Content Marketing Tips Infographic for a Constantly Shifting SEO Landscape

When things are constantly changing around you it can feel a bit chaotic at times and leave you feeling dizzy and confused. With all of the changes to the Google search algorithm, content marketers can feel like they are not sure where to turn next. Well, today It is my intention to share some tips that will help you feel a bit more stable in spite of it all.

The good news is that there are some things that will never change, and that is the basic fact that Google will always reward you for creating consistently fresh, relevant and well-written content. If that’s the kind of content you produce then you can take a deep breath, wipe your brow and keep on writing.

If, on the other hand, you have been ascribing to the school of cranking out a ton of sub-standard, spun content that’s been written offshore then this blog post has some news for you.

Sekari Search & Social Optimization has come out with a spiffy new infographic that visually illustrates what you should be doing when it comes to content marketing. It covers SEO, conversion optimization, tips for creating highly shareable content and much more.

You’ll discover that Facebook & Twitter are still to most popular social media channels, with Google+, blogging, Youtube.com and LinkedIn following behind.

What you can take from all of this is not really news rather it’s a reminder that best practices still work best despite and all of the changes–you should keep on creating quality content and sharing it in social media, on blogs and on quality content directories.

 

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Did You Think it was Going to be Easy? Facing the Reality of Online Business

For the past three days I’ve had very limited Internet access at home, which for me is a problem because I run my business from home. I called the cable company and they sent a technician out to fix my problem. While the guy was working, he was asking me a bunch of questions. You see, I told him that it was urgent that we get this problem fixed because I work from home. He wanted to know what the, “secret” was to making money from home. “How do you do it?” he asked me.

I told him that I work for myself. I’m a writer and web developer/marketer and I run my own company. He looked crestfallen and he said, “My wife’s been trying to find a good, ‘work from home,’ opportunity, but all she keeps finding is these scams.” I told him that if they were looking for a way to work for someone else, it would be a challenge to find a legitimate work from home opportunity. “My secret,” I said, “is that I started my own company and I get my own clients. It takes effort and energy.” He went on to tell me that he has paid over $1,500 for a website business that was supposed to be, ‘turn key.’ He’s got the website all set up, but nothing is happening. I told him it’s because he needs to generate traffic to his website. Nothing happens until you start attracting traffic. He was quite irritated at the prospect of how much time and effort he would have to put in to start getting a good flow of traffic to his site. He thought that he would just get the website built and set up and that the people would just end up there and buy stuff. That elicited a good belly laugh from me, but he was serious.

I shook my head and wondered to myself, “Did he really think it was going to be that easy?” The reality is, if you want to build a business whether online or offline in a brick and mortar shop location, you’ve got to market your business to attract traffic whether it happens to be foot traffic to your store, or search engine traffic to your website. Yes, you can make money working from home, but you’ve got to be willing to put in the energy, effort and commitment to making it work. Don’t expect that you can set up a shiny, new website and instantly have people visiting it and buying from it.

When I shared some effective website traffic strategies with my cable guy, he said, “No way do I want to do all that work.” I told him about PPC, but he said he’s not investing another dime in this venture. So, unless by some feat of magic a bunch of people happen to stumble across his website it’s not going to do any better than it has been.

In my business I create content for clients who are using a content marketing strategy to attract traffic and leads. Today I just sent off a report that I wrote for a client who is going to use it to attract traffic and new subscribers to her newly launched website. Content marketing is a proven, effective strategy where you offer value first and give your visitors just a taste of what you have to offer. If what you have to offer resonates with them and provides an elegant solution, they will be back and they will inquire about your premium products or programs.

Running an online business is not easy, but it’s incredibly rewarding if you adopt a resourceful mindset and if you’re willing to be committed to doing whatever it takes to achieve success. Contact me today if you need fresh content for your blog or website. Please share your thoughts in the comments.

 

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Visual Storytelling and Marketing

photo credit: Erik Johansson

Guest post by Brianne W.

