Saturday, 17 September 2011

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Posted: 12 Sep 2011 09:17 AM PDT

linkbuildingYour aim, by crafting a press release, is to get publicity. But there is a way of doing this while ensuring that you get something else that can be valuable to you. I am talking about pushing your website up the search engine rankings. So here is a fantastic marketer’s tip: Always make sure that you send your press release out to the online press release websites. The extra bonus that you can gain from doing this is that while you are displaying your press release to the media, in the hope that they decide to run a story based on it, should they not bother to do so you still win! You see you will be spreading backlinks on the web that are great for SEO and loved by the search engines. Your website needs all sorts of links coming into it and these sort are well worth having in the scheme of things.
The press release should always be a major component of your public relations strategy and as such it should be used wisely. When you begin to plan your piece start by thinking of the five “Ws” that you are going to write about. I am referring to the Who, the What, the When, the Where and the Why. These are so important to the success of the press release because failing to consider them can make the whole exercise a total waste of your time.
Most press pieces are written and distributed by talented PR professionals; but don’t let this put you off as it is certainly not beyond the ability of someone with a good command of English to write one for themselves. Simply aim to keep the following key points in mind as you write.
My Top 12 Tips for Writing a Killer Press Release
1. Capture the media’s attention with a short and punchy first paragraph. It must communicate the ‘5 ‘Ws’ and the rest of the press release should be used to expand on them. The main purpose of any press release should be to inform the media about something newsworthy. It should never be used as simply a means of selling your product, that is the job of an advert. Of course, making sales is a wholly honourable by-product of the press release, but not its main function.
2. Always use your keywords in the title because this is what will give you the SEO juice as it duly spreads across the internet.
3. Avoid, however, any temptation to go after longtail keywords in the title.
4. When writing, always use the third person and never ever use “I”.
5. To add some weight to the press release use quotations to communicate your key message in a lively way. Advice that I was given was to quote in a tone that conveys how ‘thrilled’ or ‘excited’ you are to be announcing the news.
6. Verbosity is a killer – write only between 300 and 800 words as a rule.
7. Compose a press release that is newsworthy and not simply a page of hype. Are you sure that what you are writing about can be considered as news? If it’s not really interesting, or exciting news, then don’t bother the press with it because they are certainly not going to be amused. Also, make sure that you can always back up any claims that you have made in the press release.
8. Everyone loves a story, whether it’s about your business or specific people.
9. Target your audience or niche by personalizing your press release.
10. If you are able to, use hyperlinked anchor text in the body. The search engines like this type of backlink.
11. Add images, videos and audio that relate to your product to give it an edge.
12. Lastly, at the bottom of the press release do remember to include your full name, phone number, mobile and email
address so that the media can contact you. This strategy should get you backlinks and the chance of media interest in your newsworthy item.
Nick Thorne reviews systems and software to help you succeed in your online business. Find out more about how to have your own successful information marketing business and get free mini-course at: =>http://www.informationvideoproducts.com/info/478/how-to-have-your-own-online-business
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Write A Press Release and Get Backlinks
Posted: 12 Sep 2011 09:16 AM PDT

socialmediamktgYou most likely are making use of social media to keep in touch with your friends and family but did you know that you can use social media as part of your marketing plan? Do you know the benefits of using social media as part of your marketing plan?
As a small business owner, this type of marketing can certainly draw traffic to your site and then clients to your business. It is a great tool for building a targeted, responsive list. And yet, where do you start with social media and exactly how involved do you need to get?
If you want to grow your business and start increasing your client database, social media is your least expensive and fastest approach to take. Here are three quick ways to get you started in your social media marketing plan.
Utilize LinkedIn to Develop Your Client Base
- First, you should create a real interesting profile for your company and in the interests section, you will want to use your best keyword phrases.
- Make sure that should you have a blog and put the link to your blog in your profile. This is a good method for people to find out just who you are as well as what your company is all about.
- Put your client list into relevant groups and start communicating with them.
- Utilize LinkedIn as a way to recruit clients for your business and also to get your message out there.

Utilize Facebook to Promote Your Business
- Create groups in Facebook and interact with those groups regularly.
- If you are submitting content to article submission sites, some of these directories have areas where you can place your Facebook and Twitter facts. Then, every time you submit an article to the directory, the directory will instantly publish your post on your Facebook and Twitter accounts.
- If your group members and clients have Facebook pages, make comments on their pages. Assist and address their inquiries.
- Make “friends” with others in your niche topic area
Just keep in mind, when you are making use of social media sites for business, building a very good relationship with your friends is more crucial compared to the quantity of friends you have. As you increase your Facebook friends list and converse with your clients frequently, you will see internet traffic increase to your internet site.

