Category: Online Biz Tips

If you run your own business, then writing effective press releases is a good skill to learn as it will help you promote and sell more of your services and products. A press release is like an article, with one main difference: they have to have an element that makes them newsworthy. They will almost always have quotes from someone associated with the information being disseminated.

After you have written a press release, it can be distributed to offline or online services that specialize in releases. You may have to pay for some of them, but there are plenty of free services available. PRWeb Direct, Free Press Release, I-Newswire and PRLog are some of the more well-known online sites that will accept your releases.

Using a straight forward, factual voice is the key to writing effective press releases. While most places that accept submissions won’t care all that much about how newsworthy your releases is, you should try to find an angle that is interesting so the places that republish press releases from those same sites will choose yours. In other words, you should be thinking about how interesting your releases is so more people will print it, which in turn gives your business more exposure.

There is a basic format for most press releases. You will often need to include your personal contact information, name of your company, phone number, and so on. However, some outlets may have specific requirements for submissions, so be sure to follow those carefully if you want them to accept your press release.

When it comes to writing effective press releases, it’s important to have a strong headline. This is what will get people to read what you wrote. In fact, you may have just written an excellent press release, but if the headline isn’t any good, then it doesn’t matter. So, you should spend a decent amount of time writing, rewriting and refining your headline. “DISCOVER HOW XYX INC. IS CREATING MORE LOCAL JOBS” gives you an idea of a captivating headline. If the service asks for a subtitle, then you could add something like, “Top Executives Excited About Income Potential” would work. After that, the rest of your release should back up and reinforce what your headline and subtitle said.

You may have noticed that the headline was written in all capital letters, while the subtitle had the first letter of each word capitalized. This is the standard format, but again, be sure to check the formatting preferences of any service you’re using. A length of 350 to 450 words is common, and you should break it up into many small paragraphs instead of a few longer ones. The end of your press release should include an invitation for readers to get in touch with you for additional information.

As you can see, writing effective press releases isn’t all that difficult. It may take a bit of practice to get it just right, but it’s easy enough to get started. Once you see the positive results they bring, you’ll wonder why you waited so long to use them.

Video: Brad discusses what a successful blog looks like. He shows the traffic numbers and how it is monetized.

Let’s start with a clear understanding of what a call to action actually is. A call to action is an element or that entices a reader or viewer to take note or make a decision based upon it. Relating this directly to the Internet and websites, a website call to action could be something like “Add to Shopping Cart”, “Buy Now” or “Subscribe to Newsletter”. The main goal of a call to action is to persuade the visitor to click on or interact further with your website, hopefully ending in the visitor buying a product or service or another conversion goal. It is often seen that blue underlined text is clicked on more by website visitors when given a choice because these have been the default standard for many years. It is also believed that the blue text is associated with calming and trust so it more likely to be clicked.

Having described what a call to action is it should be clear that every good business website have at least one call to action on every single page within the website. Given the nature of websites it is often important to give a couple of call to action options to users. When a visitor progresses through your website, you should be able to follow the path your website visitors have made along the path of persuasion towards your conversion goal. Ideally this would give you a clear idea on what calls to action are working and what ones aren’t along the desired flow of your conversion process. A good website will be laid out in such a way that when a visitor wants to make a slight detour to find out more information correctly placed and worded calls to action are there to guide them back on your conversion path.

So, why do you need a call to action on your website? Many studies have shown that if a website visitor does not find what they are looking for within 3 seconds they will exit your website. Many SEO experts will only focus on getting a website into the top few results but there should also be focus on the overall online marketing strategy. Any good SEO and Online Marketing company will be able to guide you in a complete online marketing strategy. It is important to know that selling the websites product or service and using calls to action to get visitors through your conversion path is of equal importance to the overall SEO plan.

A well thought out call to action in an overall online marketing campaign will provide you with more sales, lead generation and constant predictable results.

When choosing an SEO and Online Marketing company it is important to take some time and do your own research. The simplest form of research is to search in Google for SEO or Online Marketing and see how good the SEO firm is at selling their own products and services. If they are positioned well for their own services then they are likely to be able to successfully market your products and services online.

Your social networking profile is important when it comes to meeting other Internet users. This is because, in most cases, Internet users are looking to chat with someone who has the same goals, views, beliefs, and interests as they do. Without a personal profile, it would be difficult or impossible to tell what your interests are. That is why social networking profiles are not only important, but they are needed.

