A good press release starts with something worth announcing. Uninteresting news gets little results. Our sample is just a guide for the structure of a press release.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

ABC Inc. Announces Cure for the Common Cold.

Create an active and descriptive headline to capture the reader’s attention. It needs to be written for both search engines and consumers.

SUMMARY: Write a brief summary of the press release that helps clarify the headline, and describes what the press release is about.

Body: Answer the Where, When, Who, and What. Write using the inverted pyramid format, placing less important information further down. The press release should be approximately 500 words. Keep your sentences and paragraphs short; a paragraph should be no more than 3-4 sentences.

First Paragraph: Include City, State – Month Day, Year – Organization Name – Answer the “what” in the rest of this paragraph.

Second paragraph of the body should connect the first paragraph to more detailed information about the “why” and the “how” of the news event.

Additional paragraphs should contain supporting information, industry statistics, and quotes.

Last paragraph should include your call to action. This is your opportunity to prompt your target audience to do something.

### (Use three number signs to denote where the press release ends)

CORPORATE SUMMARY: Short summary about your organization.

CONTACT INFORMATION: Include the contact information of a person the media can follow up with. (Name, Company Name, Phone Number, E-mail Address, Company URL)

You can post the press release onto your blog. After posting to your blog, email the media representatives that you want to especially reach with a link to your blog posting.

There are many press release websites (free and paid) that you can submit your press release to.

The Internet has changed our culture and given us instant access to information. The World Wide Web is the greatest marketplace in the world. Business large and small, local and global needs to have a presence.

Web marketing is much more cost effective than traditional media. Many companies today may have reduced their overall marketing budgets, and shifted much of the remaining dollars into new web sites, organic SEO, pay-per-click, blogging and social media. They have done this to better lever their marketing dollars into sales results.

Web Marketing is expected to continue growing at 21% annually through 2012 in the US. Compare this with traditional advertising media such as Print Yellow Pages where advertising revenues are expected to decrease by 1.4% annually over the same period.

A successful business website gives your visitor exactly what they are after. It answers their question and gives them a way to take action.

Your website is a powerful marketing tool that allows you to present your message to your targeted customer. Your customers will judge your company on the strength of your message and the freshness of your content. It should build credibility and trust and then encourage action.

Website marketing is where business is putting its focus for the future. We are in a transition from traditional marketing to Internet Marketing as we are in the digital age.

You are ready to start your online business or take your existing business to the web. You have thought through your idea, now how do you go about implementing your plans. You need to choose your website company.

1. Assess your needs: Do you want multiple contractors for design, SEO, programming, hosting, website maintenance and hosting? Or do you want one company to handle everything?
2. Traffic, design and conversion: You will need more than a graphic designer. A great website takes three things: visitor traffic, a compelling design and conversion strategies to get results. Look for a company that will give you great internet business strategies.
3. Can you trust them? Give them a call and decide if you will be comfortable in working with them. Check out a few references to see what experience others have had. After all, you are building an online business and you don’t want to trust just anyone.
4. How big are they? Look at the size of the company; do they have multiple people doing this work? Most web designers are one or two person companies who work out of their homes.
5. Portfolio: Look at a portfolio of their work. Make sure they have enough experience under their belts and that you like their work. Do all their client websites all look similar in format and structure?
6. Design for SEO: If organic search rankings are important, then choose a designer experienced in SEO. They should be able to demonstrate SEO results. Search engine optimization should be designed in with keywords built into navigation, page names, links and body text.
7. Database Programming: By adding online tools, searchable databases of your work, pricing wizards, ecommerce, events calendars, searchable photo galleries and complex sign-up applications you can automate your business website.
8. Website Maintenance: Website maintenance includes changing content, photos, adding pages, adding applications or adding a blog. Choose a web company that offers long term maintenance support.
9. Website hosting: Make sure you are getting high quality business website hosting that is maintained within a data center. One that has multiple Internet trunks and power backups. Stay away from designers who host on a computer in their office or apartment.
10. Price and Delivery: Will they give a firm price that is detailed and complete? What is their promised delivery date? Will this meet your budget and your marketing deadlines? More importantly, will their work meet your marketing objectives?

Web hosting for your online business shouldn’t be an afterthought. In your search for a company to host your business website, you may instantly think of a few criteria and compare different companies and plans:

• Is the hosting company reputable?
• Is the company an industry-leader?
• Have they gotten good reviews?

Whatever may fit into your initial checklist, you’re probably missing one of the most important aspects of having full control over your small business web hosting:

The Control Panel!

Now wait, come back!