Make use of Twitter to Increase Your Business Presence in Social Media
- Utilizing Twitter, you’ll want to generate lists which are specific to particular topics and you’ll need to join lists that have to do with your topic.
- A good suggestion for Twitter exposure is to give away a weekly report on your theme. Don’t forget to include a “Please Re-Tweet” or an RT so that people will spread your information throughout the web.
- Utilize the # hashtags and follow people where appropriate.
Some recommendations when starting to use your social media marketing plan:
1. Don’t invest a great deal of time on the social media sites. Only spend about 15 minutes or so on each site.
2. Your daily approach should be to make good and related comments on good and related posts. Remember to use images.
3. Grow relationships with your followers and gather your own friends with your opt-in pages.
4. Don’t neglect your picture, a professional picture, on your pages. Those who use social media sites want to see who they are corresponding with.
In summary, social media sites should be part of your business marketing plan. The thing to remember is to build strong relationships with people but not to invest lots of time doing it. Just begin small and let go from there.
Would you like to learn more about using Social Media to increase your business? If that is the case, download my free Social Marketing Guide here: http://workonlinesuccess.com/Free-Reports/Socialmarketing.html Visit my website at http://workonlinesuccess.com/
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Why Use Social Media As Part Of Your Marketing Plan
Posted: 12 Sep 2011 08:50 AM PDT

google+With the recent launch of Google’s social network there has been a lot of discussion over whether this Google venture will actually take off, and whether it has the ability to supersede the biggest social network on the planet, Facebook.
In many ways Google+ has advantages over Facebook. For starters it can use Facebook as its blueprint for what to do and what not to do. While Facebook saw a fast evolution of success, it still took a couple of years for brands to catch on to the commercial potential of the platform and for it to become an open platform (previously was exclusively for university students).
Another main advantage Google has over Facebook is that it’s the world’s largest search engine. Google currently accounts for two-thirds of every internet search. These features will be integrated into the social platform to expand its reach as well as what it can offer its users.
Many of Google+’s features will be the same as Facebook’s which begs the question, why would people want to change platforms? Facebook, in many ways, has become a social home for its users. People have been on in since 2004, and have connected with hundreds of new and old friends. Their photos and personal information are all there, so why would they start from scratch? Knowing this, Google+ has to differentiate their offering in as many ways as they can. A few unique features it has are:
1. Circles: ‘The easiest way to share things with college buddies, others with your parents and almost nothing with your boss.’ Divide people into circles ie. ski crew, San Diego peeps, Nan & Grandpa and communicate with them in a relevant, organised and focused way.
2. Hangouts: ‘Let friends know that you’re free for a video hangout any time, anywhere. Then catch up, watch YouTube or just hang out. With hangouts, the unplanned meet-up comes to the web for the first time. Let specific buddies (or entire circles) know you’re hanging out and then see who drops by for a face-to-face chat.’
3. Sparks: ‘A feed of only the things that you’re really into, so when you’re free, there’s always something waiting to be watched, read or shared.’ If you’re into fashion, tell Sparks and it will send you stuff it thinks you’ll like.
Moreover, Google+ offers:
– Integrated Google advertising
– Excellent data and analytics
– Integration with Google Apps
– Customer sign up for specific channels
– Video chat and hangouts
– Segmenting and organizing brand customers/fans/influencers for insight
– Business user appeal
– Extension of SEO
– Encouragement for users to +1 search listings
– Could offer customized skin options for brands – like YouTube, unlike Facebook
– Hangout + YouTube Live integration (in progress) – watch and chat simultaneously
– future Maps and Places integration
– Search – Google’s universal search will be stronger than Facebook
– Users the option to subscribe to official Google blog, G+ developers and Google Labs
It’ll be interesting to see what’s in store for Google+.
Article by Tamara Jacobs. Adaptive Consultancy is a London-based digital agency specializing in web development, design, ecommerce and internet marketing. Services include search engine optimization, paid search, email and social media marketing. For more on online marketing companies visit http://www.adaptiveconsultancy.com/
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