The immediate impact and the efficacy of visual storytelling have been known for long. It is making its presence felt in a more prominent manner now with social networking platforms that rely purely on images, graphics or presentations. These have the potential to bring in traffic to a website, to create a repertoire of inbound links and to help the SEO initiatives taken up by an organization. The difference now is that the effort need not find a place only on the organizations’ websites. More avenues are now available for marketing through visual storytelling. You too can benefit from these platforms by following a methodological approach.

1. Create an effective campaign

Use platforms such as Pinterest, Slide Share, Youtube and Instagram to give shape to your visual storytelling initiatives for marketing. Each of these platforms boasts of millions of users. A video, a slide or a picture can all prove effective in making your campaign go viral over the web. Do not turn the campaign into a list of features. State what it can do for people and show people their benefits for you to gain in the form of higher sales and revenues.

2. Use networking platforms

Even though the visuals based platforms remain your primary ground for activity, post the links to your visual message in the form of videos, slides or pictures on other networking platforms as well where you have gradually built a place of prominence. Capitalize on your goodwill on these platforms to get more inbound links and traffic.

3. Prepare your site for a higher conversion rate

Once the marketing through visual storytelling methodologies prove effective and you get the traffic for your website, the product details and the website as a whole should inspire confidence in people. Build your website in a manner so as to capitalize on the gains that your marketing initiatives bring. Enable ease of navigation. Provide information on the various options available to get more details on products.

4. Document the processes in a visual format

Each business has an aspect that is visually more appealing while at the same time immediately identifiable with the business. Focus on such aspects of your business to give shape to a striking campaign. Give it a professional touch to prepare it for the immense competition you face on the visuals based networking platforms.

5. Connect with people

Make sure that the campaign allows people to connect to it. Depict issues that people face. Let your picture or video bring a smile on people’s faces knowing very well that they are familiar with the content of your campaign. Highlight the features that present a solution.

The visual medium carries a wider reach. It does not rely on the written word more often than not. A picture can be self explanatory. Your audience gets the message in just one glance. If the message is powerful enough, it draws people to explore more. Once this happens, the marketing campaign moves towards conversion. The efficacy of your overall campaign in the visual storytelling domain depends on your creative skills. Let your creativity do the talking for you.

About the author: Brianne is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on technology and luxury. Beside this she is fond of gadgets. Recently an article on beer pong game attracted her attention. These days she is busy in writing an article on data recovery software.

 

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Guest Post: How To Clone Yourself To Create More Income

By Yvonne Bynoe

As a coach or solo-entrepreneurs one of the biggest challenges that you have is that your income is directly tied to the number of customers that you can serve in a given day, week or month. For some of you, you’d literally have to work around the clock to earn a decent living. Rather than burn out, why not expand the ways that you can generate revenue.

There are three things that coaches and solo-entrepreneurs can do to “clone” themselves as a way to increase their incomes, without personally working with more clients.

1. Consider Hiring “Understudies”: 
In the theater understudies perform when the lead actress is ill. It’s a concept that’s perfect for many businesses. For instance, in many upscale hair salons, the owner only personally services a handful of clients—the ones who are willing to pay a premium price for her time. In this business model the majority of clients are delegated to understudies; these stylists and colorists are trained and supervised by the salon owner. Coaches and solo-entrepreneurs can easily use this model by hiring and training other people to use their signature systems with clients (people the owner brings into her business).

The main benefits of this arrangement are:

1) the owner can still work with directly with clients; and

2) there is more income generated because there are more service providers.

The only caveat is that the business owner has to ensure that her understudies  provide the same quality of service as she would. An array of businesses owners could use this or a similar model including: consultants, web designers, photographers, personal trainers, day spa owners, personal shoppers, aestheticians, virtual assistants, etc.

2. Create Service Packages: 

Stop offering single sessions and instead create bundles of services or ”packages” geared toward particular outcomes. You and I know that single sessions rarely solve your clients’ problems. It usually takes several sessions to accomplish most goals.  By offering a package you are actually providing more value to your clients by giving them a clear pathway to reach their goals. This strategy also allows you to ethically raise your rates; meaning that you receive more money per client.  Your package’s rate reflects the transformation that the client receives not your “hourly” rate.  Lastly, by offering packages you can request payment in advance; this alone could increase your monthly revenue by thousands of dollars.

