to help promote one of the many activities I coordinated as the vice
president of service for a national service fraternity to which I belonged.
Since that time, and especially since the advent of Internet marketing, the
philosophy behind the strategy of submitting press releases and measuring
the success of a release has completely shifted. The number of clippings
from newspapers running your release used to be considered the hallmark in
determining the success of a release. That's no longer the case.
In today's marketing environment, submitting press releases online is a very
viable strategy for attracting attention to your website and to your
business. However, the strategy is very underutilized by online service
businesses. Why? Because most of us are still operating under the rules of
traditional press releases. Many of the traditional rules of writing press
releases no longer apply in today's Internet marketing age.
Here are 10 new rules for online press releases that will help you get
better results from your Internet marketing:
1. Write for consumers, not journalists. Today's online press release is
really written more for the consumer of your products and services rather
than members of the media. The media may, indeed, pick up your release and
create a story or interview you based on that release. However, what is more
likely to happen is that a consumer who is searching online for a solution
to his problem will stumble across your release and be compelled to take the
action that you specify in the release.
2. Set a goal for the release. Do you hope to sell more ebooks, drive
traffic to your site, sell tickets to an event, or promote a teleclass? This
is how you measure the success of today's press release.
3. Determine your target audience. Just like with any other marketing
effort, being able to address the needs and concerns of your target market
is key to creating a successful press release. If you have more than one
audience, you may want to create more than one release.
4. Include your call to action. Do you want to invite the reader to pick up
free information on your site, register for an event, or buy your newest
book? The call to action that you desire needs to be included in the final
paragraph of your press release.
5. Create a compelling headline. The headline for your release needs to be
compelling and interesting enough to get the searcher to open and read your
release. If you struggle to come up with compelling headlines, take a trip
to your local supermarket and read the headlines on the magazines that are
placed near the checkout lanes. Women's magazines, Cosmo in particular, have
excelled at the headline game for years, as it is the headlines on the cover
that help them sell magazines. Study their headline formulas and see how you
might apply them to your own business.
6. Promote all activities. No longer are press releases reserved for
newsworthy events. Submit a press release for anything that happens in your
business: the launch of a new website, your presentation at a conference,
the release of a new ebook, election as an officer to a professional
association, etc.
7. Optimize for searches. Before completing your release, do a quick keyword
search using the free keyword research tool at Wordtracker.com. Optimize
your release for 2-3 relevant keyword phrases for which you want to be found
that have a fair amount of search traffic. Include these keywords in your
headline, sub header, first paragraph, and body of your press release.
8. Write for longevity. In the days of the traditional release, a press
release was only available for a short period of time and then disappeared
forever. Online press releases, however, hang out for years on websites and
can be found in searches several years after their initial release date.
9. Include links. Unlike the releases that appear in print media, your
online press release can contain several links to various pages on your
site. You may want to direct readers to your home page, to a specific
landing page or product page, or to an event registration page.
10. Pay for release. There are many free press release sites online. The
dirty little secret of these free sites is that your release is never
submitted anywhere. It just sits on that free press release site, never to
be seen again. If you truly want your release to be seen online, pay for
that privilege. I use and highly recommend PRWeb.com for this service. For
their basic submission free of $80, you can get more than ample distribution
of your release all over the Web.
Press releases are a great tool to help you in your Internet marketing
efforts. Begin slowly, and plan to submit one release per quarter at first,
and then move to monthly, and perhaps eventually to weekly. By doing so, you'll
make your site more relevant to search engines, drive more visitors to your
site, and position yourself as the well-known expert in your field.
my motto is "Keep it simple" and "don't leave anything for tomorrow that can
be done today."
If you have any questions or comments please contact me.
Regards Gerald
Website: http://www.webcraft.ws
E-mail: gerald@webcraft.ws
Twitter: WebcraftGuru
Facebook: Webcraft Guru
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