Press releases seem to be relegated to PR firms and seen as a marketing method only used by major corporations or large companies.  However, as a start-up or small business you might not be able to afford the costs associated with creating and distributing a press release through a traditional firm or agency.  The press release has evolved into something more than just an announcement about your company.  No longer do you have to wait and hope that a journalist or editor will pick up on your story – with the internet, your press releases can reach the people who influence what is read online.  From bloggers to local reporters to people halfway around the world, you can distribute a press release that may be seen by thousands of people in a very short period of time.

Undertaking the creation of a press release does not have to be an overwhelming task.  Approached systematically, you can gain the attention of the media and your target audience by following a few tips and strategies.  For this post we’re going to stay away from the distribution and focus on the creation of your press release.

Creating an effective press release

I have used the following tips to generate a lot of media attention and interviews for different websites, blogs, and businesses.  If you go into creating a press release with a system, you can see much more results and attention from your publicity.

• Determine your audience

  Who do you want to reach with your press release?  Editors, bloggers, local news outlets, or maybe specific geographic areas.  By defining who you are trying to reach, you can build your press release around your audience.

• Outline your content

  What do you want to convey with your press release?  Are you doing something new and spectacular or launching a new product?  Maybe you’re announcing a contest or running a promotion that you want to get the word out about.  You need to understand what (and why) you are creating a press release in the first place.Your content needs to be compelling.  While the promotion you just gave someone within your company is great for morale by putting out a press release – you can’t expect to get interviews or a lot of attention, because it has very narrow appeal.  To reach the most people, you need to provide them with a reason to be interested in what you are saying.

• Craft a killer headline

  Perhaps the single most important aspect of your press release is your headline.  Advertising legend David Ogilvy once said:

On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.

Make it intriguing, compelling, controversial, or anything that will draw the reader’s attention and make them want to read more.

• Tell a story – and be less commercial

  Many press releases fall on deaf ears because of their overly commercial tone and style.  Approach with a unique twist that highlights your news or announcement in a way that is colorful and engaging to the reader.

• Short, sweet, and simple

  People can see through hype and don’t have much time to digest information (your press release is one of thousands that are distributed each day), so keep it short and simple – highlighting your main points.

• Your contact information

  Ensure that all of your contact information is included in the release. With the possibility of social media outlets picking up on your story, you will also want to include things like a link to your blog, your Twitter account, and the major social media sites where you have a presence.  The contact information that you should consider including:

  • Address
  • Phone & Fax
  • Contact Name
  • Website
  • Email address
  • Twitter or Facebook
  • Blog

• Track the effectiveness

  After you have distributed your press release you need to track how effective it actually was.  How many sales did it generate?  How many interviews or media mentions?  Did bloggers write about you?  Find out what you did that was (or wasn’t) successful so you can adjust your next press release accordingly.

Related posts:

1. 11 Ways to Create Content When You Don’t Like (or Want) to Write
2. Use Interviews to Create Content For Your Site or Blog
3. Using Video, Audio, & Other Means to Make Your Content Reach More People

If you have ever wondered how to get an image to appear next to the blog comments you leave – you need to go and sign up for a Gravatar.  Technically known as “globally recognized avatars”, Gravatars are images associated with a particular email address.  Since they are tied to your email, anytime you leave a comment on a blog that requires your email (and has gravatars enabled on their site) your image will appear next to your comment.

It’s a pretty cool way to let people easily recognize you around the web and kind of connect a bit with you when they see your image.

So how do you get a Gravatar?

The great thing about Gravatars is that they are completely free.  You simply need to sign up for one and you can be up and running in a few minutes.

How to create your own Gravatar

I’ll walk you through the process here, and in a few minutes – you’ll have your very own!

1. Visit Gravatar.com and choose “Get Your Gravatar Today“
2. Enter the primary email address that you want to associate your image with
3. Create or upload the picture that you want to use (recommended size is 80px by 80px).  If it’s larger that’s alright, because you can crop it after it’s uploaded.
4. Once your image is uploaded, you will be asked to assign a rating from G (all audiences) to X (extremely graphic)
5. You’re finished!

Using your Gravatar

Now that you have finished creating your gravatar, anytime you leave a comment on a site or blog that has gravatars enabled – your image will appear next to your comment.  Pretty cool, isn’t it!

Anytime you want to change your image, simply log into your Gravatar account and upload a new one – and all of the blog posts you have made in the past will now reflect your new picture.

