2006.07.16
Posted in Traffic Generation at 11:34 pm by admin
In an experiment to generate traffic, I have decided to hold a drawing on this site for $50.
How To Get Your Name in The Drawing
Each time you place a link on your site or blog to this URL, you will receive one entry in the drawing. There is a limit of one entry per day per domain, however the number of entries per person is not limited. Once you have placed the link, post a comment to this article with the URL to the page containing the link and your email address.
I will validate every link at the time of posting and at the time of drawing to ensure that there is actually a valid link to the correct URL. The link must be within context describing the content of the page and not simply a link without any other accompanying text. I reserve the right to remove any entries which I feel do not comply with this requirement.
The Deadline
The deadline for entries is Wednesday July 26, 2006 — I will post a comment to this article at the moment the deadline has been reached. I will be making the drawing on Friday July 28th.
Selection & Payment
The winner will be selected at random using a random number generation program. I will contact the winner via email to arrange payment via PayPal.
Good luck, and I will post a follow-up article after the drawing to outline the success of this traffic generation experiment.
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2006.05.17
Posted in Traffic Generation at 10:38 am by admin
The following article has been submitted by Paul J. Krupin, of Direct Contact PR. It is an excellent read for those wanting to write a press release to publicize their company or website.
Thanks Paul.
Why News Releases Fail — The Most Common Reasons & What to Do About It
By Paul J. Krupin
Sorry about my otaku with this issue (otaku = more than a hobby, a little less than an obsession).
Many of you may know me, since I run Imediafax, the Internet to Media Fax Service. I send out over a million news releases a year for people via fax and email. You probably think that I’ve got news releases failing on me day in and day out.
Actually, I don’t. The news releases I write and send out for people do quite well. My clients are quite happy with me because they are successful with their outreach efforts.
It’s the draft news releases that people send to me that are my problem.
Fixing the problems I see in the news releases people send me takes forever. It is also very painful. I’ve seen a lot of news release failure over the years, and I now know what the key problems look like and how to fix them.
My plight as a publicist is that I spend a lot of time educating my clients trying to get them to understand the psychology of dealing with the media.
The rubber meets the road in the news release because this single sheet of paper is the key nexus for all communications with the media. The importance of the copy on a news release cannot be overstated. It has to be free of negative issues or factors that will reduce or eliminate media interest and response. One fatal error and it’s all over.
So identifying the problems and revising the news releases is crucial. I spend a tremendous amount of time and effort trying to avoid sending out news releases with problems still in them.
The issue is that when people send me news releases, it often takes a long, long time to identify and communicate the problems, and then more time again to explain and negotiate all the word changes with the clients, and more time still to finalize the news release and have it ready and approved for transmittal.
Honestly it can be very painful for all involved. I’m quite brutal on my clients, since their success is all that matters. I don’t pull any punches. My comment process can bruise a lot of highly inflated egos of some otherwise very accomplished people, on the way to a problem free news release that maximizes the chances of success when finally sent. Lots of people think they can write a news release. Very few of them can do it very well.
They simply haven’t followed the media response to enough news releases to learn the errors that are made when they write news releases. They haven’t yet learned what the mistakes are, so there is no learning from continuous improvement.
This is where the blood, sweat and tears of the copywriting business is truly found. It gets even tougher when another professional publicist wrote the news release for the client. Now the client is getting opposing advice from two professionals. One says “Make it Hot” and the other says “Cool it”. What’s a publicist to do?
So my motivations for doing this article are really quite selfish. I want to spend less time doing this. My life will be significantly improved if my clients send me news releases that take less time and energy to fix. Very simply, for each and every news release that comes in and doesn’t have these problems, I’ll free myself to spend more time doing things that are more profitable for my clients and me.
The issues listed here have all been identified as reasons for the failure of a news release. This is based on over 20 years of experience in dealing with the aftermath the actual number and quality of responses generated from the transmittal of a news release.
So here are the most common reasons why news releases fail:
1. You wrote an advertisement. It’s not a news release at all. It sells product. It fails to offer solid news of real tangible interest, value-added information, education or entertainment.
2. You wrote for a minority, not for a majority of people in the audience. You simply won’t compete with other news releases that clearly are written for a larger demographic of the media audience.
3. You are the center of attention, not the media audience. You focus on your business and your marketing, instead of things the editor and his or her audience will be interested in.
4. You forgot to put the five W’s up front. (WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN and WHY THE AUDIENCE WILL BE INTERESTED). You didn’t clearly and succinctly tell the media why the audience would be interested in this.
5. You are too wordy and text dense. You focused on details and minutia, instead of the most important ideas, issues, factors, facts, and news angles. You fail to address the real significant impacts your story has on people.
