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A press release needs to contain a few hundred words to substantiate itself as an informative story. Also, news aggregators like Google News tend to reward longer stories with higher placement. So should you pad your press release with words to make the story longer?
No. Substance still comes first. It is true that law firms that post long (over 600 words) press releases on Law Firm Newswire enjoy about 25 percent more readers than shorter press releases in the same category.
Readership on a news site is good, but the other value of press releases is syndication. And since syndication is the tool that promotes your news to a wider readership, that value must come first.
Syndicators are not as interested in word count as they are in interesting stories that their own readers will find useful. If creating such a release requires a long, detailed story with 1,200 words, that is fine. If it’s an interesting story can be covered in 350 words, that is also fine. News publishers don’t want fluff, they want substance, in whatever length best fits the topic.
If a news release is short and interesting, keep it that way. Adding unnecessary words will dilute the story and lead to fewer republishings.