Forget getting on the local news. Press releases today are about hundreds of backlinks pointing at your shop from trusted news sites. Google sees those links and decides you're the real deal.
Get My Free SEO AuditWhen shop owners hear "press release," they think of the local TV station running a story about them. That's not what this is. Modern press releases are an SEO tool, not a publicity tool.
Here's how it actually works. We write a press release about your shop. Something newsworthy. A new service. An award. A milestone. A community event. The release gets distributed through a wire service. That wire service pushes it out to hundreds of news websites across the country.
Those news websites publish the release on their own sites. Each publication includes a link back to your shop's website. So one press release turns into hundreds of backlinks from trusted news domains.
Each release gets picked up by 100 or more news websites across the country.
Each publication is one trusted backlink pointing at your shop and service page.
The release spreads over the first week. The links stick around for years.
Google's whole ranking system runs on trust. When a trusted website links to yours, Google trusts you more. The more trusted sites that link to you, the more authority you build.
News sites are some of the most trusted domains on the web. One link from a real news site is worth more than 100 links from random blogs. A quality written press release can be picked up by 200 news sites and creates a flood of trust signals all at once.
That flood pushes your authority up. Your shop starts ranking higher for every search. The map pack moves. The service pages climb. Calls go up.
Some agencies abuse this by spamming press releases that say nothing. Google catches on, and those releases stop working. Real news. Real story. Real value to the reader. That's how we write them. The links count because the content earned them.
Press releases work when they have a real story behind them. Here are some of the kinds of stories we turn into releases for shops. Most shops have more newsworthy moments than they realize.
Started doing EV maintenance? Just added diesel work? Press release announces it to your community and beyond.
Five years in business. Ten thousand cars repaired. Whatever the number, it's a story when it's framed right.
Sponsored a youth team? Donated to a local cause? Hosted a free brake check event? All press-release-worthy.
ASE certified. Best of the city award. Manufacturer training completed. Reasons to celebrate, reasons to publish.
Seasonal car tips. Things drivers should check before a road trip. Helpful content tied to the season works great.
Free oil changes for veterans on Veterans Day. Fixing a single mom's car for free. Stories that earn real coverage on top of the links.
Press releases work when they're written like news. They fail when they read like ads. Google can tell the difference. So can the news sites that pick them up. Here's our process.
We dig into what's happening at your shop. New hire? New equipment? New service? Even a small thing can become a real story with the right framing. No story, no release. We won't make stuff up.
Real headline. Real opening paragraph. Real quote from you. Real details about the shop and the service. Reads like something a reporter would write. No fluff. No buzzwords. No "best in town."
The link back to your shop uses anchor text that mixes your business name, your city, and the service. That mix is what tells Google what your shop ranks for. Not "click here" links. Real, useful anchor text.
We use real wire services. The kind that real PR firms use. The same services that get picked up by Yahoo Finance, AP affiliates, MarketWatch, and local news sites. Not the $10 budget services that go nowhere.
After distribution, we pull a report showing every site that picked up the release. You see the actual list of news sites linking to your shop. Real proof of real work.
AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity rank their answers based on the trust level of the sources they pull from. News sites sit at the top of the trust pile. When your shop is mentioned in a release that lands on multple news sites, your shop gets baked into the answers those AI tools give.
When someone asks Claude or ChatGPT "what's a trusted auto shop in [your city]," the AI looks at signals from across the web. Press release coverage on real news domains is one of the strongest signals.
The shops winning AI search aren't the ones spending the most on ads. They're the ones who built up trust signals across the web. Press releases create those signals in a way nothing else can.
Every release we publish adds another set of trust votes for your shop. Those votes compound. Six months in, your shop is showing up in AI answers competitors don't even know exist.
Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes local reporters pick up a release and run a real story. Most of the time, the value is in the hundreds of online publications that pick up the release automatically. Either way you win. Press releases are about online authority first, media coverage second.
It depends on your service tier. Most shops get a release every month or every other month. Quality over quantity. One real story beats four fake ones. We never push out a release just to hit a number.
Every shop has more news than they think. New tools. New techs. Seasonal car care tips. Community involvement. Small milestones. We sit with you and find the angles. If we truly can't find a real story, we wait until you have one.
No. The cheap services use junk wires that no one picks up. The release sits on three random websites and dies. We use the real wires that real news sites trust. The cost is higher because the result is real.
The links go live within 24 hours. The SEO impact builds over the following month. Press releases work slowly but they stack. Each one adds to the last. By month 6, the cumulative authority is hard to beat.
We only work with one shop per area. So your competitor isn't getting this from us. They might hire some other agency, but they won't get our level of quality. And anyway, we get the bigger story out first.
The free SEO audit includes a look at your current backlink profile. You'll see exactly what authority you have today and what press releases could add.
Get My Free SEO AuditOne shop per county. First come, first served.