6. You place too much information on one page the one page news release has a font size so small an editor needs a magnifying glass to read it.
7. You included corporate logos and other non-persuasive low value added graphics that distract the editor from your key message. You may have also used an unusual fancy font or a file format that turns to gobbledygook when it goes through a fax machine.
8. You wrote a personally biased article for the media to publish, instead of pitching the idea to the media and the objective reasons why the media audience will be interested.
9. You wrote about features and facts, and forgot to explain what it means to real people. Tell a story about real people. Add in real life human interest.
10. You wrote about how your news ties in to someone else’s fame and glory. Forget it. Never stand in the shadow of someone else. Make your own light. Tell your own story.
11. Your news release responds to something that just happened. You’re too late. You’re behind the eight ball. Forget it. Get out in front of the news.
12. You included too much hype, self-laudatory praise, pithy quotes, useless testimonials, jargon or gobbledygook. Get rid of it.
13. You may have also identified prior media coverage, which indicates it’s no longer a new issue. Get rid of it. Let each news release stand on it’s own two feet.
14. You tried to impress and be clever or innovative but you come off naïve, less than expert, biased, flippant, arrogant, or crazy. Tone it down. Get straight.
15. You made vague and unsubstantiated claims, or wild and outrageous claims, or you included a statement that simply rubs the media the wrong way. Get rid of them.
16. You are trying to be different, just for the sake of it, but you come off eccentric. Forget it. Don’t create a false or inflated image. Be yourself.
17. You wrote a rant and rave, worthy of a letter to the editor, instead of a problem solving tips article, worthy of a feature story. Decide what you want, put your best effort into it.
18. You are simply not credible. It could be your ideas are simply not well thought out, or that you’ve offered old well-worn material, or that you are too extreme or controversial, or not qualified. You may not be expert enough, or sufficiently qualified, to make the statements, compared to others in your field. You need to present information that qualifies you properly and adequately.
19. You provided poor contact information. You need to identify the best single point of contact and the correct phone number so interested media can reach you and get the best possible attention and response from you to meet their needs. One key person, one phone, no fax, one email address, and one URL (with no long string addresses).
20. You did not include a clear media call for action. You didn’t tell the media what you want them to do with your news release. You need to tell them what you are asking for or suggesting or offering. Then you need to offer the media incentives value-added reasons to do so, like free review copies, free test samples, interview questions and answers, media kits with story angles and stats and data, relevant photographs, etc.
21. You did not incorporate and integrate a primary response mechanism. You need to include a value-added reason, which motivates the editor to publish or mention your contact information, which will generate calls, traffic, interviews, or requests for more information. This usually means something unique and of special value to the audience, that the editor feels good about mentioning. Use an offer for a free problem solving report.
22. You sent the release to the wrong media. Target the media that your clients read, watch and listen to when they are in the right mood, that is, receptive to hearing about your news, and willing to take action when they get your message. Work with your publicist to target the right media.
23. You rely on a single fax or an email to produce an avalanche of media calls. You conduct no follow up. Get real. Follow up properly and you can triple or quadruple your media response rate. Better still, you can ask the editors “what can I give you to support a feature story and meet your needs”.
Finally, the biggest reason for news release failure is one of attitude. How do you define success or failure? It’s called unrealistic expectations.
Get real. You won’t get rich off one news release. You’re chances of getting famous are just about as slim.
You might be able to break even.
Look at your investment and compare it to what you need to break even on your investment. If you need to sell 100 books to cover the costs of a $500 outreach effort, you need ten articles because each article only produces ten sales. So that’s your breakeven goal. More books per article, means less articles will satisfy your needs.
You may simply have to be realistic and understand that while you are wildly interested in the topic, it may not have the broad general public interest that you have for the subject. If you wrote an article that has local interest and you expect national media to pay attention, think again.
If you want to be on the Oprah Winfrey Show, then you’d better pray because chances of doing it off one news release are very slim, near zero in fact. Get real. If she calls, then congratulations are in order. But don’t count on it.
If you wrote an advertisement and wanted a feature story and interviews, don’t be surprised if the only media to call is the advertising manager offering you a package deal. You get what you ask for. What you offer is often times what you will get.
Even if you do get publicity, it may not come out exactly the way you want it. More often than not, the bigger the media, the less likely they are to run contact information.
Often times, the quality may be there while the numbers are not.
One or two quality media responses may be what you want or need. If you get that, it’s a success.
One article in USA Today may out perform ten articles in small dailies and weeklies in the mid-west.
On the other hand, it may not. The small high quality articles may outperform the small mention in the big media.
