Inevitably new clients come to me stating that they want to get into the Sunday Times, Cosmo, The FT or some other popular publication. However, sometimes what would be more effective, especially if they have limited time, is to build a PR campaign around the web. Unlike traditional PR where people either have to remember your name and Google for your website, or snip out the piece about you, online PR means that all they have to do is click through to you. It might not be as glamorous, but it can be much more effective.
So, here are ten ideas for getting your Internet PR campaign running -------------------------------------------------------------------1 1. Kick it off with some market research to find out what sites your current clients visit, or get a student or Virtual Assistant to do some research on your behalf. Check your stats - where are people coming from? This could even be other from people's commercial websites; it doesn't have to be a traditional publication.
2. If time is short decide what will you concentrate on. Perhaps it will be articles - offering them to other people's sites, online publications and syndication sites.
3. Or maybe competitions which are great for building interest in a particular product. If you manage to get the entrants details you can email them with a "sorry you didn't win but here's a special offer for you."
4. Press releases - post them on press sites such as www.pressbox.co.uk or www.prweb.com (small fee)and get them off to target online publications.
5. Set up your own blog. It's worked spectacularly for some of my clients and you can easily set up a free one at www.blogger.com in less than half an hour.
6. Comment on other people's blogs. Include a link back to your own site - great for search engine optimisation too.
7. Have a newsletter in place so if people come to you but aren't ready to buy there's at least something you can offer them.
8. Get into Social networking - whether it's Ecademy, Facebook, Bebo or whatever, the trick is to choose one and do that properly rather than half hearted attempts on a number of sites.
9. Have plenty of content on your own website - articles, case studies, think pieces - the more the better, and the more they are updated - even better!
10. Whatever you put out, make sure that it contains the right keywords for your business and keep putting new content our regularly. This is one area where quantity will really make difference.
I also love the way that the web is so much more instant than traditional publications. You can update your website almost instantly (if you have a content management system that is. If you're still relying on a web developer to fit in for you then you need to rethink this). You can post up a press release in a day and if one of your articles goes on a syndication site it can quite possibly be seen by millions of people.
Livening Up Your Web content ---------------------------1 The more you have to offer to go with your copy, the better, think about..
1. Photos - of you, the product, a case study, whatever.
2. Your logo.
3. A resource box of helpful info that people will appreciate.
4. A blurb - who are you and what can you do for your customers.
Remember that web copy is different to offline copy. Articles are much shorter and broken up with headings, paragraphs and bullet points. I prefer them to be around 500-600 words max as I know that I hardly ever read anything longer than that from a computer screen.
To learn more about this author, visit Paula Gardner's Website.
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