Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Friday, 15 of February , 2008 at 4:59 pm
Much has been said about online press releases. How they’re important for branding, building an online business, getting lots and lots of publicity. But you can use them for Search Engine Optimization?
Absolutely.
Links in your press releases work the same way as links anywhere else online. But it may not necessarily be just about the press release distribution website. Like article marketing, you can submit your press releases to distribution websites that are visited by newspaper, television, radio, and Internet journalists. These press releases are then used to promote your company and products on news sites and sites related to your industry.
There are two ways a press release can be used by these other companies:
- The press release can be used just as you wrote it, links and all
- Or the news site or industry site can contact you for an interview
That second way is the way most press releases attract attention. You’ll get a call or an e-mail from a news or industry website wanting your opinion on a topic or wanting to do a story on your company. In the story, they will usually use link to your website. That link will count as an inbound link for you website and it will garner the same link juice that any other link will, subject to relevance, authority, etc. Overall, press releases can be a great addition to your search engine optimization.
Category: Link Building, Online Publicity
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Thursday, 4 of October , 2007 at 2:06 pm
Yesterday, I wrote a review of PR Web Direct Press Release Newswire. Well, today I’d like to talk about how NOT to use PR Web Direct Press Release Newswire.
Leave it to Marketing Pilgrim to find it. It really was a beautiful press release. It had all of the elements of an effective press release, though they decided to go the inexpensive route.
- Top 10 list
- Lies our competitors tell
- The lie that we don’t do as our competitors do
- You know, all the beauties
You’d think a PR firm would know better. But does BlinnPR include a link in their press release? Would you use a PR agency that sent out a press release like that? I wouldn’t.
Category: Online Publicity
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Wednesday, 3 of October , 2007 at 7:52 am
If you aren’t aware of PR Web Direct Press Release Newswire you should be. This service is perhaps one of the most essential services for achieving high value publicity online that includes strong link building and brand awareness. One press release uploaded to PRWebDirect can be distributed online to best sources of publicity anywhere in the world, including Yahoo! News, Google News, PRWeb, Businesswire, and a variety of social bookmarking sites. This is the best place to go for instant online publicity, bar none.
The features you are allowed with each press release distributed through PRWebDirect are nothing like anything you’ve ever seen. There is no off line equivalent. In the old days, you’d write up a press release, fold it up into an envelope with a photo you took with your 35mm point and shoot camera and send it to several newspapers. Someone might or might not have read it and it probably ended up in File 13 or buried under the clutter on some editor’s desk. At PRWebDirect, though, there is no File 13 and no editor’s desk.
Without the filter of human eyes and limited space, almost every press release will see the light of day. You can pack your press release with links, add pull quotes, throw in a photo, podcast, or video to enhance the experience for journalists and lay people worldwide, and even your contact information. It’s all right there in plain view for all the world to see.
If you’ve never used multimedia press releases to increase your brand awareness and online publicity efforts then I suggest you start now. PR Web Direct Press Release Newswire packs a powerful whop!
Category: Online Publicity
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Saturday, 22 of September , 2007 at 4:07 pm
Online publicity is a bit different than publicity off line. In the old days, you’d hire a publicist or public relations firm and let them handle everything. They’d interview you, send out press releases to various media, and seek to have journalists contact you for interviews, photo ops, etc.
Today, you can do it all yourself.
I like PRWeb. For just a few hundred dollars, as opposed to several thousand, you can write a press release, upload it yourself, include some video footage and pull quotes, add your contact information, and put together a complete publicity web page that makes you look like a million dollars. You can do this all yourself. Or, you can hire an online publicity guy to do it for you for a little bit more. But it doesn’t cost anywhere near the traditional publicity the way it used to be.
Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.
Category: Online Publicity
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Sunday, 12 of August , 2007 at 7:44 pm
Do you know the online tools available to you for branding your small business? They’re not that difficult and there may be more branding tools than you would think. Here are a few tools that you can use to brand your business online. You don’t need them all, but you should be using most of these. Which branding tools are you using?
