Net-Tech Report with Chris Kauza
A tough economy can make it seem like three is very little good news, but the fact is great things are happening everyday – and usually in one of the millions of small and mid-sized business operating today. So how can you “tell the world” about your great news? This month's article is the first of two parts that will tell you how to cost-effectively let your customers and prospects know what's happening at your company.
A press release is a tried-and-true method of “getting the word out” out your company's products or services. And until recently, all you had to do was write the press release and send it to newspaper editors and various wire services – usually for a significant amount of money.
Today, with the death of newspapers, the morphing of “wire” services and the continued exponential growth of the Internet, it has never been easier for the small and mid-sized business owner to get massive exposure for relatively little cost. I'll use this article to describe the process we use at my company (www.Fett Marketing.com), and show you a free tool and methods that you can use to do this for yourself. If you follow what I describe, you will help get the best possible exposure for your company's product or service.
SELECTION OF KEYWORDS FOR YOUR PRESS RELEASE
Before you begin writing your press release, the first thing you should do is to write down the primary keywords for your product or service. This is a time to brainstorm – you know it best – what do you think they will search for?
A tool you should use to help you is the Google AdWords Tool. This is an online web-based application, that Google provides to AdWords buyers, to help them plan their AdWords campaign. But you can use it – for free! - to get an idea of how may people each month are search for words similar to (or exactly the same as) the ones you use to describe your product or service. This will give you some validation for how you describe your product or service, using actual search engine data. Even though it's free to access, that is priceless information for you!
As a guideline, let's suppose that your press release is announcing that you are now launching your own recipe website with a database full of thousands of recipes. Obviously your target market here is to find the most popular but *targeted* keywords that deal with recipes, because your target market is people who want to buy recipes..
You can use the Google AdWords Tool to do your keyword research. You'll notice that the most popular keyword are the words "recipe" and “recipes” with a total of over 37,200,000 searches each month. Obviously if your site shows within the top ten with that keyword then you'll be very pleased. However, it will take you substantial time and money to get highly ranked for a search term like this, because it is very competitive. You will need to target your keywords more, so you can get more relevant traffic to your press release.
Adding other relevant terms will help; for example:
- christmas recipes – 110,000
- quick and easy recipes – 74,000
- low fat dinner recipes – 6,600
- healthy salad recipes – 5,400
Making your terms more specific results in a lower number of people searching for what you have. You might think it's counter-intuitive to want “fewer people” but you should know that generally speaking, the more specific the search term, the more likely you are connecting with interested people (A.K.A. - buyers!).
These so-called “long-tailed keywords” will do more to drive specific traffic / customers to your information, than trying to spend a lot of money and time to get ranked for very general keywords. Now that we've discussed keyword selection, let's discuss the actual writing of your press release.
WRITING THE BODY OF YOUR PRESS RELEASE
good rule of thumb for press releases is that each one should always answer the “5 Ws” - Who / What / Where / When / Why. Further, they should always be written in the third person – never “I / Me / My” - neutrally listing the main points of your product or service. Remember that you are writing a "news" story, therefore you cannot write it as if *you* are trying to sell the user something. A press release is not an advertisement, and it should not be written as one.
Your article should be approximately 300-500 words in length. The main body of the press release is where you are going to “sell” the reader on the key points of your product or service – these are the things that make it newsworthy. Answering the following questions should help you:
- What makes this service or product special?
- What separates this service or product from the rest?
- Website Link (this is to ensure that those looking for immediate info can divert to your main site)
- Conclusion that calls the user to action (to visit your site)
Next month I'll talk about how to “get the word out”so that you increase the likelihood that your press release will get get picked up and seen by the relevant search engines and customers. If you'd like more information, feel free to contact me directly at ckauza “at” FettMarketing.com, or review our website at www.FettMarketing.com.
For more information, please visit Chris' TNNW Bio.
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