In the old world of traditional media, if you wanted to get free advertising, there was only one choice.  You had to write a press release and be part of a story.  Then, and maybe only if you were lucky or really actually making headlines, a news source would pick you up and write, tell, or show your product or service.  In todays world we have spoken about sending our Press Releases as a great SEO tool, and they are still the best SEO tool for getting inbound links to your website.  But, you have many choices to get noticed.  They two top choices of getting noticed are getting Search traffic, and if it’s free we are talking about.  It’s usually comes in the form of SEO and through what natural search results.  If not you have to pay for it. 

The other major way to get traffic is through blogging.  Blogging is not only great for SEO and being found on the search engines, but also for direct 1 to many communications.  Research shows that blogs actually have the second highest conversion and click through rates, right behind search results.  People tend to respect blogs for their opinions on news and products.  So if you are blogging don’t forget to keep it up and provide resources to get yourself some free Internet Advertising and traffic.  And, look at the tips on why Search is still a great way for you to Advertise and get free traffic from natural search results.  This article below is from MediaPost so do go to the full source and get the whole story..CLICK HERE

Search queries prequalify the site visitor.  While search intentions may be split within a query or bucket of queries and funnels, good research helps advertisers target their ads or natural content strategies to a laser-sharp focus on the searcher, and offer the ability to target likeminded, laser-focused content with a higher degree and likelihood of conversion than other channels.  While not all queries convert on the first go, the opportunity to be selective about traffic from a linguistic perspective remains a distinctive characteristic of search.

Search traffic becomes an asset over time.  Once natural search traffic gets rolling, the returns often last for years.  Values can range from applying a relative cost-per-click to value the traffic, based on what the advertiser is willing to pay in paid search for similar category terms, to the actual revenue from the traffic.  Growing natural search traffic takes a different approach and amount of patience than in paid search media, but the payoff is a qualified traffic stream that delivers for years to come. Natural traffic still needs to be maintained closely, but the costs are nominal compared to overall returns.

Search is a fundamental touch point in the online experience.  The PEW Internet and American Life Project recently confirmed that search is a primary touch point with online users.  The bottom line is that search is a fundamental way to reach people online — such as more than 90% of all online users.  

Search is equally accessible by all advertisers and marketers, large and small.  Search marketing is open to both enterprise marketers with $20 million in spend, and to the guy or girl sitting in their bedroom with a twenty-dollar budget.  There is no other advertising arena I know of where a small business advertiser can park their asset in natural or paid search right next to the biggest corporations on the planet.  In search, everyone is invited to play, and the masses are still coming over to embrace it as a key strategy, if not the primary strategy.

Search is the ad platform for future online advertising asset delivery.   The next time you read an industry report that separates search spending from online video spending and contextual ad spend, keep in mind that those other placements may still be predominantly served on auction-based, search-based delivery platform in the future.  So is it possible that the 40% of online spend attributed to the search channel is grossly underestimated?  You bet it is.  

The targeted relevance of the search channel.  Giving credit where it is due, the search engines themselves help us find what we need, when we need it.  Marketers fundamentally have the opportunity to take advantage of the search channel with either a long-term natural campaign, or with media spend in paid search.

I have been a fan of PRWeb for more than two years, because we received thousands of links with our Press Releases and quickly got a good Google page rank for our previous blogs and real estate websites. Every SEO expert knows that sending out a professional Press Release through a wire service is the best way to get thousands of contextual links.  One of the other things you can do, is to go to our b2b and  online marketplace and  submit your business information.  While it won’t give you thousands of links, it does get get good traffic and it’s a sure way to promote your businesses! But recently I learned that PRNewswire says that they SEO press releases, but they did not provide contextual links within their press release, in fact they only provided one link. I had my client check with his PRNewswire rep to make sure that he got what he paid for. He paid the extra $250 but never got the links, his rep said that they SEO but don’t provide links. This was the silliest thing I have heard.

