Press releases can help boost your ecommerce search engine rankings if done correctly. Most companies write a typical press release about “new products” or a “new redesign”. Boring information like this is not likely to get any notable press coverage, and in turn you won’t get any significant boost in back links (besides the links from the press archives).
When a press release is interesting and news worthy, you get more exposure and so there’s a much greater chance some blogger or (news anchor) will pick up your story.
This can bee a difficult thing for ecommerce website owners who sell regular products. My suggestion; find the web sites in your field that discuss industry news and stay on top of it daily (RSS feeds help a lot for this). Once you see some news thats controversial or press worthy, have your writer tie it into your business in some way. Even if you simply share the regurgitated news and have some vague tie in to your site, this can help a lot.
As usual, the abilities of your writer to match keyword density and not sacrifice on sales copy, is imperative.