Similarly, one quality 30-minute interview on a well-liked talk show on a radio station in the middle of nowhere out in the mid-west, will likely outsell a five-minute interview on an Arbitron rated radio station in the middle of the morning talk show in a major metropolitan area. You can’t tell the listening quality of the audience.
So when you write a news release please review it against these criteria to see if you’ve made any of these errors. Then fix each and every one of them yourself, and when you are done, feel free to send me your final draft. I’ll be happy to take a look at it.
So listen to your publicist. Heed these warnings and reduce the risks of failure. Fail to pay attention to these issues, proceed at your own risk.
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2006.04.20
Posted in Traffic Generation at 9:22 am by admin
Well, it’s been about six weeks since the initial press release went out, and I think it’s time to do a complete analysis of the whole experience. Overall, I as an experiment, it was a complete success and I couldn’t have asked for more. There definately were some lessons learned, and I hope to share some of them here. For those of you who haven’t read my release yet, you can find it here.
Writing the Release
A press release is one of the best methods to publicize an event or call attention to an issue. The first step to writing a good press release is grabbing the readers attention with a good headline and brief summary. Writers looking for a story may have to sift through hundreds of releases before finding the one they are looking for; Making this job easier for them will also help you. Use catchy keyphrases in the headline and give an accurate description of the content of the article in the summary, however leave room for the reader to want to know more.
The body of the release should flow smoothly and read as if it were pulled directly out of a newspaper. Imagine that you were a columnist who picked up your story and wanted to print it. Write your release as if it were going to go directly to print. Using quotations in your release will not only give it more of a “newspaper feel”, but it will also make the job of the reporter taking your story easier, as they can simply copy and paste your quotes as needed.
Distributing the Release
When you distribute your press release is nearly as important as what you say in it. You must take into consideration your audience, the schedules of the reporters you are targeting, and what the goal of your release is. If you are looking to be included in the upcoming issue of a magazine, you must take into account if it is a weekly or monthly issue. If it is monthly, they have internal deadlines of probably the end of the third week to have material ready for print. Remember that the writer will also need time to review your release, validate it, write their article and obtain approval, making the ideal time for your distribution early in the second week.
My release was scheduled for a Tuesday morning for a number of reasons. News stories which broke, or press releases which were distributed on Thursday, Friday, and over the weekend were most likely still being sifted through on Monday lowering the chance of my release being seen. Tuesday morning was ideal because previous news would have been dealt with, and there was still plenty of time in the week to process, review and follow-up on my story.
Distribution Services
There are a number of services available on the Internet to distribute your press release, some free and some charging hundreds of dollars, or more. For my release, I chose to distribute it using PRWeb for a $40 charge, and using PRLeap for free.
PRWeb had excellent service, and gave interesting statistics on my release, as can be seen here. For the $40 charge, I was guaranteed inclusion in Google and Yahoo news sites, which I thought was worth the charge. To my surprise, my release distributed with PRLeap was also included in Google and Yahoo news at no charge.
Overall, I found that both sites were very easy to use and write my release with. If you are looking to quickly distribute a press release at no charge, I would highly recommend taking a look at PRLeap. If you are looking to receive more detailed statistics on the status of your release, take a look at PRWeb and see if it meets your needs.
In Conclusion
Always remember to keep a good writing style in your release and make sure to proof your document before publishing it. State facts and try not to use too many “flowery” terms. Remember that as in your summary, you left the reader wanting more to intice them to read the body of your release, your release as a whole should leave the reader wanting to contact you for more information. Make sure to provide accurate contact information in the closing of your release.
Good luck!
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2006.04.13
Posted in Traffic Generation at 10:41 am by admin
It has been a number of weeks since the press release went out, and I have received many emails from visitors asking when I will publish the results of the release. I wanted to keep quiet about this because the release was actually very successful, and I wanted to wait until I could properly summarize the results.
Here are some stats from my PRWeb account on the press release:
Reads: 57,509
This number tells you how many times your press release was accessed from our site and other distribution points where we have the ability to measure a click through. This number does not include the number of journalists who have received your release through email. In addition there are online distribution points that we currently have no ability to track.
Estimated Pickup: 801
This number estimates the number of times your press release was picked up by a media outlet. This does not tell you how many times your story appears in the media. It simply attempts to estimate media interest of your release.
Prints: 14
This is the number of times that someone has printed your press release. We measure this by the number of times that the “printer friendly version” link is pressed. In reality, only a small percentage of users actually click this link before printing a release.
In the end, I spoke with writers, and editors from: Red Herring Magazine, Forbes Magazine, and TheStreet.Com about the site and the list of high-paying keywords. CyberWyre was recently written about in the the current print issue of Red Herring and should be in The Informer section of Forbes in the April 24 issue.
