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 to 27 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 27 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.

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 and Associated Content; those sites have some serious red-hot Google love. Articles on those sites seem to stick around forever on the Internets. They let you link back to your site and send steady traffic. 

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