- Company blog
- Pay-per-click advertising
- Directory advertising
- Affiliate program
- Article marketing
- RSS Feeds
- Podcasting
- Company newsletter or ezine
- E-mail marketing
- .pdf downloads or e-books
- Video viral marketing
- Banner advertising on like websites
- Forum and bulletin board participation
- Template and website design
- Your company logo/banner displayed prominently on your website and other online marketing tools
- Press releases
There is almost no limit to the number of tools you can use to brand yourself online. In many ways, online branding and publicity is more flexible and expensive than off line branding and publicity. So why aren’t you doing it?
If you are doing it, which methods do you use to brand your company online?
Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.
Category: Online Publicity
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Friday, 10 of August , 2007 at 9:46 am
It looks like the blogosphere has found me. I’m flattered.
As they say, any publicity is good publicity. But some people aren’t real happy about me. You see, I’ve gone and broken the cardinal rule of PPC. I bid on other companies’ brand names. It’s not illegal as Lisa Barone at Bruce Clay has pointed out. Though some folks do question the ethics behind it.
(Source) It’s actually good strategy, but not really ethical.
The part that gets me - and it doesn’t make me mad, it just makes me laugh - is that some people are saying this practice makes me a bad marketer. If you can see the punch line in that statement then you can understand why I’m flattered at all of the attention. Here are a few lines from Lisa at Bruce Clay:
Not because it’s unethical or because it’s “bad” but because it does nothing to separate you from them, aka your competition.
You can make the argument that aligning yourself with respected companies gets you noticed, and yeah, that has obviously worked for Nick to some degree. But are they are going to remember you as being a search engine optimization company or are they going to only remember that you showed up next to Bruce Clay or RedBoots Consulting when they weren’t looking for you.
My fear is that by heading down the path where you piggyback off others success may make you more enemies than you gain clients. If you’re a good search marketer, why not get attention by showing off your skills?
Well, Lisa, I got you talking about me, didn’t I? Other people are talking me, aren’t they? I didn’t pay you or any of the other folks out there in the blogosphere to mention my name or link to my blog, did I? So I guess I’ll let the blogosphere decide on the effectiveness of my strategy. Fact is, I’m getting click throughs and, yes, closing sales. Who really cares if their competition is mad at them?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not out to make enemies. I’m just building a business. I’m not trash talking my competition, I’m just using them, in a sense, to slingshot my way to success (though it isn’t my primary reason for using this strategy). In auto racing, it is common for trailing cars to drive behind the lead car in order to conserve power and energy against the force of the wind. Then, at an opportune moment, they can swing around the automobile in the lead and use the reserve power they’ve been storing to “slingshot” them into the lead. It’s a valid strategy and it works in business as well as in auto racing.
I am fully aware that the practice may not win friends in some circles. Nevertheless, I expect to be a competitor. I am building a brand and my method is effective in doing just that. I figure if I attract some business and people use my services, all I have to do to keep them as customers long term is provide a good service at a fair price. But to get there I have to get them to the door. If that means barking like a carny then my PPC ads serve a purpose. I hope that doesn’t create ill will, but if it does then at least my customers know that I can deliver the goods. And as for “showing off my skills,” I believe I already have.
Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.
Category: Online Publicity, PPC
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Saturday, 4 of August , 2007 at 10:16 pm
Things like this make me smile.
Online advertising really isn’t a lot different than advertising off line. The strategies are somewhat different, but the goal is pretty much the same. You want to put your name in front of your target market and make an impression. If the impression is big enough, people will notice and when they’re in the market for your types of services they will call. Or e-mail.
That’s why I’m a proud sponsor of Marketing Pilgrim.
In fact, I sponsor several websites and not just the Pilgrim. I’m also a proud sponsor of Search Engine Land and the Small Business Branding blog.
The advertising rates may be a bit out of the range for some small businesses, but you don’t have to advertise on sites of this magnitude in order to make an impression. If necessary, start small. Find a website that has advertising rates you can afford and that reaches the same target market that you are trying to reach. After you’ve built your business up awhile then you can move up a step. Don’t replace your SEO efforts with paid advertising, but use the paid advertising models as an adjunct to your unpaid efforts. You’ll be amazed at the results.
Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.
Category: Online Publicity
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Monday, 2 of July , 2007 at 7:14 pm
The social sites that are actually going to flourish and profit from product recommendations are going to have to spend a lot of resources on maintaining a high level of credibility.
