If you've got a small business, product, book, ebook, online course, etc., that you want to publicize,  you don't need to spend thousands of dollars a month on a publicist to start getting the word out. The internet has made it easier than ever. And it's basically free; all that you have to invest is your time.  

Here are some simple first steps that you can take, which can return big results.

1.) Write press releases about your business and submit them to free press release distribution sites. I submit press releases to 25 sites for my clients – $40 if I am also writing the press release, $50 if I am just submitting a press release that someone already wrote  - but you can do this yourself just as easily. And if spending a few hours submitting your press release to 25 sites is too much for you, just pick half a dozen sites. Commit to doing this at least once a month. To learn how to write press releases, go to sites like PRWeb.com and PRnewswire.com and Webwire.com and read the press releases on their sites. I also have a bunch of blog posts about how to write press releases, at www.thepressreleasesite.com/blog

Here is the list of sites that I use: 

http://www.thepressreleasesite.com/list-of-free-press-release-sites.html

2.) Make sure that you are linking back to a well designed website, and that the page that you link too has some course of action that the press release readers can take. Maybe you want them to sign up for a newsletter, download a free ebook, or buy something. The page should be professionally designed and steer them towards one specific action, in order for you to get the best results from your press release.

3.) Join at least a few social networking sites – I recommend Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin – and update regularly. By which I mean AT LEAST daily. If you are good at doing videos, by all means make videos and post them on sites like Vimeo and Youtube.

4.) Help others while you are publicizing your business. Pick a favorite charity – battered women's shelter, animal shelter, homeless shelter, diabetes research, etc. – and commit to doing a business fundraiser of some type at least once in 2010, preferably more than that. Send out press releases announcing your business fundraiser, tweet about it, post updates about it. Donate all the money that you raise from your fundraiser to the charity of your choice.

5.) Blog regularly to keep your site filled with fresh, interesting content, which is what the search engines love. Also, contact popular blogs in your field and offer to write a blog post for them. The blog post should be informative and not promotional; the benefit to you is that you get to link back to your website at the end of your blog post or in the author bio. 

6.) Don't forget to regularly write articles for sites like Ezinearticles.com, Goarticles, and Associated Content; those sites have some serious red-hot Google love. Articles on those sites seem to stick around forever on the Internets.  When you write an article these sites let you link back to your website and send a steady stream of traffic. 

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When I see the same kind of problem cropping up in my client’s press releases again and again, I figure that it’s time to write a blog post about it. 

Frequently, when my clients ask me to edit their press releases, I see headlines which ramble on and on and take too long to get to the actual news.

Here’s a made up example. Let’s say a personal trainer who lost a bunch of weight is releasing an exercise video for busy moms. 

Bad headline:

"After Years Of Battling Obesity, Debbie DooALott Loses 50 Pounds, Gets Personal Trainer’s License And Releases Exercise Video For Busy Moms"

No. 

You don’t cram the whole story into the press release’s headline. And you don’t bury the news so people have to hunt for it, because they won’t. They will get bored and move on.

Better:

"Personal Trainer Releases Exercise Video For Busy Moms" is just fine as a headline.

General rule of thumb: Start the headline with the subject, then follow it with an action verb of some type.  Then say what the news is.

"Lex Luthor Announces Defeat Of Superman" – Lex Luthor is the SUBJECT. "Announces" is the ACTION VERB. "Defeat of Superman" is the NEWS.

"Batman Reveals Truth About His Relationship With Robin In New Tell All Autobiography" – you get the idea.

A person or a company "Reveals, Announces, Hosts, Is Awarded, Merges,", etc.  Just like a news headline.

Good headlines can be read and understood at a glance. To get an idea of how to write press release headlines, go to prweb or webwire and read a dozen or so. You’ll start to get a feel for it. 

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1.) Word of mouth – clients refer me to their friends. So remember to be nice to your existing clients, people! They are gold! 

2.) Twitter. Twitter is the awesomeness for networking and finding a new base of clientele!