When it comes to social networking profiles, a lot of focus has been placed on what you should include in your profile or display on your profile page. It has been said that pictures produce the best responses, as well as detailed personal information. Although a picture and detailed personal information may help to increase your page views, you may be getting views that you do not necessarily want. Despite what you may believe, most social networking websites do not have restrictions on who can view your personal profile. In fact, Internet users, even those that do not belong to your online community, can easily see profile.

Since anyone, literally anyone, can see your social networking profile, on most social networking websites, you are advised to be cautious. Essentially, this means that instead of focusing on what you should put in your online profile, you should be focusing on what not to put. This is one the best ways to protect your safety, both on and offline.

Pictures (again!) are often recommended with social networking websites. If you are interested in posting a personal picture of yourself in your online profile you can do so, but you are advised to carefully choose that picture. While you will want to look your best, you are advised against posting a picture that is too revealing or seductive in nature. Most Internet users can look at these types of pictures without feeling a thing, but for others these types of pictures spell danger.

If you make the decision to post a picture of yourself in your social networking website profile, you need to be careful about the rest of the information that you post. Although you may not necessarily think about it, a picture is just a picture, but combined with your name and address, it could be a deadly combination. You are advised to only post your first name in your profile. This will make it more difficult for anyone to try and contact you off of the Internet.

It is also advised that you carefully choose your location. A large number of online social networking sites require that you select a city, as well as a state. If it is allowed, you may only wish to list your state and not the city. If you are required to list the city and the state that you live in, you may want to think about using a nearby city or town, especially if you live in a small town. If an Internet predator wanted to contact you and you lived in a small town, it could be fairly easy for them to find you. That is why it is advised that you carefully select the answer to the location question.

In addition to the above precautionary measures, it is advised that you do not post detailed information on your children, the location of your home, your income, or when you will be leaving for vacation! By keeping these and the above mentioned points in mind, you should be able to enjoy online social networking without having to always look behind your back.

Best things in life are free, as many would say. This especially holds true with efforts in advertising one’s products or services. With free Internet marketing services, one can save a lot. Instead of shelling out for the marketing aspect of your product or services, that chunk of money could be put to other important elements of your business since many information websites now offer knowledge regarding Internet marketing services that comes with no price tag at all.

This is not to tell you that better focus on plain Internet marketing. It still will do your business a lot good if you mix traditional advertisement efforts such as traditional and new marketing media.

Here are few of the free methods that you could employ to make your products and services be in their most visible, thus saleable, form.

1. Promote your business through free search engine submission and optimization.

Submit your website to various search engines monthly. This will make many more people know that your website actually exists. Aiming for the top search engines will help a lot in this endeavor.

2. Improve your articles.

Remember that information on articles with good content as traffic-bringer of websites? This time it’s about making these articles serve your website better by using keyword suggestion tools that are offered for free. Update your web site’s content by regularly checking the standing of your keywords with the current market.

3. Acquire free content.

If you have no time to increase the SEO or search engine optimization-friendliness of your articles, you can look for free content from article directories. All you need to do is retain the resource box of those write-ups.

4. Avail of free comprehensive web traffic analyzers.

These are tools that you can make use of without costing you a cent. Your website’s hits statistics will be produced by this kind of Internet marketing tool for your own analysis.

5. Learn to manipulate web design templates.

You don’t have to be too techie-geeky to be able to design your web site. Oftentimes, web design templates or custom-made layouts are available for the Internet marketer to use.

6. Monitor your website’s visibility.

Tools such as search engine position trackers may be used to see your website’s standing.

These processes are very convenient to use as long as you keep in mind that you use and try to master their use for your own benefit. Just don’t get obsessed with your achievements when you finally learn how to use them and incorporate them in your Internet marketing feat.

Nobody likes a bully… especially small business marketers. If you’ve ever felt like the little guy taking punches from a heavyweight champion, you know what I’m talking about. Big business has donned its gloves, and is waiting to put small business down for the count.

I’ve got good news!

Sometimes the little guy wins. Heck, it isn’t easy and sometimes it’s a close call, but little guys do win and when they do… victory is sweet!

What can you do when you’re being threatened by the bully down the street?

1. Take a careful look at the Competition

Every business has its strengths and weaknesses. You need to be aware of both… your competitors strong points, and the places where room for improvement is quite obvious.

2. Be Flexible

Don’t expect your competitor to broadcast his next move so that you can be prepared to block it. You’ve got to think a step ahead, and be ready to outsmart his next maneuver.