Other than being picked up by national media, numerous blogs picked up the story and linked back to CyberWyre; It helped to bring in traffic and at the same time increase the page rank in search results. Overall, I would consider the press release to have been extremely successful.
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2006.03.22
Posted in Traffic Generation at 11:38 pm by Paul
In the early days of the internet I ran a stock picking website. Basically I would just write about stocks that I found interesting (internet and biotech), and then spam the heck out of finance message boards with my URL. I received a lot of traffic that way. I also received a lot of complaints about spamming good threads. These were the days before spam was the big deal it is today, and I stopped once it started to become a big deal. Because these were the days before PPC, I never made much money from the sites. I didn’t really care though, I just wanted to see how much traffic I could get.
Fast forward to today. It is harder then ever for a non-connected website owner to get organic traffic. The web is bigger then ever, and competition is fierce. Plus, as a website owner, you are fighting with paid advertising for visitors. It may take a year or more for your website or blog to show up in the top 10 or 20 search results. If the subject of your site is highly competitive, you might not show up higher than the first 30 results ever. It’s also difficult to get others to link to your PR0 or PR1 website, especially if they are PR3 or higher.
This is where it’s important to start tooting your own horn on message boards and forums. Now I’m not recommending spamming message boards. This is a big no-no these days. But let’s say you have a web design blog. You have written a great article on web design. Information you think every web designer should see. The first thing you’ll want to do is sign up for http://del.icio.us, a social bookmarking site that you can use to post and track your favorite bookmarks. It also lets others see them as well. Once you sign up, post your article to your del.icio.us bookmarks. If it is good, other users will click on it and post it to their bookmarks, and so on and so on. If the article is really interesting, post it to digg.com. They are an aggregation website of all that’s interesting in tech and science on the web. Users control the content, and it is the number #1 way to get huge amounts of free traffic on the net today.
Your next step is to get out there and start looking for the most popular forums on your topic and sign up. Start taking part in conversations on forum topics you are interested in. Mention items from your own blog articles, and link to it. You should also post your site’s URL at the end of each post you make. Or, if possible, put it in your forum signature so you don’t have to constantly type it out. If you actually say something intelligent people will visit your site. But if you just look like a spammer, forget about it. Most likely you will be banned from the board as well. If you get to be a respected member of the board/forum, you will be able to just post links to your blog posts outright, without having to explain to people why they should click through. People will respect you enough to know that you are going to be saying something useful in your blog articles. They will know that you aren’t just spamming for traffic.
Forum posting also has another nice side effect, you will make countless friends in your field of interest, who will be more than happy to link to your website if asked.
I hope you found the above ideas useful. Good luck to you, and may all of your traffic be organic.
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2006.02.21
Posted in Traffic Generation at 1:39 pm by admin
No matter how good your content is, or how good your SEO (search engine optimization) is, you still need to find a way to drive users to your site. CyberWyre has received hundreds of link-backs, is at position #43 on the Top 100 most popular links on Digg, and made the most popular list on del.icio.us numerous times, however there is only so much traffic which can be created from these sources.
Traffic = Money. The only way to increase earnings from your website is for more people to know about the site. For decades now, when an organization wants to gain media attention, it will publish a press release. As an experiment, I will be writing and publishing my own press release in order to gain some attention from the media here in Toronto as well as nation-wide. I believe that this site is unique, and that my intentions are good: earning money to pay for school, while teaching others how I did it, and I hope that others may find the records of my successes and failures helpful in their own ventures.
I will document the status of this experiment as I progress, and am targeting to have the press release public one week from today on Tuesday February 28th. If any news agency is reading this I will be more than happy to participate in an interview to discuss this site, or other side-businesses I have run in order to support myself throughout school.
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2006.02.02
Posted in Traffic Generation at 2:43 pm by admin
Over the past few days, I’ve started to notice something interesting when analyzing my site statistics. I use AwStats to analyze my log files, and one of the more interesting outputs is frequently searched keywords.
The top few searched keywords which generated hits to my site were directly related to my content: “ebay”, “12dailypro”, and ”blogging”. No surprise here. What caught my attention was that just below these hits, still near the top of the list were search terms which were not at all related to my site. These were results like “Eminem”, “Awards”, “Super Bowl” and I started to think what the heck?.
All of these hits were directly due to my Current Top 15 Internet Searches page, which is updated dynamically. This made me start to think that writing about these terms actually really does drive traffic to your site.
If you are short of ideas for your blog, or are looking for some quick traffic, try writing about something on this list.. chances are you will get a few extra hits.
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