3.) The Warrior Forum – a wonderful site for internet marketers. Tons of great free information there. www.warriorforum.com. I seriously could not tell you why they are called The Warrior Forum, it makes them sound like some geek video game site, but really, they are great for IM.

4.) Linkedin.

5.) Random people finding me on the internet because I’ve written a ton of blog posts about how to write press releases, so I seem to come up fairly often in organic searches about press releases.

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 When clients ask me to edit their press releases, there are some common problems that I see. Sometimes these will get the press release rejected by press release distribution sites,  sometimes they will just make the press release read really poorly and will be a turnoff to visitors. I was a newspaper reporter for eons and I’ve read stacks and stacks of press releases, so I have a pretty good feel for what works and what doesn’t. 

Here are some common press release no-no’s:

1.) Reads like an advertisement. A press release must have some benefit to the reader. It is meant to read like a short news announcement. HELPFUL HINT: If you are writing about a new product or service offered by your company, tie it in to current trends to make it news-ier. For instance, if you are releasing a new weight loss product, throw in some current statistics about how many Americans are overweight these days. "With 18 trillion Americans now considered morbidly obese, the need for an effective weight loss product is more urgent then ever." (Yes, I made that statistic up.)

2.) Too long. Press releases generally shouldn’t be longer than 500 words. Some press release sites charge extra for every word over 400 words. Readers have short attention spans these days; they are very unlikely to read a 2000 word press release anyway.

3.) Too many stories crammed into one press release. One news announcement per press release, please. 

4.) Riddled with spellleing an grammatttical errorrers. This will cost you credibility. 

5.) Addresses the reader directly: "If you’ve been on diet after diet…" This makes the press release read like an advertisement and is not standard news format. PRWeb, for instance, tends to reject press releases that address the reader.

Bonus tip: When writing your press release, don’t forget your "call to action" which can read something like this: "To find out more about dog trainer Katie K9′s series of videos, visit www.(yourwebsitelinkhere.) "

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 I have a list of free press release distribution sites that I like. One of the services that I offer clients is to submit their press release to all of the sites on my list, for $40. When I do this, what I have found is that for the first week or two, the first few pages of Google listings are filled with the press releases that I have submitted. This is great for SEO and a quick burst of traffic.

However, over time, some of the  press releases disappear from the rankings.

Which ones remain on the first page or two of Google, with millions of competing sites, months later?

Drumroll, please….

And the number one free site that remains on the first page of Google for-freaking-EVER, and I have no idea why, is….

www.prlog.org

After that, I find the press releases that I submitted to these sites most frequently hang in there on Google’s front page or two, for months and months, again, with tons of competition:

www.free-press-release.com

www.newsalbum.com

www.i-newswire

www.bignews.biz

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If you are in business for yourself online, it is especially important that you understand the concept of social proof.  When you are an online business, most visitors to your websites see you as as unknown entitiy, hiding behnd the anonymity of the internet, which makes them anxious. What if they give you their hard earned money and you vanish? They want reassurance. They want to know that you are a real, legitimate, established business.

How can you give them this reassurance that you’re real and legit? 

One way to do it is by using what is called "social proof". Social proof is a concept first championed by persuasion master Robert Cialdini, and it basically just means that people tend to do what other people are doing. So if a lot of people are buying something, other people will be likely to buy it. If people see two restaurants, one with an empty parking lot, one with a full parking lot, they are much more likely to go to the restaurant with the full parking lot. People follow the herd. They figure that if other people like something, use something, trust something, et cetera, it must be legit.

Customer testimonials are one way to provide social proof. If you go to the home page of my site, www.thepressreleasesite.com, you will see that I have testimonials high up on the home page – along with a picture of myself, which is another way to reassure potential website customers that you are real.

Along with those customer testimonials you should use press releases. This doesn’t mean that you have to conduct an expensive publicity campaign. You can write your own press releases or hire someone to do it for you, send them out to a few press release distribution sites (good free ones are free-press-release.com, bignews.biz, prlog.com – and put them on the Media Room page on your website.

