Promote Your Site Using Blog PR

The recent trend of using the press release to promote an online business has emerged with good reason – good press costs very little and can do more for a business than thousands of dollars of marketing. Most businesses use press distribution services like PR Web or PRFree to get the word out about their news. While distribution services certainly can be effective, they tend to miss out on arguably the most influential group of the press – bloggers

Bloggers mold and shape the opinions of their readers, who are normally the most important in their particular industry, many of whom are also bloggers. Not long after a post from an influential blogger, your news has been picked up by several other bloggers and within days you are all over the blogsphere. Before you know it your site is getting more attention than it would if a story ran in the local newspaper! So how do you get the influential bloggers in your industry to run a story about your business?

Why Would Anyone Do a Story About Your Business?

Are you a new company? Did you just launch a new product that they could review? Did your business win an award? Are you a group of college kids who started a company on savings from your summer jobs? You get the idea. There needs to be a reason that someone would want to read about you. Bloggers take pride in the content they feed their readers. You don't stand a chance of getting a blogger to write about you if you don't have a story that their readers will be interested in.

Research Bloggers in Your Industry

More is less when it comes to contacting bloggers. Buy a list of 1,000 bloggers and send out a generic email to all of them and you'll likely get no response. But send a small amount of personalized emails to the appropriate bloggers and you'll be shocked at how many positive responses you get.

The first step is to make a list of the bloggers that would be interested in your story. You can generally get a feel for whether or not a blogger would be interested in your story by reading a couple of posts and checking out their bio. If they've done a few similar stories in the past or they are heavily involved in your industry, there is a good chance they'll want to hear your story. If not, leave them off your list and move on.

The single best method that I have found to research blogs is the Technorati Blog Directory. You can peruse blogs in your industry in order of "authority" - how important Technorati thinks a blog is. This is extremely useful. For example, if you are in the travel industry, you can view a list of the most influential blogs in the world of travel.

Another great way to find the right bloggers is to search through your competitors press sections on their websites to see what blogs have mentioned them. You can also find out who has mentioned your competitors by looking at the sites that have linked to them (type in "links:www.theirsite.com" on Yahoo!). There's a good chance that if they found your competitors story interesting, they'll find your story interesting as well.

Compose Your Email

The best way to contact bloggers is by email. The good news is that most bloggers make themselves easy to access and provide their email addresses on their blogs. The bad news is that most people don't know what to do with said email address once they get it. Use the following outline for your email and you'll see amazing results:

• Have a simple subject. You probably won't get many responses by treating your email like a press release and writing RELEASE in the subject line. Try something simple like "fan of your blog" or "comment about your blog." You want to make sure they actually read your email and don't mentally mark it as SPAM when they see the subject.


• Start by complementing them. Since you've read their blog and learned about them from their bio, you know quite a bit about them. Use it to your advantage. Compliment them on your favorite post, or how cool it is that they worked for XYZ company.


• Request them to post about you (be direct). In three sentences or less, tell them your story, why you think it would be of interest to them and their readers, and respectfully ask that they write a post about it. Be direct and to the point. They will respect that.


• Offer something in return. You have something that could help them. Maybe it's a link back to their blog from your personal blog, or maybe you could provide them with a free product or service that could help them or their business. One way or another, there's something you have to offer them in return for the time spent on a post about you.


• Close with something nice. Thank them for their time and wish them luck with their blog and/or business ventures

Notice that of the five components of the email, only one is about your story. The rest of the email is spent complimenting them and offering them something. Your chances of getting a positive response have just gone through the roof. Every blogger, no matter how large, likes to hear that people are enjoying their posts.

Respond Promptly and Respectfully

Not everyone is going to agree to run your story. Some will say that they don't do that type of thing or that they don't have time. Since you have been so nice as to compliment them, they will still usually reply either way. Regardless of the response, be sure to thank them for their time and wish them luck with their ventures. You never know when they will encounter someone who needs your product or service in the future (remember, they are in your industry) and if they have a positive image of you and your company they will undoubtedly give you a good recommendation.

Sit Back and Watch the Traffic Roll In

Over the course of the next few weeks you will see post after post appear about your business. Be sure to send another thank you email to the blogger after the post and also be sure to promptly provide whatever you offered them in return. At this point you have developed a mutually beneficial relationship with someone important in your industry that can become invaluable over time.