But, I wanted to do some research and make sure that PRWeb and PRNewswire were fully researched before I provided my SEO and Internet Marketing verdict. I read a few blogs, I did some research and my past experiences to make my judgement, which is. PRNewswire is an old company, with old ties and if you want to be seen as a Fortune 500 company, use them. They are expensive and worthless for SEO, because they don’t provide any contextual links back. PRWeb is the #2 company for Press Releases and does so much to SEO your news that it actually helps you get thousands of links in a week or less. The online tools for PRWeb are not super easy to use, but who cares, they give you THOUSANDS OF contextual links from news sites, which is amazing for SEO.  Every business should do press releases, but only when they have news.  B2b marketing finding customers is now much easier, so you don’t have to constantly push,  sites like Alibaba and Trade Key are great sites for b2b Exchanges and online businesses to promote themselves. 

Every SEO expert also knows that you need more Contextual links than your competitor, especially from news worthy sites, and blogs. Well guess what folks, PRWeb delivers, thousands of links for the price of about $130. But don’t take my word for it, spend hundreds of dollars, lots of time, and than you can email me later saying, YOU WERE RIGHT Vipin. No, don’t do that, take my word for it, and read the following links and search results:

Prweb Vs. Prnewswire – High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum

PRWEb vs. PRNewswire Press Release Service for SEO – SEO Tip Week 38

PR Newswire vs. PRWeb From an SEO Perspective » Slicksurface …

PR Newswire vs. PRWeb From an SEO Perspective. A client of ours distributes “soft news stories” for their corporate clients. These can range from product …
www.slicksurface.com/blog/2007-05/pr-newswire-vs-prweb-from-an-seo-perspective – 25k -Now you have the secrets of the top SEO Experts, you should be sending out Press Releases every week on PRWeb.com.

I was very, very impressed by this guest post on Problogger from Gala of iCiNG about the 9 Lessons she’s learned from blogging.  Yes, she’s a niche blogger -her blog deals with fashion and style, which are common topics in the blogosphere but she definitely adds her own unique spin to everything. She points out an incredibly important aspect of blogging that I’d be willing to bet all successful bloggers know.

And I quote:

Blogging isn’t about shouting the loudest or being really important, it’s about connecting & engaging in a dialogue with other people. If you’re not actually interested in interacting with anyone else or hearing other people’s opinions, you might as well be keeping a diary for yourself. Like it or lump it, having a blog is like being in retail. If people don’t like you, they will go (& spend their money) elsewhere.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times – successful bloggers manage to connect and communicate with their readers, and that’s what makes them so popular.  On the most basic level, they create value for their readers, and that’s why readers keep coming back.

Yes, listening and responding to your readers takes some time, but remember that they are like customers – keeping readers interested is essential to your success.  If you put in the hours creating compelling content, whether it’s a how-to or a round-up of useful resources, it will eventually pay off.  Of course, you need to promote it with SEO and link-building, but you had better concentrate on creating something quality to market first.

One excellent way to create value is to teach your readers something.  If you’re a business blogger, chances are there’s at least one area where you possess some expertise, so share your knowledge with your visitors.  By helping others you can help yourself.  An example from the sports world – hockey great Wayne Gretzky recorded more than twice as many assists as goals (1963 career assists vs. 894 goals), and he still holds almost every possible scoring record.  It’s clear that he helped his teammates succeed, and now he’s considered one of the greatest hockey players of all time.

Focus on what you can give to your readers – “ask not what your readers can do for you, ask what you can do for your readers“.  Yes, I took some serious liberties with John F. Kennedy’s classic phrase, but it’s important for bloggers to remember that they must contribute to community in order to reap its rewards.

Almost all bloggers are going to encounter critics at some point, especially bloggers who are passionate about their topics and committed to sharing their ideas with the world. Passion and conviction can polarize people, and it takes courage to publish your thoughts, especially if your topics are in any way controversial.

Criticism is a Fact of Blogging Life

A thick skin is vital to participating in blogosphere, because you are opening yourself up to criticism in the form of comments and emails, and even if you don’t enable comments or provide a way for your readers to contact you, that won’t necessarily stop them from talking about you – but isn’t that why you started a blog?  To make people aware of you and your company?  However, it’s important to differentiate between constructive criticism and flames (criticism for the sake of being derogatory or insulting, essentially taking cheap shots in order to pick a fight).

Examine Your Critics

Basically, you have to understand the source – know when to take someone’s opinion seriously and when to dismiss it as a mere feedback.  For instance, you’d take the opinion of an expert in your field much more seriously than someone completely unfamiliar with it, so take a look at who is doing the criticizing.  Also, pay attention to the numbers – are many of your readers disagreeing with you on a particular point or is there is a lone dissenter? Remember that you can’t please everyone all the time, and if you try to do that, there’s a good chance that you’ll end up with a bland, entirely forgettable blog.