Related posts:

1. How to Create a Favicon for Your Site or Blog
2. Comment Relish: Automatically Follow-Up with Blog Comments by Email
3. 14 Strategies to Get More Blog Comments

Recently, I was doing some reading around on some various topics related to making money online and blogging when I came across this post “Why Free Hosted Blogs Suck” (http://www.ginkgoconsulting.com/blogging/why-free-hosted-blogs-suck/) by Lara Kulpa at Ginko consulting.  It was an intriguing article where she makes some pretty bold statements with one in particular that I really disagree with:

I can almost say with 100% certainty that you can’t come up with a phrase that will have a free hosted blog in the top 5.

Fair enough, everyone is entitled to their opinion.  However, what really upset me was that I took time and effort to leave a comment that had an opposing view on a blog that encourages comments – only for it to sit in moderation and then get deleted.  I gave several examples of phrases that rank in the top 5 that are on free hosted blogs:

• mc hammer
• cupcakes
• cooking blog
• make money online
• cool pics
• recording industry

and there were a few others that I mentioned as well that I can’t recall off the top of my head.  She goes on in her post to say that free-hosted blogs have:

Limited income opportunities, if any.

Both of these statements I completely disagree with.  Further more, since she is trying to leverage her status as a moderator at the newly-launched Problogger.com forums – I find it particularly insulting to her visitors.  In the opening paragraph of the article she states:

Over the past month, I’ve been working as an admin in the newly launched ProBlogger Forum. It started as part of the 31 Days To Build A Better Blog Project which ended last week (but you can still sign up for the course and take it at any time, or you can wait and buy the ebook), but the forum is still open.

and

Darren Rowse has been called “The Godfather of Blogging” and is a dear friend and client.

I understand moderating comments that contain vulgar or foul language or don’t follow your comment policy.  However, I wasn’t impolite, rude, attacking, spamming, defamatory, or otherwise, I was simply stating that I disagreed with her statements and gave some examples to back up what I was saying.  Here is someone trying to position themselves as an authority on their blog and trying to appear knowledgeable, yet she’s not open to contradictory viewpoints.  If this is the case (which it appears to me to be) she should simply state her comment policy on her blog with something along the lines of “This blog does not accept comments that disagree with ours.”

You must understand that I really hate calling people out (I think it’s crude , unprofessional, and tacky), but here’s someone trying to leverage another successful blogger (Darren) to their own benefit and misleading a lot of people in the process, many of them who are completely new to blogging or trying to be successful online.

It’s a private blog and to each their own,  but when you put yourself in the public eye – you ought to be open to valid opposing viewpoints.  If you only allow comments from people telling you what a great job you’re doing and how great your post was, then what’s the point of having comments at all?  But… that’s just my opinion.

My comment policy on Big Manta is very open and I welcome opposing viewpoints, just as long as they aren’t off-topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy.

What do you think?  Feel free to disagree with anything I’m saying here (or on any of my other posts) by leaving a comment

Related posts:

1. 14 Strategies to Get More Blog Comments
2. How to Create a Gravatar: So an Image Appears Next to Your Blog Comments
3. Comment Relish: Automatically Follow-Up with Blog Comments by Email

Twitter has become a phenomenon that seems to keep growing in popularity each day that goes by.  With millions of people using the service, the demand for Twitter icons and logos continues to increase.  If you have a blog or website, an excellent way to get new followers promote your Twitter account is by prominently displaying it on your site or blog.  Lucky for us, there are literally hundreds of different designs, icons, and logos you can use to enhance your site’s design and encourage people to follow you.

Here I have rounded up some of the best Twitter icons and sets that can add some flair and personality to your site or blog.

Twitter Birdies

Cute Tweeters

50 Free & Exclusive Twitter Icons

Twitter Bird

Twitter Bird

Twitter Square Icons

Twitter Block Icons

Twitter Tweetbird

Twitter Bird Icons

Tweet Tweet Cute Tweet

Twitter Birdy Icon

Twitter Vector Icon Set

Twittercons

Twitter From Monkeyworks

There are tons of great icons, logos, and characters that he has created. You need to dig around, but you will see some cool stuff on his site as well.