To create packages think of 1-3  main goals or outcomes that your clients routinely seek.  Then create specific multi-session packages that achieve those results. Be sure that the packages’ names clearly spells out the aim of the package. Some ideas: ”End Your Sugar Cravings in 30 days” ; ”Attract Your Soulmate in 90 days”; ”21 Days to a More Productive Home Office”.

3.  Home study courses:
One of the things that entrepreneurs overlook is that many people want to learn in the privacy and convenience of their own homes.  What this means for you as an entrepreneur is that there is a big opportunity for you to provide your guidance and expertise, without actually meeting your clients.

I tend you use the term “homestudy” loosely.  A make-up artist can create a video (or video series) to teach women how to properly apply their cosmetics. Ditto for yoga, pilates instructors and personal trainers.  There are “how to” books and ebooks on nearly every imaginable subject.  If you’re not a fan of video or writing, then do a series of audio recordings could be just as effective.

Virtual classes and retreats are also a possibilities to work 1-to-many.  You have the ability to work with a group of people around a particular subject for any length of time from a few hours to a few weeks.

Homestudy courses are a gateway to establishing a long-term relationship with your clients.  Clients have the opportunity to test-drive your business—your methods and your results. If the client is satisfied, then she or he will want you work with you personally or will buy the next product that you make available for sale.

Yvonne Bynoe is an expert in holistic business and wealth development. She is the founder of the Business Alchemy System(TM). the proven, step-by-step program that shows you how to create a more profitable business…quickly.Click here to download her F.R.E.E. report “15 Secrets To Help You Charge What You’re Worth and Get It!” and to receive her weekly marketing and success mindset articles on attracting high-paying clients and catapulting your income.

 

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Your Ideal Client: How to Find Them, Target Your Niche and Refine Your Marketing Message

I had a client meeting this morning with one of my ideal clients who is working on launching a new initiative for her existing business. We were talking about marketing and I was trying to give her some ideas for narrowing down her niche so that she could refine her message and reach the clients that she was trying to attract.

She is a personal trainer, so potentially she could serve many different kinds of people, right? But this trainer is different from other personal trainers. She has her own style and approach to fitness and healthy living that she has been refining over the 20 years or so that she has been involved in the fitness industry.

In the process of rolling out this new product offering, it is necessary for her to create a profile for her ideal client so that as we begin to develop marketing materials, she will know exactly who she is looking for, and those people who are in her target market will resonate with her marketing messages and come to her.

Here’s a round-up of some articles that tackle this issue of finding your ideal client:

How Psychographics Strengthen Your Small Business Marketing

by Lisa Mininni

“Know who your audience IS, not just what they want… to find the ideal client.

Whether you’re starting up your business or have been in business a while, you must be exact to attract your ideal clients. However, when the going gets rough small business owners cast a wide net hoping to pull in someone. They quickly become disappointed when their prospect pipeline dries up.

One tool to keep that prospect pipeline full is your ideal client profile.

Your ideal client profile is the description of the person you would be happiest to work with. It focuses on a specific kind of client. One that reads your materials and is so mesmerized by your message they keep reading. It means that when you speak to them, they are compelled to. . .”

Read more: http://bit.ly/xVN9H5

Two simple ways to find your ideal clients

by Fabienne

“Wouldn’t it be great if you could find your ideal clients all in one place? What if they were gathered together for you?  That would sure make marketing a heck of a lot easier wouldn’t it? The good news is that this is completely possible!

There are two basic ways to find your ideal clients and both methods work really well.

1. Find ways to pull your ideal clients toward you, inexpensively and in large numbers.

There is something you could offer, whether it’s a special report, a class or workshop you could create that your ideal clients would literally jump for. One important feature, is that whatever you decide on, it should be available free to prospects. This eliminates any. . .” http://bit.ly/yXc3Cv

How to Identify Your Ideal Customer

by April

“Remember that Your Ideal Customer Lights You Up

You can start to narrow down your ideal customer by knowing who isn’t your ideal customer. Start by making a list of the “not so fun” customers you’ve had in the past. This could be someone you liked but didn’t connect with. This could be someone who seemed interested in your services at first, but always had an excuse as to why she didn’t follow through. What characteristics do these customers share?