Be Open to Change

No matter how much expertise you have, it’s always important to be open to new ideas and concepts.  In fact, that’s one of the many reasons blogging can help you achieve your business goals – it’s a continual learning process that forces you to keep up with the latest news and trends in your field, and exposes your ideas to many more people than any other method.   Blogging is a form of media, after all.  By publishing your thoughts, you’re inviting others to join the discussion, and they may have some amazing knowledge to share.

Blogging is essentially a social, conversational medium, so it only goes to follow that you can’t successfully blog in a vacuum.  You have to read and respond to other bloggers, link to outside websites, and be aware of what others in niche are talking about by participating in the popular social media networks.

Basically, you have to read at least as much as you write.  First of all, reading and absorbing the work of talented writers is one of the most important things you can do when it comes to developing your own writing voice.  It only goes to follow that, if you want to get the most out of your blog, you have to read other blogs as well.  Besides, being aware of the current popular topics in in the blogosphere is valuable, and you’ll never know where you’ll pick up a great tip or two.

You don’t even necessarily have to read tons of blogs about blogging (although as your Blogging Coach, I would say that you should definitely keep an eye on a few meta-blogs); useful, well-written advice and positive examples can be found on blogs in any niche.  It’s also important to check out blogs that discuss similar topics to yours, so you can pick up on market trends and see if anyone has written, linked to, or created anything interesting.

One of the key differences between blogging and more traditional forms of media, marketing, and public relations is that it’s a two way street.  Yes, your readers can and will respond to your posts in the comments, but other bloggers can write responses on their blogs too.  Reacting and sharing opinions are a key part of participating in the blogosphere, so it’s not only useful, it’s imperative that you read at least a few other blogs.

Don’t think that you have the time to read?  Try subscribing to your favorites and scanning them in a reader (I personally prefer Google Reader, but there are tons of options out there), or tagging posts that intrigue you with a “toread” tag in del.icio.us and coming back them when you have time to spare.

What other blogs do you read? Do you read them for news, education, inspiration, or entertainment (or a mix of all the above?)

Promotion and marketing are usually the main motivations that business bloggers have for starting their blogs.  Yes, they may want to join the conversation in the blogosphere in order to learn more about their niche and interact with other smart people, but in the end, their goal is promote their brand – and there’s nothing wrong with that.

However, many business blogs focus on how wonderful the company is, or how awesome their products are – and while that may be true, a company may provide top-notch services and their products may indeed change users’ lives, these bloggers are neglecting to realize that they are not taking full advantage of their presence in the online community.

In order to really promote your brand, you have to take the focus of you, your abilities, and your products.  You have to make the reader the hero.  Tell your readers what you can do for them, use your blog to provide value by sharing your knowledge, and show them how you, your company, and/or your products can improve their lives.

Testimonials from happy customers can help accomplish this goal, as long as they give a concrete reason why you’re great – be sure each testimonial offers specific examples instead of generic praise.   For instance, if you’re a real estate agent, you would want to feature a testimonial about you found your client their dream home in an ideal neighborhood and helped them negotiate an excellent price, not a testimonial stating “X is a wonderful, hard-working agent.”  If you are going to use testimonials, have your customers tell the blogosphere how you changed their lives.

But while testimonials alone can make your blog good, teaching and helping your readers improve their situations can make it great.  From self-help bloggers like Steve Pavlina (“Personal Development for Smart People) to career bloggers like Deborah Ng (Deborah Ng’s Freelance Writing Jobs), bloggers have used their sites to promote their expertise and brands by helping others.   They’ve made their readers their heroes, and because they truly want to see them succeed, they’ve achieved success themselves.

Making your reader the hero can also lead to a boost in terms of word-of-mouth marketing.  After all, if you help someone solve a problem, they are that much more likely to tell their friends and family about your blog and your business, because people tend to share content that they consider useful and valuable.

In conclusion, remembering that it’s not all about you can have a positive effect on your blog and your business. After all, if it weren’t for your clients, customers, and readers, you wouldn’t even have a business – so make sure they get to be the hero by focusing your blog on their wants and needs.