Kweet

Twitter Birds

Twitter Badges

Set of 24 Twitter Badges

Twitter Birds

Twitter Fat Birds

Twitter Bird Icons

40 Twitter Graphics

Lovely Twitter Icons

30 Twitter Vectors

Twitter On The Beach

Colorful Twitter Icons

Twitter 3 Types

Twitter More Free Icons

2 Awesome Twitter Icons

Happy Birds

Twitter Bird

Twitter Whistling Bird

Helvetwitca

Check out these other Twitter Icon & Logo Collections

• 350+ Fresh Twitter Icons
• 400+ Beautiful Twitter Icons for Your Website
• 100+ Remarkably Beautiful Twitter Icons and Buttons
• 100+ Free Twitter Icon Sets
• 30 Fresh & High Quality Twitter Icon Sets
• 35 Original and Creative Free Twitter Icon Sets

Related posts:

1. Using Lists & Roundups For Content: 4 Successful Blog Examples
2. Design Inspiration: The Logos of the 40 Most Popular Blogs
3. Why a Fast Load Time For Your Blog or Website is So Important

Blog comments are a magical thing.  They give you hope, inspiration, motivation, and encouragement because you know that people are interacting and resonating with what you have written.  For blogs in particular, comments can build your community of readers and allow them to take part in the conversation.  For you as the writer, they are an indicator that people are finding your content useful in some way.

Almost every blogger strives to get people to interact and comment – because it validates what we are doing and that we are reaching people.  We want to know that what we are spending our time on is worthwhile and beneficial to others.  After publishing a great post or piece of content we sit back and wait for people to start commenting on our masterpiece… and wait…. and wait… and wait.  It’s frustrating sometimes to see that the article we just put so much effort into, just kind of sit there and eventually be pushed into our archives.

Having a few strategies and techniques to encourage comments come in handy:

Strategies & Tips to Get More Comments on Your Blog

• Ask Questions – Open-ended questions will give your visitors a chance to respond.  Everyone loves giving their opinion or their view and questions appeal to our desire to be heard.
• Create Controversy – While this is a unique way to approach getting more comments on your blog, being controversial can garner you attention and those opposed are more than willing to voice their opinion.
• Use Avatars – Simply integrating the use of avatars in your site can encourage comments, people like being unique and avatars allow them to be branded as well.
• Reply to Comments – Personally, I find it very frustrating when I leave a comment on a blog where I seek the author’s response and never hear anything back.  Those blogs that do respond encourage me to write more comments because I am part of the conversation “not just another commenter.”
• Comment on Other Blogs – Commenting on other blogs can be a great way to get new comments.  Often, I have found comments on my own sites because of comments that I left on other people’s blogs.
• Link Out – A great strategy that I have used successfully is to link to other blogs about your topic.  Just like commenting on other’s blogs, you will find that many come to your site to check out what you are writing about.
• Be Less Complete - Though this isn’t something that I’ve used, Chris Garrett in a post on the Blog Herald recommends this as a way to encourage people to chime in and take part of the conversation because people can add and expand upon your content.
• List Recent Comments – Displaying the recent comments prominently on your sidebar (or somewhere similar) will encourage people to comment because they are more widely recognized than on just the post that they comment on.
• Encourage Openly - Whether you write a post, send a tweet, or however you want to approach encouraging comments, simply letting visitors know that you want comments will often lead to more of them.
• Run a Contest – One of the most surefire ways to get more comments is by holding a contest.  I have seen many extremely successful sites use this as a strategy to get people to interact.
• MAKE SURE YOUR COMMENTING SYSTEM WORKS – I can’t tell you how many blogs or sites that where I have taken the time to write a well-crafted comment, only to have their comments section broken.  You would be amazed at how many sites’ comments sections don’t work, so ensure that yours is properly running by testing it out yourself.  You won’t get very many comments if people can’t leave one in the first place!

WordPress Plugins that Encourage Comments

• CommentLuv - Yet another excellent suggestion by PlaceForBloggers.  CommentLuv automatically pulls in the last post of each commenter (if they have a blog).
• Subscribe to Comments – Allows your visitors to subscribe to their comments so they can follow up or come back to respond.
• Most Commented – Displays the posts with the most comments on your blog.

How do you encourage comments?

Related posts:

1. Do You Delete Blog Comments That Have an Opposing View of Your Own?
2. Comment Relish: Automatically Follow-Up with Blog Comments by Email
3. How to Create a Gravatar: So an Image Appears Next to Your Blog Comments

One of the simplest and easiest ways to get more people to subscribe to your site is to prominently display your RSS icon or link.  This simple and straightforward strategy can result in significantly more people subscribing to your feed because it acts as a reminder.  You will notice that nearly every one of the most popular blogs will display that orange icon towards the top of the page and it is usually displayed in the sidebar.

Why it works

There is one simple reason why this works so well – people either forget to subscribe or the thought doesn’t even cross their mind.  All you need to do is give them a little nudge to remind them and you would be surprised at the results you can receive.