What customer experiences have lit you up? I want you to stick with the experiences that have made you jump out of bed in the morning to start working, enticed you to. . .” http://bit.ly/wSj3Uq

How to Find Your Niche, Determine Your Ideal Client, and Target Your Market 

by Online Business Coach Donna Gunter

“How do you find your niche, target market, tarket, niche market, ideal client? Whatever you call it, you need to define it for yourself to be successful in business. Whatever you want to call it, the way I define these terms is as follows: offering what you do best (your niche) to a group of people (your ideal client) who hang out together in some organized fashion who desperately need and will pay for what it is that you offer (your target market).

Most business owners are afraid to declare a niche or focus on a target market for fear of excluding people. Read this next sentence carefully: In order to be successful, your goal needs to be to exclude as many people from your business as possible. As a matter of fact, I do that regularly with my website. One of the primary goals of my website is to. . . “

Read more: http://bit.ly/wx9s2n

Who is Your Ideal Client? Do you know?

by Jennifer Bourn

“While getting started on brand strategy and design and website strategy with my clients, one of the first things I want to know is who the ideal client is. Who is the person the brand and website must resonate with and speak to. Who does it need to attract to my client?

How do you know who your ideal client is? Your Ideal Client is some one who:

  •  Has problems and challenges you can easily fix and solve with your eyes closed
  • Sees you as a valuable necessity they treasure, instead of a necessary evil
  • Likes you, appreciates your hard work, and will tell their friends, peers, and contacts about you
  • Will pay you what you’re worth and will be happy to do so because they know you’re worth it

But how do you find out exactly who they are?”

Read more: http://bit.ly/A0Onw0

Once you have a clear picture of who your ideal client is, what they want, what they hate, what keeps them awake at night, what is the solution that they are searching high and low for, you will be able to create marketing materials that are a perfect match to that audience.

One way to begin to speak the language of your market is to create a survey and ask them some questions about what they are looking for in the product or service that you have to offer. Read their responses carefully and pick out some of the language that they have used so that your marketing materials are written in a way that answers their questions using their own language.

Have you discovered your ideal client? How has defining the psychographic profile of your ideal client helped you in your business? Please share in the comments.

 

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Guest Post: 3 Ways to Speed Up Your Blog Time & Still Write Quality Content

photo credit: istock photo

Do you use blog writing to attract business? Do you wonder how you can double your blog output and still have a life? Do you worry about whether your blogs offer quality content that your target readers will love, so they will subscribe? Know the biggest benefit to strategic blog marketing means that Google will like your blogs. Each time you write a blog post, you build your website traffic.

I can relate. When I started a blog over 6 years ago, I got discouraged because of little audience response and little traffic increase. Against my better judgment, I quit. Now, after four years of using a WordPress blog, I realize I just needed to multiply my posts so Google would notice me and I’d get more targeted subscribers. As a writing coach, I already knew what I could do. I just needed to do it. You can relate, yes?

I recommend you post at least two times a week and share your blog URLs on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

For your best results, here’s my proven top 3 Ways to create quality blog posts faster.

One. Write a Title of One Specific Question to One Specific Audience and Answer it.

You may be marketing a book or your service. Your target audiences want their questions answered. Questions are one of the best ways to write a blog title. To find out where your audiences are now, you can poll your audience with a survey by email or on one of the social media platforms. Simply ask them to state their biggest challenge or problem.

They may have many questions. That’s great. You can leverage each blog post by a complete answer to their question. For example, book writers ask, “How can I write my book fast and sell it faster too?” Of the nine pre-marketing answers given to this in a book chapter of my “Write your eBook or Other Book – Fast!” I simply address one at a time in nine different blog posts. For example,”Do you know your Target Audience for your Book? This one blog post became 1000 words. That number is good for some audiences, but the sweet spot for blog length is around 500-800 words and many will want shorter lengths.

