Six Proven Secrets to Writing A Trash Proof Press Release

By Bill Stoller (c) 2008 PublicityInsider.com

In baseball, it's said that you know an umpire is top-notch when you never notice his presence. If he's doing his job, he won't call attention to himself in any way. It's much the same for the writer of a press release. When the recipient of a press release focuses only on its content -- and not on its creation -- the writer has succeeded. With that in mind, here's how to develop a style that can help give you a big edge in placing your press releases.

1) Master News Style By Reading News Stories
The folks who write wire copy for the Associated Press are masters at presenting information without calling attention to themselves. Read all the AP wire copy you can and get a sense of the rhythm and flow of their writing. Examine their choice of words and sentence structure (typically, they choose the simplest way of saying things) and their overall tone of solid objectivity. This is the style to which you should aspire.

2) Write a Great Lead
The lead paragraph in a press release should, theoretically, be able to stand alone as a news item. A standard news lead answers the Five W's -- Who? What? Where? When? Why? Successfully answer those five questions in one paragraph and you've summarized everything beautifully.
Bad lead:
The new Acme X100 is drawing raves from customers, who call it the best thing to happen to the flanging industry since the X99.
Good lead:
Philadelphia, August 15, 2007-- Calling it a "milestone day for our industry", the Acme Company unveiled the first flanger capable of creating widgets using only solar power. According to Acme President Joe Blow, the X100 is expected to find wide use in the developing world, where access to traditional electric power is unreliable.
The Five W's are answered! Who: the Acme Company. What: theintroduction of the solar-powered X100. Where: in Philadelphia (the headquarters for our fictional company). When: August 15. And, most important, Why: for use in the developing world.

Remember this: in almost every release that's successful, what put it over the top was the answer to "Why?". You must make plain the significance of your news by answering that question succinctly and without hype!

3) Write in Third Person
Perhaps it's a silly convention, but press releases really should be written as if they're coming from an objective outsider to your company, not from within your business. Of course, the journalist knows better, but nonetheless, they expect releases to be written in the third person. In short, here's the difference between first person and third person:
=> First person: We've developed the Acme X100.It's our most advanced model ever.
=> Third person: Acme Industries has developed the X100, which a company spokesperson called its "most advanced ever"

4) Attribute All Opinions
Never flatly state an opinion. If you want to state an opinion or, as in the above example, make a claim, always attribute it to a representative of the company (which very well may end up to be you!). Anything apart from entirely factual info (dates, store availability, product features, biographical information, etc.) should be attributed. Again, the best way to get a feel for this is to read wire copy. Start sorting out the things a reporter feels comfortable with, including without attribution and things for which he uses a named source.

5) Use the Inverted Pyramid
On the first day of Journalism 101, aspiring scribes learn about the Inverted Pyramid. Basically, it's way of organizing information so that the most important information is at the top -- the widest part of the Inverted Pyramid -- and, as you funnel down to the narrowest point, the information becomes less and less vital. There's a good reason for this: if a reporter's 10 paragraph story gets cut to 6 paragraphs because of space considerations, the reader will still be informed of the most important news. What's cut will be background, quotes and other nonessential material. When writing a press release, the Inverted Pyramid is equally important. First, it's the style the journalist is comfortable with and second, it assures that even if a rushed reporter can only read the first couple of paragraphs, she'll get enough info to decide whether to use the release or not. If you bury the best part of your release in the fourth paragraph, the recipient may never make it that far.