Where should you display the RSS signup button/link?

There are a few places where you can display your RSS subscription link:

• In your sidebar
• In your top navigation
• At the end of each of your articles

These few places give you the chance to remind them a couple times in case they might have missed the first occurrence.

Display the RSS icon next to your link to gain even more subscribers

While a text link or image is fine as a way to link to your RSS feed, I also recommend displaying the RSS icon as well.  This is a great lesson in branding, because that little icon has been seen billions of times and has created a strong association in many of your visitor’s minds.  By displaying the icon you are relying on that instant recognition of the icon and use that to your advantage.  It is amazing the difference you can see compared to a simple text link that says something like “Subscribe.”

Related posts:

1. What is RSS?
2. 8 Display URL Variations That Can Increase Your Click-Through Rate in PPC Campaigns
3. 14 Strategies to Get More Blog Comments

Yesterday Place For Bloggers sent me an email mentioning that it was difficult to share my blog posts and that many people would not take the time (or know how) to easily share my content.  I went and check out a couple of his posts as he had written about this recently on his 4 Simple Ways to Help Your Blog Posts Go Viral on Twitter.

While I’m still working on integrating the various features that make it easy to share my content via other sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, and the other major social networking/bookmarking sites.  I did want to make it easy to have my posts shared through Twitter.  After looking around (and reading his post) I decided upon using the TweetMeme plugin.  You will notice that this plugin has grown in popularity quite recently and it offers just about everything I was wanting in a Twitter sharing application.

Set up and installation

Installing and setting up the plugin is very simple and since I install my plugins through the WordPress admin area, setting it up only took a few minutes.

1. When you’re logged into WordPress select “Add New” under the “Plugins” heading
2. Search for “TweetMeme”
3. Install and activate the plugin
4. Once it’s installed you will want to go and adjust the settings, connect it to your Twitter account, and style it if necessary

Really, this only took me about five minutes to set up and I really like that visitors can now share this on Twitter easily.  The other really cool thing about this plugin is that it tracks statistics for your post so you know which articles are being share and how often (it even includes graphs that display the information visually).

If you want to easily have the ability for others to Tweet the posts or pages on your site, I would highly recommend checking out the TweetMeme plugin.

Related posts:

1. Cross-Selling Your Content With Related Posts & Pages
2. The Top 11 WordPress SEO Plugins
3. Comment Relish: Automatically Follow-Up with Blog Comments by Email

When building a site or trying to make money online it’s important to know who you are trying to target.  This can be a key element in determining the success of your efforts because different demographics have different ways that they are most effectively approached and catered to.  Everything from design to the topics you write about, should be considered when trying to appeal to a particular audience.

Who is your target audience?

Many times we know exactly the people that we are trying to reach and deliver our message.  If you have been involved with a particular topic or business for some time, you will have a feel for the types of people looking for your products or information.  Other times, we really have no idea of who is searching for what we offer.  However, you can narrow down characteristics of the people you are trying to reach and structure your efforts around reaching those people.

Determining your target (and ideal) audience

There are thousands of ways that people can be segmented or classified, but there are several ways we can identify who we want to target:

Age

Do you want younger or older people?  Younger people tend to spend more on entertainment and leisure while older people buy bigger-ticket items.  If you’re trying to sell high-end luxury items, running an ad on a teen community site won’t produce the best (if any results).

Gender

Are you trying to reach men or women? The colors of your site can play a huge role in whether you are appealing to males or females.

Income

Are you approaching with something everyone can afford, or catering to the more affluent?  Your products and information will typically gravitate toward a more affluent or more budget-conscious user base.

Geographic location

Are you targeting a global audience, or local?  The phrases and references you use can have a huge impact on the people that visit your site.  If you target globally, you will want to have tools and resources that can assist those outside your native language interpret your site.

Buyers or browsers?

How far into the buying cycle are your visitors?  You want to determine whether you want to reach them at the beginning of their buying process or more towards the end of the cycle.

Skill or knowledge level

Are you targeting beginners or experts?  Knowing the skill level of your visitors will help you narrow down what you offer and how you approach.  Even things like the terms you use will be largely influenced by the skill level of your audience.

How do they consume information?

How does your audience consume their information?  If you are trying to reach senior citizens who love fishing – chances are that Twitter won’t be your best way to reach them.  Find out where they go to get their information and start being seen where they are looking.

Continually evolving and adapting to your audience

One thing about your audience is that it will be in a constant state of change.  As you produce more content and products, you develop a more diverse and varied set of people that visit your site or blog.  The goal is to ultimately narrow in on the most profitable visitors and start speaking to them more directly.  Sometimes you will know exactly who your visitors are and what they’re looking for, and other times you will be in trial and error mode trying to find the best audience.