I know some less tech-savy people can get turned off by having full control over your website hosting. It’s a little frightening. It’s important to remember: they don’t always look like this:

Taking some time to navigate within the control panel will give you more and more familiarity so it will eventually look more like this:

Another perk of having a control panel that you have access to includes the fact that if you need changes done, you can do it. You don’t have to call tech support, submit a support ticket, or email an email address that may (or may not be) be monitored – just log in and make the change. This is especially important for business websites, as you may need something updated, an email address created, a database backed-up; any multitude of needs.

There may be a slight difference in price between the option of having control panel access or not for some web hosting companies. Whatever that price may be, having full control over your web hosting with a control panel is entirely worth the split cost.

When economic times are tough, a business has two choices.

1. Press the panic button and avoid all spending and just wait for better times. This means slashing all spending including marketing. These companies are in survival mode and hope to minimize losses to their customer base.
2. See new opportunities and shift their marketing effort to grab onto these opportunities. This usually means shifting spending to more efficient and better targeted marketing such as web marketing.

We can see two examples if we look back to the great depression. Churchill was wiped out by the great depression as he lost great wealth in the stock market. Joseph Kennedy made his fortune during this same time by shifting his wealth to real estate before the crash.

Web marketing is much more cost effective than traditional media. Many companies today may have reduced their overall marketing budgets, but they shifted much of the remaining dollars into new web sites, organic SEO, pay-per-click, blogging and social media. They have done this to better lever their marketing dollars into sales results.

During a recession, new opportunities present themselves and businesses need to be ready to go after these. Big gains happen if you are able to capture market share while other companies are losing customers while focused on survival.

Let’s look at two examples.

Industrial Craters and Packers of Portland Oregon is one of our clients. Much of their business was building crates for capital equipment companies. This market has all but dried up for now. About a year ago Industrial Craters invested in organic SEO for search terms around “factory relocation Portland” and “custom crating Portland”. Today they are busier than ever helping with plant shutdowns and factories being decommissioned.

Another example is Webex (online conference calling) who developed a TV ad campaign around “spend less time travelling“. Not only could businesses save money, they took the pain out of travel. Webex presented a solution that improved productivity for sales organizations. Webex presented a solution that allowed local businesses to have a national reach.

With a new report out now, there may not be a better time to start a PPC campaign.

How has our slow economic environment impacted pay-per-click (PPC) advertising? There are more impressions with more ads being showed to searchers. There is an increase in click thru rates. Advertisers have reduced their spending per click and have improved their conversion rates. This is all detailed in a report by eFrontier that compares their client data and compares Q1 2008 with Q1 2009.

Search engines have responded to our sluggish economy by reducing or removing minimum bids. Impression volume has surged across all search engines. This shows consumers are using search engines to buy products and to research products or companies.

Advertisers have increased their ROI by 10% Between Q4 2008 and Q1 2009 while spending 3.3% less. This shows a trend toward efficiency which comes from spending less per click and focusing on improving conversion rates. This has been done thru by improving ad / landing page relevance and landing page design.

How are the search engines faring? When comparing 4Q 2008 with 1Q 2009, Google saw a 1.2% increase in market share while Yahoo Search and Microsoft Live Search showed a Q/Q decrease of 0.7% and 0.5% respectively.
Cost Per Click refers to the amount of money an advertiser pays the search engines and other Internet publishers for a single click on its advertisement to brings a visitor to its Web site. CPCs are down across the board by 19% for Q1 2009 compared to the prior year.

Buying has shifted to lower ticket items. The average order value has declined 5% from one year ago according to the Rimm-Kaufman Group.

Blogging is a powerful business marketing tool. It is much more than a way to simply express your opinion. It is used to attract and interact with your targeted customer. It is one of the most powerful search engine optimization tools that a business can use.

Blogging is part of the area of the web known as social media.Blogging is the most powerful and most impactful of the social media marketing technologies. The approach in blogging is very different than website marketing. In website marketing the purpose is to directly sell, to focus on conversion, to get the lead or the sale.

Blog Marketing is about influencing, it is about attracting an audience with interesting, original and useful information. Business blogging brands your business as the expert and the natural “go to” partner for your readers.
Business blogging will dramatically improve your website’s search engine rankings in three ways.

1. Adding a blog to your website, adds original keyword rich content to your website. Each blog posting adds a new page to your website. Larger websites do much better in search engine results than small websites. If you add 100 postings in a year, you have increased your website by 100 pages.
2. RSS or Really Simple Syndication that blogs use, broadcast your message in minutes across the web. No more waiting for search engines to spider your website. Your blog will regularly attract targeted visitors who are searching for what you have to say.
3. SEO writing methods will not only bring your blog to the top rankings in Google, but also your business website. Using keywords in blog titles and in link text is new and little known SEO technique. This is the method that the best and most expensive SEO firms use to get their client phenomenal results

A key element of web marketing is to inspire trust and show your business is credible and trustworthy. How do you do that in our current environment of distrust?