6) Remove all "Stoppers"
A "stopper" is something that will stop a journalist in her tracks and distract her attention. Once that happens, your release is toast. The point of your press release: to present information in the least obtrusive way possible. Consider it this way: the journalist isn't dumb -- she knows full well that you've sent her the press release for purely commercial reasons, hoping to get publicity that will make you more money. She can live with that as long as [a] there's something in it for her (a good story) and [b] she's not reminded of your commercial desires too often. A "stopper" breaks the suspension of disbelief needed for this little dance to be successful. It's the boom mike showing up in the frame of a movie -- once you've seen it, it's hard to convince yourself that you're really experiencing something that happened during, say, the Middle Ages. Here are some "stoppers" to avoid:
=> Clunky language. Journalists keep their language pretty simple. Long words, compound sentences and lofty, pretentious phrases are no-no's. Keep your sentences short. Don't try to present more than one idea in a paragraph. Avoid words you wouldn't use in everyday circumstances.
=> Hype and puffery. The ultimate "stopper". Confusing press release copy with advertising copy is a pervasive problem with businesspeople. Don't call yourself the greatest, the hottest, the coolest, the most unique or anything of the sort. If you must make a claim of superiority for your product, service or company, attribute it. Acme President Joe Blow said the X100 "has the opportunity to revolutionize the industry" is much better than The revolutionary Acme X100 is the greatest industrial advance since the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk.
=> Trademark Symbols. Including TM or copyright symbols that scream, "hey, check me out! I'm a press release! I come from a business! The legal department made me include this stuff!"
The bottom line: write like a journalist, avoid the stoppers and answer the Five W's and you'll succeed!

About The Author Bill Stoller, the "Publicity Insider", has spent two decades as one of America's top publicists. Now, through his website, eZine and subscription newsletter, Free Publicity: The Newsletter for PR-Hungry Businesses he's sharing -- for the very first time -- his secrets of scoring big publicity. For free articles, including our no-cost report, "Press Release Secrets", go to: PublicityInsider.com.

Top 10 Ways To Raise your Site In Google

Thursday, Feb. 14, 2008

No matter how much some people claim the SEO industry is a den of snake-oil salesmen, there are still definite ways webmasters can improve their rankings, and thus their visibility in Google's search results.

Editor's Note: This by no means a comprehensive list of SEO techniques employed by the industry to get better rankings in Google. If so, it wouldn't exactly be an industry, would it? That means there's a lot we're leaving out. What do you recommend? Let us know in the comments section.
This isn't a manipulation game—Google absolutely hates that game and will punish you for it—which is perhaps what the darker element of the SEO world sells. Good, in-bounds SEO is made up of smart, user-and-search-engine friendly techniques. Think of SEO as a performance-enhancing drug—one that won't get you kicked out of baseball.
That being said, there are tons of things webmasters can do to help their sites perform better in search, so this list is not by a long shot finished. It is, though, what we think are the top ten strategies for better search engine—and by "search engine" I mean "Google" – placement.
1. Title tags
Listed by others as one of the Big Three (tags, links, and text), we're putting title tags at the top. The words in the title tag appear in the link that pops up in the search result. This is where you tell the search engine (and the would-be visitor) as succinctly as possible what needs to be known: company or publication name; relevant, targeted keyword or keyword phrase taken from the text of the page. Each page should have a title tag as Google ranks each page individually, not the site in its entirety.
2. Content
The order of the Big Three is very debatable, but really they work as parts of the whole; not one of them can be left out if the machine is to work properly. In this case, you probably understand that content should be quality, however that is defined, but it should also be rich in the keywords you are targeting to drive search traffic. That doesn't mean just throwing them in there like you're cooking up a pot of SEO gumbo, though. Keyword use and keyword variation should natural and not overstuffed. For the visual text part of the page, focus on working in the relevant words and phrases you want people to find you for.
3. Quality Links
Or more specifically, backlinks, links to your site from outside sources. Links are your letters of recommendation. If nobody's recommending you, or the recommendations seem phony, then it won't work. Authority links are weighted most heavily, of course, so try to get industry-related authority sites to link to your site.
Convert visitors with Google Analytics - free
4. Quantity Links
Authority (high quality) links are by nature more difficult to get, so you'll have to start somewhere else unless you already have the brand recognition you need from square one. Many SEOers propose "link-swaps" to each other and it used to be common trade to buy and sell links. But as Google demonstrated last Fall, you can't buy Google's love that way. In fact, you'll get the opposite of love. So, try to get as many links as you can from industry peers the good old-fashioned way – by promoting. Submit links to respected directories like DMOZ and Yahoo, as well. A large burst of low-quality, non-authoritative, or bad-neighborhood links, though, can do a lot more harm than good; so keep things natural.
5. URL
The importance of the URL is often debated, but one argument seems to make more sense than the others. Search engines don't like too many parameters in the URL (easy to confuse the spiders with & and ?) and people can't read those long URLs and tell what they mean at a glance either. The people aspect here is especially important, because they're the ones clicking and they need to understand where a link leads them at a millisecond glance. Lesson: keywords in the URL are a good idea.
6. Spider Food
Search spiders eat HTML, not Flash. They eat text, not pictures. Make the spiders happy with HTML and lots of text to eat.
7. Site Architecture
There's a lot to consider here, but the goal is creating a site spiders can easily access, a site that tells them where to go and what to index. Sitemaps are vital for this purpose, as is proper use of Robots.txt. Just this week, Google's Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa posted 7 must-read Webmaster Central blog posts about these very topics.
8. Frequently Updated Content
You could start a site, slap some content on it, and let it sit there in cyber space. It'll be indexed, most likely. But you really expand your credibility as a devoted, relevant source if you update regularly. In addition to spiders, it gives people a reason to come back, too.
9. Start a Blog
A great way to establish yourself as an authority voice on the Internet is to start a blog about the industry you're in. Maintaining a blog means another entry point with regularly updated content that eventually with some authority helps pull up the main site via targeted links to the site, or specific pages within the site. It's not a spam blog, which will be zapped eventually, if there's useful content on it and legitimate linking.
10. Don't Forget Humans
This is so important, it probably should be higher up on the list. There's an art to designing a site that is friendly to both Google crawlers and the people you ultimately want to convert. Without people, what's the point? So first design for them, and then tweak to please the spiders, not the other way around. Jakob Nielsen is a usability guru you'll want to check out. He's been telling people how make user-centric websites since web directories were still phonebooks—you know, on paper.