When people search for your company,  one of the things that they will find onine is your press release.

Even if your press release is not picked up by mainstream media, you have created your own online publicity campaign. You have instantly created the image of a much bigger company, an established company that’s so important that they have their own media room, and that has press releases about their success all over the web.

Along with a well designed website with customer testimonials, this provides the kind of social proof that makes people more likely to trust your company when they are looking to do business with someone.

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 My goal is to help my clients. Most of the time, I do this by writing press releases and doing social media marketing with the goal of promoting their website all over the internets, and making sure that their website is fueled by that all important Google Juice.

However every once in a while this is NOT a good idea. And if I think so, I will tell my client so. Politely, of course.

Here’s when you don’t want to send out your press release:

• When your website is not up and running yet and just has a "coming soon" placeholder on it.
• When your website is butt-ugly and has text running over itself and practically screams "My business is doing so badly I can’t afford a web designer!"
• When your website copy  is riddled with spelling and grammatical errors.
• When people who arrive at your website don’t know what to do or where to go. Your website should be well laid out and designed to encourage people to take a specific action – sign up for a newsletter, buy your products, buy your services, contact you for more information…if they just show up, read, and go away forever because you haven’t at least presented them the option to stay in touch or purchase…than you’ve wasted your press release. 

So in other words – don’t go out and get traffic and send it to your website if your website isn’t ready for it. I’m not saying your website needs to be PERFECT – God knows mine isn’t – but it at least needs to be professional looking and needs to present people with a way to get in touch or buy from you or take some other desired action. 

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I’m going to keep this post short and sweet – just the way a press release should be.  

Fairly often, when my clients send me a proposed press release that they want rewritten, they are so excited about their business/new idea/upcoming event/announcement that they cram about 20 different ideas into their press release. This makes it not only too long, it makes it confusing.

What they’ve got there is about 20 press releases in one. All of that greats info in their proposed press releases may well be newsworthy – just not all at once.

When you write a press release, decide what you are announcing. One main news announcement per press release is all you get.

Otherwise, if your press release is even accepted by news outlets, you will leave your readers confused and they will tend to move on without taking action or visiting your website.

So in the first couple of paragraphs you announce your news. Then you have a quote from someone from your company, perhaps you, talking about your news and why it’s great, helpful, different, unique,  what it will do for people, why you’re holding this contest/created this new line of videos/wrote this book/giving a seminar, or whatever your news is.

Then, possibly another paragraph or two giving more details about your news, and then a paragraph or two about you and your background and your company. 

Then, a brief "call to action" –  a sentence saying something like, "Those seeking more information may visit www.(whateveryourwebsite is. Dot com.)"

Also, keep it to 400-500 words or less. Readers these days are busy and have short attention spans. 

Voila. Instant press release. Focused, non-confusing. There you go! 

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 A lot of my clients come to me asking me to rewrite a press release that they’ve written – they’ve paid good money to PRWeb or PRNewswire to distribute the press release, but when they submitted it, it was rejected.

Here’s the number one reason why:

It’s not bad grammer, it’s not lack of pertinent information, it’s not excessive length.

The reason for rejection that PRWeb and PRNewswire has given to my clients is that their press release sounds too much like an advertisement.

You need to write your press release as if it’s a news story, not a promotion. 

One big red flag: Using the word "you." As in, "You may have been wondering if now’s the right time to invest in foreclosure property". Never do that.

Instead "According to foreclosure expert Joe Smith, with recent interest rate cuts and real estate prices reaching rock bottom from their peak in 2005, now is an ideal time to invest in forecosure property. That’s why he has  released his new foreclosure investment coaching program…" etc.   

(P.S. – I personally am not saying that’s true – I think real estate prices will fall more. But what do I know.) 

So grab your newspaper and read through some news stories to get the flavor of how news is written, right before you write your press release, and make sure that you write in a "news announcement" style, not a "buy my stuff now or you’ll miss the bargain/opportunity/sale of a lifetime!" style. 

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