter has an archive of their own releases; the sitemap lists 22 author pages.
- Submission by email — Postie turns an emailed release into a post, which makes it easy for contributors to send material in.
- Clear rules and spam control — a Rules page explains what can be published, and a captcha protects the forms.
- Built-in distribution — Facebook Like, share counts, Tweetmeme and Google +1 buttons, plus XML sitemaps and SEO metadata, so each release travels beyond the site.
- Reader and owner tools — related releases, view counts, a mobile version and a PayPal donation form to support the service.
Built with
WordPress, the Magazine Basic theme, All in One SEO Pack, Google XML Sitemaps, Google Analytics for WordPress, Postie, Captcha, Yet Another Related Posts Plugin, WP-PostViews, WPtouch, Donate Plus and social sharing plugins.