About the Author: Jason Lee Miller is a WebProNews editor and writer covering business and technology.

Keep Your Online Business Alive in 2008

By Chris Crum - Thu, 02/07/2008 - 5:09pm.You don't have to die no matter what they tell you...
Recently, Vitabase CEO Greg Howlett predicted the death of the little guy in online business in 2008. This is a man that is responsible for getting two multi-million dollar companies off the ground, so it's not as if he has no experience in the field. "It is simply going to become more and more unfeasible for small budgets to compete online," he says. If his prediction is true, then what are you going to do to get the most out of your small budget?Review Your Marketing PlanStep back and evaluate your marketing techniques. It is up to you to assess the situation and figure out which methods are working for you and which aren't. Are there steps you can take to improve the ones that aren't or are they just lost causes? Sometimes a method can seem like a lost cause when the proper amount of time isn't put into it. Take social media marketing for example. Time is money, so if you don't have the time to dedicate to a particular marketing method or the money to pay someone else to do it, perhaps that particular method is not for you, but I will say, if you have the resources, exploring as many marketing options as possible is probably going to work to your benefit. Assess ExpensesTake another step even further back, and look at your business spending practices. Look for ways to cut costs so that money can be put to more helpful purposes (such as more marketing). Look at your office supplies. Can you get better deals from other suppliers? Do you have employees that are constantly lacking something to do? Perhaps it is time to consolidate. It sounds harsh, but you're running a business, not a charity. Don't make any hasty decisions in this area if there just happens to be some temporary downtime, but evaluate your employee/workload ratio. These are just a couple examples. If you look hard enough, you'll probably find all kinds of ways to save money here and there.NetworkGet to know people in your niche, especially the big wigs. Go to conferences. Participate in blog and social media conversations. Frequent forums related to your niche. Brand yourself as an expert in your field and become known. These are ways to build credibility and those with credibility will have a better chance of survival.Perhaps "death" is a bit of a strong word in the context of Greg's prediction, but he's right in that it's not going to be easy. Being budget conscious is as important as ever and yours should be taken into consideration whenever making a business decision. What advice do you have to keep an online business alive in 2008?

About the author:Chris is a staff writer and content coordinator for iEntry, Inc. which publishes titles such as SmallBusinessNewz and WebProNews.