3. Use a little Judo

You don’t have to be big and brawny to successfully use Judo. Why? It’s an art that uses your opponent’s momentum to trip him up. So what if you don’t have thousands of dollars to invest in a campaign.

When you’re competition has invested his tens of thousands in one, you’ll be able to make a quick about turn and counteract quickly with a smaller campaign of your own.

He’ll either forfeit his investment or continue through, but loose steam.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret about your competitors that might encourage you. Although big businesses often have a wide variety of products filling their shelves, they often don’t have depth.

Think about it this way.

You may run to your local department store and find everything ranging from make-up to camping equipment. The problem with that? …chances are they don’t have an extremely wide assortment of their products.

This means that if you’re an avid outdoorsman, you probably wouldn’t be satisfied choosing between two cheap brands of tents when there is an amazing variety on the market. An outdoor related store could get one over on the big department store by offering the widest variety of fewer products in a focused field.

Another asset about being the small guy, is that it’s easier to make a quick turn. Hey, how many managers do you have to get okays from to make a quick decision? Think of the weeks it takes for a local department store to send a request from a customer for a certain product to the regional or national management? Yeah, too long!

As a small business, you can have a new product on your shelves within a week. If I were a customer wanting a new tent, I’d prefer to not wait until summer was half over to get it.

There are a lot of benefits to being the small guy. Don’t take bullying lying down. You have what it takes to get the best end of the stick and come out a winner.

Video: Brad talks about when and how to monetize your online business.

It’s not true that everything that has been said has already been written. Since that unfortunate axiom came into use, the whole universe has changed. Technology has changed, ideas have changed, and the mindsets of entire nations have changed.

The fact is that this is the perfect time to write an E-Book. What the publishing industry needs are people who can tap into the world as it is today – innovative thinkers who can make the leap into the new millennium and figure out how to solve old problems in a new way. E-Books are a new and powerful tool for original thinkers with fresh ideas to disseminate information to the millions of people who are struggling to figure out how to do a plethora of different things.

Let’s say you already have a brilliant idea, and the knowledge to back it up that will enable you to write an exceptional E-Book. You may be sitting at your computer staring at a blank screen wondering, “Why? Why should I go through all the trouble of writing my E-Book when it’s so impossible to get anything published these days?”

Well, let me assure you that publishing an E-Book is entirely different than publishing a book in print. Let’s look at the specifics of how the print and cyber publishing industry differ, and the many reasons why you should take the plunge and get your fingers tapping across those keyboards!

Submitting a print book to conventional publishing houses or to agents is similar to wearing a hair shirt 24/7. No matter how good your book actually is, or how many critique services and mentor writers have told you that “you’ve got what it takes,” your submitted manuscript keeps coming back to you as if it is a boomerang instead of a valuable mine of information.

Perhaps, in desperation, you’ve checked out self-publishing and found out just how expensive a venture it can be. Most “vanity presses” require minimal print runs of at least 500 copies, and even that amount will cost you thousands of dollars. Some presses’ minimal run starts at 1,000 to 2,000 copies. And that’s just for the printing and binding. Add in distribution, shipping, and promotional costs and – well, you do the math. Even if you wanted to go this route, you may not have that kind of money to risk.

Let’s say you already have an Internet business with a quality website and a quality product. An E-Book is one of the most powerful ways to promote your business while educating people with the knowledge you already possess as a business owner of a specific product or service.

For example, let’s say that you’ve spent the last twenty-five years growing and training bonsai trees, and now you’re ready to share your knowledge and experience. An E-Book is the perfect way to reach the largest audience of bonsai enthusiasts.

E-Books will not only promote your business – they will help you make a name for yourself and your company, and establish you as an expert in your field. You may even find that you have enough to say to warrant a series of E-Books. Specific businesses are complicated and often require the different aspects to be divided in order for the reader to get the full story.

Perhaps your goals are more finely tuned in terms of the E-Book scene. You may want to build a whole business around writing and publishing E-Books. Essentially, you want to start an e-business. You are thinking of setting up a website to promote and market your E-Books. Maybe you’re even thinking of producing an E-zine.

One of the most prevalent reasons people read E-Books is to find information about how to turn their Internet businesses into a profit-making machine. And these people are looking to the writers of E-Books to provide them with new ideas and strategies because writers of E-Books are usually people who understand the new cyberspace world we now live in. E-Book writers are experts in Internet marketing campaigns and the strategies of promoting and distributing E-Books. The cyberspace community needs its E-Books to be successful so that more and more E-Books will be written.

