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APnews.com is the website of the American Associated Press (AP). The AP is a legacy news organization that still holds a lot of weight in the digital world. And like many other news websites, APnews.com is open to having press releases published on their website.
As you may have guessed, getting a press release published on such a major website is not easy. But we can help. Over the years, the outreach team here at Invalley has developed close relationships with various key players in the industry. Thanks to that, our success rate securing placements on that website is close to 100%.
You can place your first APnews.com order on our website. But if you’d like to learn more about how these placements work, keep reading. This guide will go over everything you need to know about ordering AP News press releases.
How valuable are AP News Press Releases?
Let’s start with why an APnews.com placement is worth the investment. One point I like to emphasize in our company newsletters is that there is not a direct link between how expensive a site is and how valuable they are. And APnews.com is a good example of this.
At the time of writing, APnews.com press releases cost $199 on our site list, making it one of the cheapest Premium Links options available. At the same time, the Associated Press website is an SEO juggernaut. The site has a DA of 92, a DR of 92, a Spam Score of just 2%, and it regularly receives over 13 million visitors a month.
All of those stats make APnews.com a site that search engines pay close attention to. And getting a backlink from such a major website is bound to have long-lasting positive SEO effects.
The value of an AP News placement goes beyond just the numbers. The Associated Press is still a pillar of the global news community, and plenty of media insiders keep an eye on the press releases published by the AP News team. A press release on the site can be an effective way to reach a new audience, and you can also feature it on your website as a showcase of positive media coverage.
Here are some examples of press releases we’ve helped clients publish in the past. Imagine being able to include a link to an article like this one or this one on your About Us page or your social media profiles. That would be a great way to make a good first impression, don’t you think?
Ordering our first APnews.com Press Release
Placing an APnews.com order is easy. All you need to do is click on this link and provide some billing information to complete your order. If you run into any issues setting things up on our client dashboard after that, one of our campaign managers will be ready to help you.
All of this is to say that you do not need to read this guide to place your order. But if you want to know how the process works before proceeding, I’m happy to share the details with you. Here is a step-by-step guide on how you can get an APnews.com placement with us.
Step #1 – Figure out if you qualify
APnews.com is not one of the pickiest websites on our list. However, they do have a few rules regarding what type of content and links they’ll allow on the site.
In the past, we’ve helped businesses, NGOs, affiliate links sites, eCommerce stores, law firm websites, online platforms, and many other types of clients secure backlinks on APnews.com. There are only a few topics that are banned on the website. These include:
- Press releases about individuals. We can’t publish press releases focused on individual artists, promoters, or public figures. There are rare exceptions to this, but in general, it is not allowed.
- Press releases about sensitive topics. This includes topics related to adult content, pharmaceuticals, health supplements, CBD, gambling, and vaping.
If that list of banned topics reads as disjointed, it’s because it is. Many sites have issues with casino and adult links, but APnews.com is one of the few sites on our list that bans content related to vaping and health supplements. Still, they make the rules.
When you place your order, our team will check your provided information to make sure it complies with the rules set in place by APnews.com. If it looks like the press release will be rejected, we’ll offer you a refund. And of course, if the press release is rejected for any reason, you will also get a refund.
Step #2 – Place your order
As mentioned, you can use this link to order your AP News press release. There you will be prompted to provide some basic billing information.
After you take care of that and complete your purchase, you’ll gain access to our client dashboard. There is where you can provide us with the details of your order.
All we need to get started is your target URL for the press release — that’s the backlink that will be included in the press release. You will also have a chance to provide us with a target keyword, your anchor text preference, and content creation instructions.
Would you like us to include a specific bit of information about your company? Do you have a primary source you’d like our writers to reference? You can include all that and anything else that comes to mind in the content creation instructions.
You will be able to review the press release and request changes before it gets published. Our team will typically have a draft ready for your review within a week. Once you’re happy with the content, we’ll proceed with the outreach.
Step #3 – Write your APnews.com press release
If you are planning to let our content team write your press release, you can skip this step. However, if you’d like to handle content creation in-house, there are a few things your writer should know.
Press releases are not like regular blog posts. They need to read like news articles, which requires a certain tone and writing style. There are also specific writing guidelines that all AP News press releases must follow to get approved.
To my knowledge, these guidelines are not officially available anywhere. These are just the rules our team discovered and learned to follow after years of collaborating with the AP News team. Following these guidelines is what got our success rate close to 100%.
The rules are as follows:
- Rule One – The name of your brand must be included in the title of the press release. Preferably near the beginning of the title.
- Rule Two – A short summary of the press release must be included after the title. This summary should be between 30 and 50 words in length.
- Rule Three – A location for the press release must be included after the summary. This location refers to where the press release is coming from — using the name of the city and state where your headquarters is located works just fine.
- Rule Four – Basic contact information needs to be included at the end of the press release. Usually, just an email address works fine, but when available, it’s best to also include your company’s phone number and office address.
- Rule Five – The press release should be written in a neutral and factual tone. Avoid making it overly promotional or using flowery language. Avoid writing in the first person.
- Rule Six – The press release should be between 300 and 1000 words long. We usually write 500 words.
- Rule Seven – The press release should be “newsworthy”.
The last one is a little tricky. Ideally, your press release should go over a recent change that happened in your business. Whether it be you releasing a new product, hosting an upcoming event, making a change in management, etc. However, our clients don’t always have recent changes we can discuss, so we’ve developed a different method.
Another way to write a “newsworthy” press release is to make it a profile piece. These profile-type press releases focus on the business itself, its services, history, core values, etc. In this case, it’s as if what we’re “announcing” is the existence of the business itself.
Here are some examples of both types of press releases. Your content team can use these as inspiration, alongside the rules mentioned above.
Profile – Example 1 / Profile – Example 2 / Profile – Example 3
Change – Example 1 / Change – Example 2 / Change – Example 3
Once your press release is ready, you can send us a copy for publication via the client dashboard. Or you can include a link to it in the field “content creation instructions” when placing your order.
Step #4 – Wait for your press release to be published
Once the content is ready, the outreach process for APnews.com usually takes about 4 weeks. Sometimes your press release will be published sooner than that, but 4 weeks is the upper limit.
Sometimes the AP News team requests changes to the press release. If the changes are minor — such as fixing formatting errors or tweaking the language a bit — our team will take care of it. If the changes are major, we’ll get your approval again before proceeding. This is to make sure you’re still happy with the changed content.
As soon as we see that the press release was published, we’ll send you a link so you can go see it for yourself.
Step #5 – Check the results
Once APnews.com publishes your press release, all that is left for you to do is check the results. Go see the press release for yourself, and check everything to make sure it’s all in order. And keep an eye on your website analytics to see what effects the press release will have.
Thanks to how big the APnews.com domain is, Google will typically notice the new link and index it within days. And then the new links should start affecting your site’s Domain Authority, Organic Traffic, and more.
Want to get a great deal on APnews.com? Our monthly links package — the Monthly Mix — offers powerful links per month for just $399 a month, and you can get APnews.com as part of that package. Click here to learn more.