That’s saying a lot. If social sites continue to grow in popularity then you would think that their credibility would get better, but it makes sense that their popularity would attract a lot of spam. Social sites will then have to figure out how to control the spam. The above conclusion is based on a study conducted by Jupiter Research:
About 53% of online shoppers go directly to a retail website to buy while 3% go to blogs first. That means that if you want to use user generated content to sell your products, you had best find a way to incorporate it directly into your retail site.
We already know that most online shoppers go online to look for something to buy then drive to a nearby retail store to make the purchase. So now we see that 53% of them go straight to a retail website as opposed to a blog or social site. That’s a significant statement since more and more people are starting blogs. Does that mean blogs don’t make good sales tools? Don’t bet on it. You can actually use your blog to drive traffic to your retail website. Since your retail site consists largely of static pages that don’t change much, your blog consists of fresh content that is updated daily. It is likely that customers will find your blog before they find your retail site. Then, if they like what they see on your blog they will visit your webite, but you’ll have to attract their attention first. If they don’t like your blog they will likely not bother with your website and they’ll go somewhere else.
That makes a company blog one of the best publicity tools online. When your customers go online to shop for their next gadget, you want them to find you. You increase your chances of that happening with a company blog and it won’t be long before businesses that don’t have blogs won’t be found at all.
Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.
Category: Online Publicity
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Thursday, 31 of May , 2007 at 8:23 am
To really create an effective Internet marketing campaign there are fours areas that need a lot of focus and a lot of carefully-thought-out detail:
* The Color Design and Presentation of A Web Site
* The Navigation of a Web Site
* The Copy/Web Content
* The Optimization Strategy(ies)
Allow me to prioritize these for you:
- Copy/Content
- Navigation
- Optimization
- Design
It might seem kind of strange that an SEO would put optimization next to last on the list of priorities, but there is a reason for that.
What it all boils down to is your content is what sells. It does no good to get 500 million people to visit your site if it doesn’t sell them on your product or service. That’s why you must focus on building great content that sells. I’d rather close sales on 10 percent of 50 visitors than 0 percent of 200,000. Focus on content first.
Once you’re sure you have your content well-written and sales focused, work on your navigation. Again, this is something your site visitors will notice. If they can’t find what they’re looking for quickly and easily then they will leave. The result will be no sales. It’s almost as important as content. Definitely more important than design.
Search engine optimization is the science of optimizing your web copy using keywords and links so that you attract the attention of search engines who index your pages accordingly. It’s important if you want traffic, but as stated before, you can get all the traffic you want and if your content doesn’t sell, who cares?
It is rather odd, I think, that most people focus on design. They’ve got it backward. A pretty website with no sales is just a pretty website, but an ugly website that makes sales gets prettier by the dollar. My compliments to Chris McElroy on that one. The point is this: Design can make your website pretty, and there’s nothing wrong with a pretty website, but content is still what sells; navigation is still what helps your visitors find what they are looking for; and SEO is what helps the search engines index you appropriately. Get your priorities right and you’ll do well online. Get them wrong and you’ll just have another pretty website.
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Category: Online Publicity
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Thursday, 24 of May , 2007 at 9:43 pm
The fact Alexa relies on this kind of volunteer effort to collect the traffic information constitutes its major limitation. As you can easily imagine, there are countless web surfers out there who do not use the toolbar and would probably never consider doing so. They represent the overwhelming majority of web users. Because of that, it’s only conceivable that there are websites which receive a steady and decent amount of traffic but whose Alexa rankings do not necessarily reflect this for their visitors’ browsers are not equipped with the Alexa toolbar.
As you’ve no doubt noticed, most Internet users don’t use Alexa and don’t rely on it. Should you?
As a tool, Alexa can be helpful but I wouldn’t use its data as a word from God. The problem with it is, as this author so eloquently stated, most of its users are SEOs, bloggers, and other techies. Most non-users are average Joes. The way I would recommend using Alexa is to find out how much tech-savvy traffic you are getting versus non-tech traffic. If you peddle a product or service that targets techies then you’ll want to spend more time working on ways to draw their attention. If your product or service is not geared not techies but toward the average Joe then maybe you shouldn’t worry about it at all.
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Category: Online Publicity
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