How many times have you heard the phrase “think positive!” or “focus on the positive!”?  A lot, right?  Well, I’m going to say it again, because keeping a positive slant is especially important when it comes to blogging.

The vast majority of the people reading your blog don’t know you in real life – they don’t know what you’re like in person, they don’t know your likes and dislikes, and they don’t know if you’re having a bad day. Your blog is your introduction to them – it is the face you present to the world wide web.

It goes to follow that if you use excessively negative language and constantly complain on your blog, your readers will get an impression of you as a negative or unpleasant person.  Of course, no one’s life is 100% sunshine and rainbows, but if you’re using your blog as any kind of business or promotional tool, I would suggest that you vent elsewhere.

This doesn’t mean you have to be just thrilled with everything, either – it is possible to state that you don’t like something without being vitriolic.  For instance, say you want to review a book that covers topics in your niche, but you didn’t actually like the book for whatever reason.  State your opinion, explain why you didn’t find the book helpful, tell your readers what you thought the author could have done better, and if you can, recommend some alternative books on the subject.  Criticism is good if it is done constructively.  

“What if I’m just having an awful day, you may ask?”  First of all, remember that you don’t have to post every single day, but if it’s been a few days and you really want to put something new up, try writing about someone else.

First of all, try reading other blogs in your niche or related news wires – chances are someone wrote about something interesting. Do a links post (where you post multiple links with a sentence or two to place them in context so your readers know that they are clicking on) to point out the good things.

Last but not least, you can look to YouTube (there’s always something entertaining on YouTube) or check out popular tags on the social bookmarking sites (hint: see if any of your keywords are tags on those sites – it can be an interesting way to see what other people in your niche are writing as well as checking out what readers valued enough to bookmark).   If you’re ever at a loss for positive blogging words, find something positive to say about someone else.

It’s the blogging version of the old “if a tree falls in the forest but there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?” If a blogger posts but no one reads it, does it really count? Whatever your opinion is on the tree thing, if you’re a blogger, you want readers, preferably as many as possible.  And you want them to stick around.

One thing that’s important to do is respond to your readers. If they take the time to read your blog and comment on a post or email you, reply to them! Answer their questions or otherwise encourage their participation.  It helps create a rapport between your and readership as well just making you look like a nice guy/girl.  After all, no one likes to comment in a vacuum, and as I’ve said many times, blogging is a conversation.

Of course, not every comment is going to be positive.  I’m not talking about the ones that are obvious flames or attempts to incite an argument (hey, some people just like to fight and they use the anonymity of the net to do it*), but the ones that provide constructive criticism or an alternative viewpoint.  It might be tough, but responding to those in a thoughtful manner can actually make you look better.  Plus, engaging in a discussion about your blog’s topic and your opinions can be a learning experience, so consider criticism and dissenting opinions as an opportunity to present yourself in a positive light.

Think of your readers as customers or clients when it comes to responding to their comments – you’d definitely be sure to reply to any questions or concerns your actual clients have, right?  Treat your readers as the same kind of valuable asset.

*You don’t necessarily have to approve these – just make sure that comment moderation is enabled.  If you feel you must publish every comment that’s not spam, kill ‘em with kindness in your reply.  And remember, in blogging as in business, you can’t please everyone all the time.

I’ve suggested before that when you’re creating your About page and your first few introductory posts, you should interview yourself.  But that’s easier said than done, and personally I always find it easier to write about things other myself.  However, your blog is about you and building your brand, so creating a detailed profile is vital.

As a result of my blogging experience (seriously, there are thousands of posts and hundreds of thousands of words that I’ve written on the web), I’ve had lots of experience interview and writing profiles of individuals from all walks of life.  Therefore, I’ve compiled a list of questions that I use as prompts when I interview someone.

Of course, my actual questions change depending on the characteristics of the person I’m profiling, but here’s the basic template (this is geared towards business owners and/or people who are using their blogs to market something).   Feel free to take this as a survey, and answer it on your own blog (skip any questions you don’t like or add your own).

1. Who are you, what do you do, and where do you live (the basic data -this one is a softball question)?  How about family (married, single, kids, pets)?

2. What is your background (education, career, awards, achievements, etc.)? Basically, why should readers be listening to you and reading your blog?  This is an especially important question for authority bloggers – people who blog to promote their expertise on a particular topic – to answer.