The Google+ Promise
Posted: 12 Sep 2011 08:40 AM PDT

bloggingBlogging clearly has arrived and is here to stay, according to the buzzword-slinging set. It’s the “next big thing” or the “wave of the future” – even a “revolution.” Still, most of the people commenting on the blogging trend aren’t sure exactly what it is, how it works or even what the different kinds of blogs are. Blogging already has taken a myriad of forms. Born when dial-up was still the standard, it came of age during the rise of broadband and now its text-based roots are giving way to podcasts and video blogging. To that end, here are a handful of blogging types and what sets them apart from the others.
Type 1 – Classic/Personal
This most basic blog type harkens back to the earliest days of Livejournal. These blogs serve as simple, personal accounts of thoughts and experiences. They’re records of the user’s life, things that interest him or appeal to her. They can record personal journeys both physical and mental, as in the case of blogging an exciting road trip or a reader’s attempt to get through the entire canon of a particular author.
Brand It: The real value of personal blogs is twofold. In our increasingly online culture, people have expressed feelings of isolation and disconnect from society. Thus, the thirst for personal information and details is growing. People want to hear personal stories from folks they are interested in, and these blogs give them a window into the humanity of others. Secondly, personal blogs that persist more than a year or two grow over time, maturing with the author. They change focus and grow more refined as time goes on, allowing the readers to have a sense of growing along with the subject of their reading. Thus, personal blogs can serve to help an established or even a growing brand make a personal connection right with its audience.
Type 2 – The Watchblog
It has been mentioned before, but blogging has some of the greatest potential to undermine corruption and totalitarianism ever seen. During the recent elections in Iran, bloggers brought out stories of abuse and corruption. Bloggers and their quick dissemination of information have exposed stories of police brutality, corporate misconduct and government gaffes overnight. There are entire blogs dedicated to exactly this kind of effort, carrying nothing but stories that expose the indefensible actions of those who cannot abide in a lawful society.
Brand It: The real power of this kind of blog in brand building is in the building up of public trust. Trust is fundamental to all business and branding. If there’s no trust in a brand, people simply won't buy. Thus, people who expose breaches of this trust gain a certain level of credibility themselves. Similarly, this kind of blog can promote good conduct as well as expose bad conduct, creating a web of trusted providers that becomes mutually validating and prosperous.
Type 3 – Satire and Snark
Laughter is all-powerful. If a man argues with his opponent, he grants that opponent a certain level of respect; obviously the two viewpoints must be equal, or at least commensurate, or there would be no argument. However, if a man can get people to laugh at his opponent, then there need be no argument… ridicule does the work for him. Such is the power of a satirical blog. Whether done through biting and clever writing, simple sarcastic commentary or just posting ridiculous videos of politicians who betray their own ignorance, this kind of blog allows people to laugh at the matters presented and bring out a message by implication rather than overt pounding.
Brand It: One of the most powerful tools available in the world of blogging is the ability to laugh at oneself. People who have a sense of humor about their own failings are often conversely taken quite seriously. Point out a foible or two that popped up in recent meetings. Discuss hilarious absurdities in your industry. Take a famous mistake your advertising department made and have a laugh at it. Harness peoples’ desire to laugh, and you will genuinely have an audience worth keeping.
Type 4 – Interviewing
This is where blogging best shows its roots in classic journalism. An interview with an authority on some subject lends credibility to an article, and builds trust in the publication. As said above, people want to hear what others are thinking; they want that connection with the world around them. Having a more human element, interviews can provide this connection if handled well.
Brand it: The trick with interview-oriented blogs is to keep the material interesting for your audience. If a blog focusing on fashionable apparel were to interview an engineer on the scientific stresses that go into clothing fibers and manufacturing, most of the audience would probably fall asleep. On the other hand, if that same engineer were to explain in simple terms that the use of one fiber allows for thinner thread and thus smaller seams, and show the difference in two fashion photo spreads, that might interest the target audience more.
A Last Thought – It was touched on only briefly, but always remember that the blog is driven by audience expectations as much as by the focus of the brand itself. The brand exists in the mind of the audience or it doesn’t exist, so the blog must reflect that in tone and content. It's also advisable to pick a type or even mix among the types in order to best capture these expectations, rather than choosing a type based solely on the projections of the brand.
Enzo F. Cesario is an online branding specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat, a digital content agency. Brandsplat creates blogs, articles, videos and social media in the “voice” of our client’s brand. It makes sites more findable and brands more recognizable. For the free Brandcasting Report go to http://www.BrandSplat.com/ or visit our blog at http://www.iBrandCasting.com/
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Four Types of Blogs and How To Use Them
Posted: 11 Sep 2011 10:00 PM PDT