You may want to create affiliate programs that will also market your E-Book. Affiliates can be people or businesses worldwide that will all be working to sell your E-Books. Think about this. Do you see a formula for success here?

Figure out what your subject matter is, and then narrow it down. Your goal is to aim for specificity. Research what’s out there already, and try to find a void that your E-Book might fill.

What about an E-Book about a wedding cake business? Or an E-Book about caring for elderly pets? How about the fine points of collecting ancient pottery?

You don’t have to have three masters degrees to write about your subject. People need advice that is easy to read and easily understood. Parents need advice for dealing with their teenagers. College students need to learn good study skills – quickly. The possibilities are endless.

After you’ve written your E-book…

Getting your E-Book out is going to be your focus once you’ve finished writing it, just as it is with print books. People will hesitate to buy any book from an author they’ve never heard of. Wouldn’t you?

The answer is simple: give it away! You will see profits in the form of promoting your own business and getting your name out. You will find affiliates who will ask you to place their links within your E-Book, and these affiliates will in turn go out and make your name known. Almost every single famous E-Book author has started out this way.

This doesn’t mean you should stop here. Eventually, you will move into where most of the wealth mountains are – selling them, and then maybe their Resell Rights and Private Label licenses!

Another powerful tool to attract people to your E-Book is to make it interactive. Invent something for them to do within the book rather than just producing pages that contain static text. Let your readers fill out questionnaires, forms, even crossword puzzles geared to testing their knowledge on a particular subject. Have your readers hit a link that will allow them to recommend your book to their friends and associates. Or include an actual order form so at the end of their reading journey, they can eagerly buy your product.

When people interact with books, they become a part of the world of that book. The fact is just as true for books in print as it is for E-Books.

That’s why E-Books are so essential. Not only do they provide a forum for people to learn and make sense of their own thoughts, but they can also serve to promote your business at the same time.

Now as far as turning your list into joint ventures goes, this is a pretty easy but also open ended and rather variable in results until you actually see what these people are capable of further down the line. Similar to previously, when we talked about gaining feedback from your list you can in the same way, gain joint ventures from your list, again, as in the above example with the affiliates, this is often far more widely used, and for good reason.

I urge you once again, not to relegate your joint venture prospects to those who visit your website, and the individuals you pick out through the top performing affiliates, but to actively seek them through your list. The reason we’re doing this is simply because there’s a good chance someone will be out there that won’t progress down your line of resources otherwise. If they’re experienced, have a big list of their own, or the ability to get in touch with your target market, you’re going to miss out if you’re not telling them that you want their services.

For example, an experienced marketer that subscribes to a selection of lists to keep up with what’s going on around them, happens to subscribe to your list where you’re selling an info product such as this. He or she won’t buy your how to product, because they’ve got their system set up already and it just so happens, that they only promote their own stuff to their own lists, unless it’s a joint venture (this is very common among the big guys by the way), they won’t buy your big product for the same reason, and they won’t be joining your affiliate program for the above reason. He or she is a heavy hitter with a big list, but you’re missing out. These are the people you’re aiming to cater for here. It’s not good if you’re leaving massive holes like this, because you’re missing out on some massive profit potential. In fact, as we speak the majority of marketers out there are very obviously leaving these types of holes.

The problem with joint venturing through a list at this stage is it becomes kind of a lottery if you’re not careful. You can’t just send out a mailing asking for anyone with a list over ten thousand people to contact you for higher commissions, because then everyone else feels cheated and you may alienate some potential affiliates. In general terms joint ventures should be a private thing, the deal will also vary from person to person, depending on your product, their list size, what they want in return and what you can grant in return. The best way to go about this is to keep it that way. Don’t do a mass mailing just requesting joint ventures for the reasons above, we can’t do that for this particular resource.

What I’d suggest you do instead, which you should be doing with your list anyway, is carry on as your normally do, sending out your un-intrusive surveys to help with your research and find out as much info as you can about the people on your list, for something in return. For example a short valuable report that you’ve written on your area of expertise. In exchange you’re getting vital info that not only allows you to tailor your ads to your list providing a better response rate, but at the same time you’re building up a picture of who the good joint venture prospects are. Once you’ve done that, you can go through the results you’ve collected, and pick the top performers, the knowledgeable, and the people with the most resources, and contact them individually.

Video: Brad answers the question “How much time do I have to spend on my online business?”