Two. Rewrite Similar Content for a Different Audience.

Many authors have multiple audiences, so to bring more sales, they need to write different blogs aimed at the needs of different audiences. For instance, one client who is a coach for eating disorders, now writes blogs for her three audiences – bingers, bulimics, and anorexics, because you can binge, but not necessarily be a bulimic or anorexic. She’s writing specific tips for each one. This approach will multiply her numbers and keep her audiences coming to her website, where she offers her other programs and new books we’re working on. Many general book titles will benefit from this approach.

Know your article’s purpose and specific audience and narrow your slant or focus your information just for them. They will feel as though you speak directly to them and get engaged with your post, leaving comments and clicking the links to your site where they can get more of you.

Three. Write a 500-Word tip blog post.

No matter what your topic is, your audience loves tips. This shortest “how to” blog post with numbered tips is the most popular of all.

*To create around 500 words, you need to…
*Choose a title that works for tips.
*Outline your topic.
*Write a one-two sentence hook or introduction.
*Include four to six sub points in outline form.
*Write each paragraph to support each sub point.
*Write only two or three short sentences for each paragraph.
*Create three to five paragraphs from each heading.
*Finish with a one or two sentence conclusion.

This kind of blog post blueprint will not only shorten your time, but will create consistent, organized, and easy to read blogs.

Now that you know three blog writing strategies that will keep your audience coming back for more quality content, will you share your latest blog writing challenges and successes with us?

25 year Book Coach, Judy Cullins helps you in business to write a “best seller” and build your brand with a short book to sell all the books and get all the clients you need. To double your blog writing, ask Judy about her blog coaching at bookcoaching.com/blog-editing.php

 

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Be Sure to Grab Your Seat: SistaSense Power Circle TeleSummit for Web Women Entrepreneurs

 SistaSense Power Circle Telesummit

Regular readers of this blog know that I am a big fan of LaShanda Henry, founder of Black Business Women Online. LaShanda is hosting another SistaSense Power Circle TeleSummit for Web Women Entrepreneurs, and I wanted to tell all of my readers about it. If you are a women entrepreneur with a business on the web you can’t afford to miss this fabulous event.

Are you ready to take your online business to the next level of greatness? The SistaSense Power Circle TeleSummit for Web Women Entrepreneurs is BACK by popular demand and its happening on March 1, 2012. LaShanda posted the registration page a few days ago and the virtual seats are going fast (BTW, there are only 50 seats available).

There will be a power house of speakers including some of your favorite business women from last year’s circle and 5 new women you need to have in your circle today! Speakers include: Pam Perry, Jai Stone, Richelle Shaw, Deborah Owens, Katrina Harrell, Beverly Mahone, Ananda Leeke, Tara Jefferson Pringle, and Artiatesia Deal.

The mission of this TeleSummit is to help women entrepreneurs take their online businesses to the next level with solid PR, branding, blogging, wealth-building, marketing, working with media skills and more. The Success of Your Business Depends on the Company You Keep! Get in Good Company by joining us for the next Power Circle – 12 Live Sessions + Access to all Replays –->> Use Early Bird discount code EAR10.

You don’t want to wish you were there and you don’t want to keep wishing things will just get better. Join us for the next all day Power Circle. To register today and get session details visit: http://bit.ly/ACOhQ8 and use discount code AFF10 if the early bird discount code has expired.

 

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How to Create Action Steps to Develop Daily Habits for Business Success

If you are a small business person who works from home, one of the biggest benefits is that you can work according to your own schedule. Unfortunately, that’s also one of the challenges.  If you are not disciplined and focused distractions can pop up and steal your attention limiting your daily productivity.

Here are some resources that can help you to create the action steps that will work for you to help you to achieve your business objectives:

Six Daily Marketing Practices

By Robert Middleton

I’m subscribed to the feed for actionplan.com, which is Robert Middleton’s blog where he writes about, “marketing ideas for attracting more clients.”  Today’s post is, “Six Daily Marketing Practices,” and it caught my attention because it’s concise, to the point, and it totally lays out a system that you can use and get results from. This is the kind of content that establishes you as an expert because it shows that you are willing to freely share your expertise.