deceptivemktgA few years ago, I read a good article by Canadian SEO Melanie Nathan called “The Reciprocity Link Building Method” in which she outlined a technique she sometimes used to build up high-quality links for her clients’ websites. The gist, as I understood it, was to first find a website that would be good for your client’s site to link to. Then you’d click around to see if any of their current links were broken (went to dead pages or sites). If you found some, you’d use this information as an opening to start a dialogue with the site owner or webmaster, and eventually mention your client’s site as a substitute for one of the broken links. I thought it was a very clever idea, a great way to make contacts in your client’s industry, and a win-win for everyone involved.
More recently I saw another article on this topic by Nick LeRoy, a search marketer in the Minneapolis area. Nick talked about the same basic technique Melanie had mentioned, and added a real-life example email he had used. In his example email, he mentioned to the webmaster that he had a favorite site from which he liked to buy stuff for his son on birthdays and holidays. Nick again mentioned “his son” in a follow-up email, saying that he liked the products at this particular website because they made his son think.
All sounds good so far, right? Except that Nick doesn’t have a son!
I made the following comment on the post:
“Nick, I didn’t know you had a son (as per the emails requesting a link). If indeed you don’t, are you suggesting that people create a trust relationship with these webmasters by lying to them?”
Lots of comments ensued, which I encourage you to read over at Nick’s site. For me, what he did was certainly not ghastly, but the situation does bring up a ton of questions.
Was it necessary to lie? Isn’t that sort of thing exactly what gives marketers in general (not just search marketers) a bad reputation? Couldn’t he have done things exactly as he did without the lie?
I contend that he could have.
Nick claims that telling the webmaster that you’re looking for links on behalf of a client has less of a success rate for securing the link. It would certainly be interesting to test that theory, and it may very well be true. But even if you get fewer links out of it, that doesn’t justify lying in any aspect of business–or in life. (Are they really two different things?)
Lying in any form is deception.
Even if it’s just a tiny white lie. Even if it gets you more links. Even if it gets you more business. Even if it makes you look better in the eyes of your boss or client.
Which brings up another point: As the boss of someone using this technique, how would you feel about it? If your company culture is one of honesty, then any form of deception within your business should be a no-no. I can tell you that if I found out that an employee of mine did this, I would be very disappointed in them and explain why we don’t use deceptive practices. I would also wonder why I had to explain such a concept to an adult.
And what about the client?
Did they know that their search marketing company was using deception in order to obtain links? Is their company culture such that it’s not a problem for them? Or did they not even know exactly how their links were being obtained? If you’re being deceptive on your clients’ behalf, one would hope that you get their permission and written sign-off so it doesn’t come back to haunt you at some point.
Personally, if I hired a company to perform a service for me and they did it in a way that involved any form of lying, I would wonder what else they were doing that was deceptive. Were they overcharging me? Did they even have the skills they claimed to have?
Not to mention the unsuspecting webmaster on the other side who gave out the link.
How would they feel later to find out they were duped? Would they have a bad taste in their mouth for not only the marketing company, but for the company they were linking to? What if they felt so duped that they decided to go public on social media with the information? How would the client like the technique if they ended up with a reputation management nightmare?
Surely I’m being dramatic here, because we’re only talking about a little white lie. But does the size or color of the lie make it any less deceptive?
And we are talking specifically about link building here. There’s a reason that I dislike it and don’t do it. As far as I’m concerned, link building in and of itself borders on being a deceptive practice because it’s usually done to secure a fake “vote” for a website. It’s an industry that shouldn’t exist, and wouldn’t exist if Google didn’t place so much weight on links. If it weren’t for that aspect of Google’s algorithm, we’d have website owners giving and getting links for the right reasons, with a lot less deception (and payment) going on behind the scenes.
We can debate ethics forever and never come to a consensus because they are often seen as situational. What might be unethical in one situation might not seem so unethical in another situation. Certainly, life-or-death situations are not the same as marketing ones. If a lie is going to somehow save someone’s life, then by all means, please lie your head off!
But marketing isn’t a life-or-death situation.
Lying and deceiving to seek someone’s favor is generally agreed upon by most cultures as being wrong.
This is not a “black hat vs. white hat” issue.
It has nothing to do with hats. When it comes to search marketing, I don’t care what techniques you use or what methods you use to gain more targeted search engine visitors. I don’t believe that there are techniques that are more or less ethical than others. I don’t care what Google puts in their Webmaster Guidelines, because there’s no reason to need to know. If you fundamentally understand that all Google cares about is that your website isn’t being deceptive in some manner, then you can’t run afoul of them. They have to know that they can trust the information contained on your site and the information that you provide to Google. Nothing more, nothing less.
So many ethical conundrums come down to one simple question:
Is it deceptive or not?
I worry about search marketers who believe that deception is a necessary part of their job if they are going to get results. It’s not only incorrect, but a sad commentary on our industry and perhaps our world.
Jill Whalen is the CEO of High Rankings, an SEO Consulting company in the Boston, MA area since 1995. Follow her on Twitter @JillWhalen.
If you learned from this article, be sure to invite your colleagues to sign up for the High Rankings Advisor SEO Newsletter so they can receive similar articles in the future!
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Deceptive Marketing: A Necessary Evil for Search Marketers?
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