That wasn't that hard was it? With a little research and a carefully crafted email, any business can effectively use blog PR to drive traffic to their site.


About The Author
Adam McFarland owns iPrioritize - simple to-do lists that can be edited at any time from any place in the world. Email, print, check from your mobile phone, subscribe via RSS, and share with others.

Three Things to Help Google Trust You

Google is all about trust. Who knows, maybe they were in a bad relationship, but if you want to rank well with Google, you need to be trustworthy. And let me make the bold assumption that you are currently not trustworthy (most sites are not – especially new sites).
So how do you get Google to trust you? The most obvious answer, and most commonly quoted answer, is to get inbound links from trustworthy sites. Any webmaster who has been around the block a couple of times knows that this is a bit of a catch-22. Sites that are high in Google's trust typically do not just hand out links to small startups – those go to sites that are already established.

Unfortunately, while this is probably the most frustrating answer you can receive, it is also the lions share of building trust with Google. There are, however, a few other things you can do to help Google trust you more. While having these things may not rocket your site to the top of the rankings, they will bring you closer to finding a good relationship with Google.

Define a Privacy Policy

A privacy policy is a page that explains to your users what information is collected, how it is being used, and what options they have to access or change that collected information. It may be a bit ironic that a major search engine would place any emphasis on privacy in light of the recent AOL data release scandal, but having a privacy policy in place shows a certain level of trustworthiness.

This may seem like a very small step when we look at the big picture, but keep in mind that Google is looking for responsible and reliable websites to send their users to. A privacy policy, while non-consequential for many websites, shows an attention to detail and a sense of responsibility to user's privacy.

Offer Detailed Contact Information

For many small website owners, this is a step that can be quite tricky. Offering detailed contact information on your site shows that responsibility and reliability that Google is looking for, but at the same time many small website owners are not running their websites as a full-time business.

You should always offer some sort of contact information on your site. At a minimum, you should offer an email address (I was surprised at how many websites – specifically blogs – did not offer any contact information at all). If possible, you should include your address and a phone number where people can contact you. Of course, if the only phone number you have is your home phone number, this may not be the most ideal option.

Show Consistency Over Time

This may be the single most important tip in this article. Google has shown an affinity towards sites that remain consistent in structure, growth, content, and popularity. At the risk of sounding prosaic, outside of receiving highly trusted inbound links, the best way to bring Google to trust you is to show Google over time that you are trustworthy.

Think about your relationship with Google as you would any other relationship. Relationships take time, they take commitment over time, and trust in a relationship needs to be cultivated. If you happen to screw up, it takes time to regain any trust that was lost.

With your website, show Google that you are consistent, that you are dedicated, and that you actually care. Do not change your website's structure or focus entirely just because you feel like it. Spend time every day for months, even years, growing your site and promoting your site. Take the time to make sure it is as user friendly as possible taking into account issues such as accessibility. And whatever you do, do not take the chance of trying to cheat on Google by using a 'shortcut' – it can and will set you back in your relationship several months, if not longer.

It May Not Be the Best Model

Far be it from me to be a Google apologist – I certainly do not agree with everything that they do. The move towards a trust-based system is one that has received both praise and criticism, and both praise and criticism is deserved. While Google might be doing well in fighting search engine spam, they have simultaneously (if not inadvertently) hurt the small business owner who does not know any better.

There are many who complain about Google being 'unfair' towards website owners. Whether or not they really are being unfair is ultimately a moot point, Google is what Google does. If you choose to continue to care about having quality rankings in Google, complaining will not bring you higher rankings, adapting to their changes will.

These days Google wants to know that they can trust you. If you have been around long enough, they may already trust you, but if you are starting fresh, or if you have made mistakes in the past, you may have a long road ahead of you to prove to Google that they should care about your website, and that it is suitable for their rankings. Keep in mind that high trusted, one way in bound links will always be the fastest route to rankings, add a privacy policy and good contact information, follow the typical guidelines that make a site reliable (see Google's webmaster guidelines), and be consistent with your site.

About The Author
Mark Daoust is the owner of Site Reference. Recently he just launched the nice site Brewing KB. Take a moment, if you will, to visit Brewing KB, a community for home brewers