My favorite of Middleton’s six steps is: “#4. Track your progress every single day.” This is an area where I will admit I fall down. I often, ‘fly by the seat of my pants,’ because I have way too many things going on. I keep a white board in my work area, so I plan to write out the six steps and work them for 30 days (hmmm. I feel a 30 day challenge coming on. . .) and see what happens. Source: http://bit.ly/zxxDlc

 5 Essential Marketing Action Steps

By Marty Marsh

When I read this article I focused in on step #2, “Know your ideal/perfect client.” Marsh writes, “Because when you decide who your ideal client is — who will bring you the most joy to work with and who will happily pay you what you are worth — exactly those kinds of clients begin to show up. It’s the best example of the Law of Attraction at work that I know of.” Also be sure to pay attention to step five, which asks, “What is your client education process?” This is crucial because how you educate your prospects will have a direct impact on your conversion rate. Source: http://bit.ly/zQecd5

Create an Action Plan Now

By Ray Silverstein

This article on entrepreneur.com lays the ground work for helping you to develop your own action plan. Once you have come up with a plan, Silverstein advises readers, “Don’t tuck it in a drawer–keep it close by for constant reference. Make regular appointments with yourself to review your plan and ensure you stay on track. It is a work-in-progress, and you can expect to make changes as you proceed. That’s okay, just don’t stop working on it.” Source: http://bit.ly/xU4KOn

The goal with all of this is to create new daily habits that support you in attaining the goals you have set. It also helps to have an accountability partner such as a coach or trusted business adviser that you can report to, get support, advice and tough love from.

What are the action steps that you do at least weekly that you attribute to your successful habits? Please share your story in the comments.

 

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Facebook Boundaries–Separate Your Personal and Business Lives or Mix it Up?


Now that Facebook has become such a fixture in both the business and personal lives of hundreds of millions of us around the globe, the question of how to keep your business and personal worlds from colliding on Facebook is one that eventually pops up.

Create a company Facebook Page
The first step is to follow Facebook’s terms of service and use a free fan page or company page to do business on Facebook, and use your personal profile for communicating with your friends and family. Yes, the personal profile is far better suited to engaging with your audience, but there’s no use investing a lot of time and effort building up a business following on your personal profile if it will get you shut down. I personally know of at least one author and speaker who had a huge Facebook following on her personal profile and Facebook shut her down completely.

Once you’ve created your company page, the best way to get an initial influx of ‘Likes,’ is to invite your friends to ‘Like’ your company page. But first you’ll want to get a nice supply of posts in there so that they have something interesting to read and comment on.

Segment your friends into lists
If your Facebook profile is anything like mine, it’s a mixture of family, friends, former co-workers, current business contacts and other random people. In order to create some kind of boundary–if that is what you want to do–you can first segment your people into lists. Going forward you can pop new friends into the appropriate list or create a new list. (Google+ style ;-)

On your profile page click on ‘Account’ in the upper right-hand corner of the page and then click on ‘Edit Friends,’ from the dropdown menu that will appear. You will see a friend’s photo on the left and a ‘Friends,’ button on the right. Click on the ‘Friends’ button and another dropdown menu will appear with several lists along with the option to create a new list.

Let’s create some new lists. You may have current customers and clients, colleagues and prospective customers as Facebook friends. You can decide how you are going to divide people up. Give each list a name and then as you go down your list of friends, click on which list you are going to add them to. Be mindful that when you create these lists that Facebook will sometimes send them a notification that they have been added to a particular list. Just be careful what you name your lists and this information is not for your eyes only.

Choosing who sees which status updates
Now that you have placed your friends in lists you can decide who sees specific status updates. When you send a notification about a company event, your aunt Sadie in Buffalo doesn’t need to see that.

When you click on the box on your profile that asks, “What’s on your mind?” you’ll see a down arrow to the left of the ‘Post’ button. When you click on that down arrow a dropdown menu appears allowing you to select which list you want this update to go to.