Related posts:

1. Using Video, Audio, & Other Means to Make Your Content Reach More People
2. Negative Keywords: Target & Convert
3. The Top 3 Reasons Why People Fail at Making Money Online

It seems that there is a lot of buzz about trust lately going around, and it’s understandable – people only buy or associate with others that they trust.  Building a reputation, giving valuable advice, not taking advantage of your visitors, these are all just a few factors that play into gaining trust from your visitors.  I say gaining because you typically cannot buy trust from people, it’s something that must be earned.

However, you can legitimately build and enhance your trust factor by becoming a member of a group, association, or organization.  If it is well-known and respected, an association can bring instant recognition and credibility to your site or blog.  People place a lot of weight on certain organizations because the organization has built trust with people over the years and earned the respect of a wide audience.  By teaming up, partnering, or becoming a member of an association – you are leveraging the trust people have in that organization and using it to validate your site or blog.

What types of organizations can you join?

There are all kinds of different associations that you can become a member of:

• Your local chamber of commerce
• Industry associations
• The Better Business Bureau
• Trade groups
• Blog networks
• Even links in blogrolls can help you gain credibility
• Professional organizations

Does it actually help build trust when you are a member of an association?

There have been studies that show those who belong to professional or industry associations that actually see increased conversion rates and revenue.  A prime example is the hacker-safe or privacy seals that you see on many ecommerce sites – studies have proven that they improve conversions because people trust that they are safe shopping on your site.

When you become a member of a professional organization, many require that you go through a process of verification and must meet the requirements that they set for membership.  This is how the association builds trust with the public and if you join – you are instantly given some degree of credibility.

The side effects of joining organizations

In addition to building trust, you can find valuable resources and network with those within your industry.  Not only will you benefit from the association of belonging to an organization, but often they can help you build your business or site in the process.

Related posts:

1. Using Your Own Name as the Domain Name For Your Site
2. Using Contextual Links to Boost Your Affiliate Marketing Income
3. High PageRank Does Not Mean More Visitors

If you’re like me, sometimes creating content for your website or blog can be a brain-racking experience. A fun, informative, and easy solution is to interview people or companies that relate to your topic or industry.  Not only do interviews provide great content – but they can be an excellent source of traffic.  Not only will the person that you interview tell the people that they associate with (friends, blog readers, etc.), but they are great for getting links from other sites and blogs.

The great thing about interviews is that they can be used for nearly any type of website, blog, or topic.  Some people will naturally attract more traffic, links, and attention than others – but discovering or interviewing people who rarely (if ever) do interviews can be an excellent way to build your traffic and readership.

How to do an interview for your website

There are a couple things that you will want to plan when preparing for an interview that will be posted on your site:

• What questions are you going to ask?
• What format (phone, email, video)

I find that there are benefits of each type and you should experiment to find which works for you.  Email is the easiest because you can simply email the questions, they type the responses, and you post it on your website.  Video can engage your reader in a very powerful way, while phone interviews are great because people can listen to them while they are working or can’t sit in front of a computer screen.

Appeal to your visitors’ curiosity

People tend to be curious creatures – and appealing to their inquisitiveness is one of the keys to a successful interview.  When interviewing, you want to try as much as possible to put a unique twist or offer a fresh perspective that people have not heard or cannot read on other sites.

Create a compelling title

While it is easy to title your interview something along the lines of “My Interview With XXXX”, a much more compelling and intriguing twist would be something like what Business 2.0 did when they interviewed a guy who owns about $300 million in domain names – “Kevin Ham, The Man Who Owns The Internet” (which is an excellent article to read when you have a moment).  Not only is this title extremely interesting – many people are curious to see how he does it.

Spread the word

Once you have finalized your interview, you want to spread the word as much as possible.  Mention it on your blog, Twitter, Facebook, and more often than not you will gain exposure from the person you interviewed because they will want to tell all of their friends to go check out the interview they just did.

Wrapping up

While interviews are an excellent way to create content for your site, you want to ensure that what you are giving your readers is very quality information.  You don’t want to turn into a blog or website that produces mediocre content – doing so will make it more difficult for you to secure future interviews.

Related posts:

1. 11 Ways to Create Content When You Don’t Like (or Want) to Write
2. Using Video, Audio, & Other Means to Make Your Content Reach More People
3. Staying Focused: Create a Strategy Checklist for Your Site