The 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer measures the current levels of trust toward business. Trust is at an all time low in the US with 77% of respondents (ages 25 to 64) distrusting businesses and corporations more now than they did just one year ago. It is no wonder with the government bailout of banks, American auto executives getting government hand outs and an Illinois governor being led away in handcuffs.

What are things you can do to build trust as you market your business on the web? A key strategy is to focus on education based marketing where your focus is on helping your clients be successful. Here are ways to implement this.

1. Website: This is often the first impression that someone sees of your company. The business website design should be industry appropriate, organized and focused on the visitor.
2. Blog: Blogging about tips, solutions to problems and “how to” advice brands you as the expert and builds a relationship of trust. Effective business blog marketing focuses on educating your target market.
3. Organic Search Results: Invest in organic SEO results for your website. A Penn state study shows that people trust organic search rankings over paid advertising.
4. Privacy: Include a privacy policy clearly visible on your website if you collect any personal information such as email addresses. Never disclose email addresses to 3rd party companies.
5. Email Marketing: Permission based email marketing where you provide value and solutions to your targeted audience are welcomed. Always include an “opt out” mechanism so your prospect is in control.
6. Articles: Write informative articles that educate and inform people about something related to your business. The article should be purely educational with a link to your website in the resource box at the conclusion of the article.
7. Press Releases: Regular and informative press releases keep your company visible and familiar to your prospects. There are many “free” press release websites that can be used by businesses.
8. Webinars: Put on webinars for your prospects to help them understand and better make informed buying decisions. These brand you as the expert and are great for relationship building.
9. On Hold messaging: For prospects that call in, use on hold marketing to educate them about your company, new products and services and new promotions while they wait for you to come to the phone.
10. Proposals: If you provide custom quotes for services or products, build a standardized proposal that includes background information and testimonials from actual clients. A professional and complete proposal sets you apart from your competition.

There are many popular blogs that have a good following. Many do not try to monetize their visitor traffic. Most bloggers today simply want to share their opinion on something. You can use your blog to bring in some extra cash too.

If you decide you want to generate some extra income, there are three important things your blog needs: traffic, traffic, and more traffic. Once you have a steady flow of visitors, you can start turning your blog into a moneymaker.

1. Advertising Space: Placing ads on your blog like Google Adsense is an easy way to add relevant advertising to your blog. You get paid for every visitor that clicks on one of these ads. You can also sell display ads for a monthly fee. The more visitors your blog receives, the more you can charge.
2. Affiliate Sales: You can get paid for connecting your visitors with other websites that sell products. You can keep a percentage of the sale for supplying the customer. Amazon.com is a popular affiliate where you can offer books and products that your readers would be interested in.
3. Sell Products: If you have a good following you may want to sell products with your logo or slogan. Café Press offers an affiliate program where your visitors can order all sorts of products that they will apply your branding to. You will earn a commission on everything sold.
4. Ask for Donations: If your blog has developed a following of loyal readers, then you may be able to get readers to support you thru donations. Add a Paypal button and ask for donations. This is especially effective if your blog supports a popular cause.
5. Generate New Business: You will get new business if you write about topics related to your business that your targeted clients are interested in. Establish yourself as the expert in your market niche and people will seek you out. I receive regular requests to help companies with their web marketing initiatives because of this blog.

Why not turn your writing and opinions into a revenue stream. Making money from your blog usually is not your primary motivation for blogging. Your blogging should at least bring you new business opportunities.

Online marketing, digital marketing and interactive advertising revenues are expected to grow to $62.4 Billion in the US by 2012 according to a forecast by The Kelsey Group. In the 2007, this was $22.5 Billion for the US. This represents a 21.3% annual growth rate.

Compare this with traditional advertising media such as Print Yellow Pages where advertising revenues are expected to decrease by 1.4% annually over the same period.

Forrester Research is projecting similar growth rates for digital advertising in their projections thru 2014. Forrester says interactive budgets will grow at the expense of traditional marketing. Sixty percent of respondents said they will grow digital budgets by shifting money away from other channels. Direct mail, newspaper ads, magazine ads, print yellow pages, radio ads, telemarketing and outdoor ads are all expected to decline while web marketing is expected to grow.

What categories are expected to grow the most? (Data from Forrester Research revenue estimates (US) for 2014)

• Search Marketing : $31.6 Billion (15% annual growth)
• Display Advertising: $16.9 Billion (17% annual growth)
• Social Media Marketing: $3.1 Billion (34% annual growth)
• Email Marketing: $2.1 Billion (11% annual growth)
• Mobile Marketing: $1.3 Billion (27% annual growth)

Not surprising, search marketing will be the major marketing area that companies will be investing in to market their businesses online. This will be a combination of PPC advertising and Organic search engine optimization. Companies are moving their advertising dollars from traditional media to online marketing methods.