If you don’t want to go to the trouble of segmenting your Facebook friends into separate lists, or if you are of the mind that you are your brand and that personal and business can mingle happily, then you might want to send a note to those contacts who are interested in your business activities inviting them to join your company page and include a link to it.

Of course, who knows how long these instructions will be valid because Facebook is constantly changing its layout and features, which should serve as a reminder that you don’t own or control your Facebook profile, so always create ways to bring your friends to your blog or website and encourage them to sign up for your email newsletter so that you can stay connected.

Are You Missing Out on the Power of Press Releases for Your Online Business?

 

You are on the web because you want more visibility and more sales for your business, right? Well, what better way to get more visibility than notifying the media and the search engines about a new development or event related to your business? That’s what you accomplish when you write and distribute a press release.

Writing and submitting press releases has more far reaching benefits than just the exposure that you could get for your business if a reporter picks it up and does a news story on you. Press releases can really help to boost your website’s search engine rankings from all of the relevant, high page-rank websites that your release will be published on.

Each time you submit a press or media release you’ll get a ton of fresh back links pointing at your site, which makes it look more important to the search engines. In this article we’ll take a look at two different approaches to writing and submitting press releases for your business, the benefits of each approach, and you’ll get some cool resources that will help you improve the quality of your press releases.
Resources for writing your press release:
The first thing you must keep in mind when you are writing your press release is that the language can not be ‘salesy’ or promotional. A press release is not an ad for your business. Your goal is to get a reporter to find what you are writing about interesting enough to their readers or viewers that they want to do a story on your business.

There is a standard format for a press release that you must follow. You can download a press release template and use that as a framework for adding your content. Keep your target audience in mind when you are writing and keep the language spare and absolutely hype-free.

Here’s a fabulous website that has lots of resources for you if you are going to try to write your own press release:
http://www.press-release-writing.com/press-release-writing-tips-sample-press-release/

These next two resources I got from Nancy Juetten, who is an absolute publicity passionista:

This, ‘Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer,’ is a free tool that will analyze your headline and given a score according to its emotional marketing value.

http://www.aminstitute.com/headline/index.htm

HubSpot’s Press Release Grader evaluates your press release and provides a marketing effectiveness score.

http://www.pressreleasegrader.com/

Submitting a press release for media exposure for a major event or new development
If you are hosting a major event and you are looking to get media coverage, submitting a press release is the best way to accomplish tat goal. However, while the PR submission service can guarantee that your press release gets delivered, they cannot guarantee that reporters will do a story about your event.

When you are trying to get exposure for your event, submitting your press release to a well-known, reputable pr service gives your release a better chance of being picked up by reporters. The better known services have established a reputation, and reporters are more likely to run with something from prweb.com, or prnewswire.com than from one of the thousands of free press release submission websites online.

Here’s a list of specialty press release distribution resources:
http://www.yudkin.com/resources.htm

Submitting a press release for SEO purposes
If your goal is to get lots of relevant backlinks for your website, gain more exposure online and boost your website’s SEO,  then you should be submitting press releases to the free press release distribution sites on a regular basis.

These are just a few of the hundreds of free press release distribution websites:

  • prlog.com
  • freepressindex.com
  • free-press-release.com

Would you like to see how your website is currently measuring up to your competition? Type your site’s primary keyword into a search engine. Are you are the top of the search engine results page, or is your competitor there above you?

Writing and distributing press releases is a powerful way to help build a ton of high page rank back links to your site, while generating massive exposure and traffic.

Can you see now what an effective tool press releases can be? Whether you are looking for media attention for an event or if you just want a SEO boost for your website, submitting press releases can accomplish either task for you.

If after reading all about how press releases can help your business, you understand what a great benefit they could be, but you’re thinking about how many other things you have to do and how much you dislike writing, I’ve got a solution for that too–Hire me to write it for you. Shoot me an email at ebb567 {AT} gmail {DOT} com and I will send you all the details.

Do you have a success story related to media coverage that you got from submitting a press release? Please leave a comment and share your story.