3. How did you get to where you are today? Tell your readers about the journey.  What forces shaped you?  Have you always been involved in the industry that you’re part of today?  What interesting twists and turns has your life taken?

4. Where do you hope to be in the future?  You don’t necessarily need to post a five year plan or anything that detailed, but talk about your aspirations.  Where do you see yourself in the future?

5. What are you passionate about?  What inspires you and why?  If you’re in a creative field, what is your muse?  What gets you out of bed in the morning and what makes you happier than anything else?

6. What are some current trends in your industry/niche/topic area?  How do you feel about them personally and where do you think your field is headed?

7. What makes you unique in your field?  In general?  How do you stand out from the crowd? (Again, this falls into the category of why your readers should be reading your blog).

8. Who are your heroes? Who do you look up to? Why are they awesome?

9. On the opposite note, do you have any key advice for newcomers to your field? What do you wish you had known when you started?

10. Do you have any favorite quotes that always ring true with you?  What are they?

11. What is a typical day in your life like?

12. What are your hobbies and what do you do when you’re not working? What kind of music do you like, what are your favorite movies/games/sports?

13. What are some of your favorite places, in your current hometown and in the world? Why are they your favorites?

14.  Name a few interesting facts or unique talents you have.  Is there anything truly off-the-wall or have you done something that few other people have?  Do you have any weird but wonderful accomplishments under your belt?  Share some interesting anecdotes.

15.  If your readers could only remember one thing about you, what would it be?  Can you sum up your brand – your uniqueness – in a sentence or two?

And last but not least, the one question that I always ask at the end of an interview:

16. Is there anything you wish I would have asked you that I missed?

Chances are you’ve heard the terms “web 2.0″, user-generated content, and social media networks being thrown around before, and you probably have a decent idea of what they mean (if not, check out my dictionary of blog related terms).  However, you may not be sure how to use the social media networks for your business – to blogcast your brand, because the blog is the center of it all.

Think of your brand/business as a solar system – your blog is the sun, and the rest of the social media sites and applications as planets orbiting around it.  You may have profiles on the other networks, videos on YouTube and photos on Flickr, and use social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us and digg, but it all revolves around your blog (be sure to put links to your blog in all your profiles, but you already knew that, right?).

There are two main forms of social media that can be quite useful for bloggers – networking sites (Facebook, Myspace, Linked In) and bookmarking sites (Stumble Upon, Reddit, and my personal favorite, del.icio.us).

The networking sites are kind of self-explanatory; they are not that far removed from your actual network of friends, associates, and colleagues, except that they are virtual and you can see everyone else’s networks too.  Besides the fact that it is simply convenient to have everyone’s profile info at your fingertips, these sites can also be useful when it comes to reconnecting with old colleagues and accquaintances, and for learning more about new friends.  While you don’t need to maintain a presence on every social networking site on the web (you wouldn’t have time to do anything else!), it’s helpful to be involved in one or two that are popular in your business’s niche, e.g. fashion types with Iqons and anything music or entertainment related with Myspace.

Bookmarking sites are useful for bloggers in the both the promotional sense (having your content listed on the sites brings in readers) and in the personal sense – you can bookmark and tag your favorite sites and articles and access those bookmarks from anywhere, and if you work from multiple computers your bookmarks will be synched.   I personally like to bookmark and tag any articles that would be good blog fodder, so bookmarking sites can help beat blogger’s block as well.  Social bookmarking sites are also excellent tools because they enable you to check out what others in your niche are reading and what they thought of it. Popular forums can function in a similar fashion (be sure to put a link to your blog in your signature line!)

Last but not least, there is Technorati, the blog index that has become so much more. Technorati lets you see who has linked to your blog and how recently, what other sites they have linked to, who they have favorited, and so on.  There’s also an authority ranking (how many sites have linked to a particular blog).   It’s a good way to keep track of which bloggers are saying what, and how other bloggers are reacting to it.

The key idea to remember is that the social networks are a community – you have to participate, learn the mores, and in some cases, follow the rules (for example, many forums have certain codes of conduct and behavior, so check out the regulations before you jump in and post).  Even if you’re a natural rebel, you have to learn the rules before you can break them.  Like any other community, virtual or not, you have to learn to listen as well as speak.