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I’m the best at getting Wikipedia links!

Well, not really, but you are reading this anyways…

Written on Wednesday, January 17th, 2007 by lorien1973 :: 1 Comment so far

More of an egads post than anything else.

A year or so ago, I wrote this article at Search Warp, and today I find out that not only has it gotten a Wikipedia link, but also, apparently has some .edu backlinks as well. I think its the first link to something I’ve written from Wikipeida, so I’m pretty proud of that. No applause necessary.

And I wondered how that article was getting so much traffic too. I do sell a lot of related products, so maybe people are coming from Wiki and buying from me. I know; fat chance.

Press Releases: Getting the Best Bang for the Buck

This entry discusses properly using PR Web for sending out press releases and getting the best ROI for your investment.

Written on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 by lorien1973 :: 2 Comments so far

Press releases are an often overlooked portion of SEO, but one that can pay off huge dividends in the long run. This post will get into a few points - how to write a press release that will be read by your target audience (they aren’t who you think they are) and how to format a press release - on PR Web, specifically.

Who is your target audience for a press release?
Let’s be clear here. Your target audience for your press release are not buyers or customers. Your target is the media, the press, the paparazzi. Whatever you want to call them. You want your release to be geared towards them. Why?

Yes, PR Web will get you reads, clicks, and maybe even a sale or two (don’t count on it); but, if your press release gets picked up by a paper or leads to an interview, a story about your offering, then you are much more likely to turn a profit from it.

So, how do you get the press to pick up the story about your website?

Attracting the Press: Like moths to the flame
The press is always looking for a good story or an interesting angle to something that has already been written about a hundred times. With a million journalists in the world, something always needs to be written about. Many environmental groups, health groups put out press releases to get their information out into the public for consumption. How do you think the press comes up with factoids from some obscure group no one has ever heard of? Press releases.

Attracting their attention is the important part, and as usual, you have very little time to do so. So, we’ll do two examples of a release so you can see the wrong way and the right way.

Scenario: You are a startup company who is starting a business selling skateboards on the internet.

Here is a press release:
Version 1:
ABC Skateboard company announces that it has created a new shopping website on the internet to market its skateboard products to shoppers.

Its operations are located in Dayton, OH and has four full time employees and serves customers in all 50 states and Canada.

Version 2:
Scott Jenkins is a skateboard enthusiast who lives in a rural suburb. While he has an interest in the sport, finding skate shops in rural america can be difficult. “That’s when I turned on my computer and did some searching. I came across several skateboard shops online and found just what I needed,” said Scott.

Fact is, with over 10 million skateboarders in the country, there are only about 1,000 stores that sell the products so consumers find it hard to get the gear they need; that’s where ABC Skateboard comes in.

——-

Which of those was more interesting? The second one, of course. Why?

It presents an easily identifiable problem and suggests a solution to the problem. The first simply states a bunch of uninteresting data that no one would want to read. The second is far more likely to be picked up by a media outlet, the owner called or interviewed, or the press release forwarded to others who actually like the topic being discussed. Thus, stands a far greater chance of being profitable.

So, get your thinking caps on and create an interesting press release. Take time, do an interview with someone in your field and do it right. It’ll pay off.

But the pay off will be greater if you do some basic SEO to your release…

Formatting your Press Release on PR Web
We always recommend paying at least $80 for a press release on PR Web. This payment amount gives you access to their SEO tools - mainly anchor text inside the press release. It also guarantees submission to Google News, Yahoo News and others which will increase your chance of being picked up by more minor sites.

If you pay $80 (or more) to PR Web, here is the simple method of getting the anchor text you want…

Let’s say you want your anchor to be “skateboards”

In the press release, you’d do this:
ABC Skateboard sells http://www.domain.com/skateboards.html [skateboards] along with other products

When the press release is live (not in edit mode or pre-release), it will show up like this:
ABC Skateboard sells skateboards along with other products.

This way will ensure you get your good anchor text for your press release. Since it will be picked up by lots of other sites, it can help you in the long run.

 Happy PR’ing!

How to Market your Site with Articles

A short guide on how to promote your site using unique articles and content.

Written on Sunday, July 30th, 2006 by lorien1973 :: 1 Comment so far

First off. Let’s explain the difference between “article submission” and “marketing through content”.

• Article submission is where, generally, you release a few articles about your site to a hundred different websites. This is usually designed to get links and nothing else. You can call it submitting. I call it spamming. Tomatoes, tomatoes.
• Marketing through content is where you find good traffic (and related - go figure) sites to place your articles on. Each article you give out only once and is well written (over 500 words) and informative. You don’t write 10 articles on “how to get rid of a hangnail” though. You’d do one on avoiding hangnails, maybe on one causes of hangnails. Etc. Each one is markedly different, unique and contains real information. Not generic vomit that appears on hundreds of other websites.

Article submission is most easily performed through software that pounds hundreds of article (re: spam) sites with your little treasure, hoping that you’ll get some google love (links) in return. This is bad, bad behavior. Most of these articles will either:

1. Not include live links to your site anyways
2. Be killed by a duplicate content filter
3. Never appear on the chosen article (re: spam) site anyways

So; you’ve just wasted your time and a hard earned $5 on that magnificent work! (look in the future for a comparison of copywriter quality and prices).

Embrace the concept of marketing through content. With this method, you systematically write good content that you can give to related sites. These are typically not article (re: spam) sites. Contacting these related sites isn’t always easy. Hell, it never is. But what worth doing is? And what brings results is even harder. But it’s worth it.

The only article site that I’ve ever seen drive traffic is http://www.searchwarp.com - it drives consistent traffic and it will always be a place I send my work to. I highly recommend this site; as it not only makes submission easy, but also gives you stats on how many people have viewed your articles and what search engines drive traffic and what terms bring them into searchwarp - which is a great second hand way to find keywords you may have never even considered! (see screen shots below)

You’ll see best results if you do something along these lines. On a given topic, get 3 articles written.

1. submit to http://www.searchwarp.com (allows embedded links in the html, he says limit it to 3, but I usually do less. Do the embedded links correctly. Don’t do 3 links to the same page. Do each to a different page of your site, with different keywords).
2. Put one on http://www.goarticles.com This one also allows embedded links. This one will eventually appear everywhere online. Eventually, they’ll all be caught in a duplicate content filter, so this requires more maintenance (new articles, etc) - whereas Searhwarp does not. Searchwarp will deliver traffic too. While I have seen the random visitor (and sale!) from these sites, do not expect a lot of traffic from them.
3. Place on your site (if you want) or skip it. I usually put some new content up every week or so. Keeping fresh content on my sites is a priority, but if you choose to do this or not, is obviously totally up to you.
4. Avoid the ones that won’t let you embed links other than an “authors” box. They are a complete waste of time. People who syndicate those articles won’t make the link active, so it’s worthless to you.

As I said, article submission isn’t nearly as effective as it was a year or so ago. Spammers ruin it all, unfortunately. I was probably one of the first to do it the right way and it paid off. Now everyone does it and does it poorly and it affects how well the overall system works.