We are not talking about anything that will cost you any money, just a few minuets of free time to create some free pr that will help boost traffic to your website and help you acquire some one-way links in the process without much effort on your part.

Every one I know running a website has a small marketing budget and a small amount of resources to promote their product or service via the internet. The first problem in starting a new internet venture is driving traffic. Where will your visitors come from? How do I start to drive traffic immediately? In addition, a ton of other traffic related questions come to mind, but far too many to ask here.

Of course there are contextual advertising programs like Google Ad Words , Yahoo Advertising, MSN, Bright Ads and a whole 1000 others that would like to sell you pay per click advertising. Then, there are companies out there like Text Link Brokers willing to sell you a link on another website as part of your linking strategy, but very expensive and the major search engines are cracking down on paid links because they feel the links are not credible. This route can turn into a very expensive marketing strategy.

This is where a press release and your public relations strategy comes into play and you can gain valuable free pr in 36 hours and boost your one-way linking strategy. When I say Free PR, I am essentially talking about getting other websites to post your press release onto their site in two easy steps.

Here's Step 1 Write An SEO Optimized Press Release.

1. The better optimized your press release the better. Do your keyword research and select keywords that have the greatest volume with the fewest competitors. It is important to relate relevant and newsworthy content in your press release.

2. Keyword placement density in your free pr campaign should be around 3-5% for the first 250 words and then 1-2% for secondary words.

3. Create effective anchor text (keyword rich links) with your keywords is valuable optimization and relevant back links to your landing pages.

4. Relevant website content is just as important today than ever before. The relevant keyword densities used in your free pr campaign, should match the keyword densities of you website-landing pages in the first 250 words of the landing page.

5. Be sue to follow the press release outline of who, what, when, where, why and how. This will make you press release much more interesting to read and helps reader identify what you are writing about.

This step is the most important step of all, because if you don’t get your keywords right it may not work very well for you.

Step 2, Submit Your Press Release to a Newswire to Earn Free Pr and Gain Web Links.

A quick search on Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, and most other search engines with the term “Free PR.” You should see a good size listing of free pr newswires.

Words of caution because, some of the newswires have optimized their websites for the search term free pr, but charge you for press release distribution. Once you have selected a newswire, submit your press release for publication with a link to your site.

Finally, in 36 hours check your links and you should see where other web publishers have picked up your press release and posted to their sites helping to increase your link popularity.

Join Our Free PR Marketing Community Today and Reap the Rewards

-- Doug Nielson, The Big-O Book, Omaha, Nebraska

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Having loyal customers is the key to running a business. Repeat customers can make all the difference in the world as far as profit margin goes, not to mention the extra business gained from word-of-mouth. Even a first-year economics student can tell you that word-of-mouth is the #1 way to grow your customer base without spending one red cent on advertising. The question, however, that many business owners face is how to take that first step.

Common sense says that to have repeat customers that are going to tell their friends about you, they have to leave your business happy. Here are ten no nonsense ways to help make customer service your calling card.

1. Customer service training. It sounds basic, but investing a few bucks in proper training manuals is an investment that can pay off. If your employees understand the best way to deal with customers, they will help communicate your business philosophies at every turn, thereby allowing customers to see your dedication to the business. These will not only keep customers coming back to your door; it will also help them recommend your business to other potential customers.

2. Offer the best deals in town for your customers and they will come back again and again. If it's possible that you can have a deal that creates an edge over your competition, offer it every chance you get. You want customers to see your commitment to them, not your commitment to making more money for your business. In turn, you will end up making more money for your business, just by offering customers the best possible deal.

3. Have an ironclad return policy that will make them feel confident. If a customer is unhappy with their product, they need to feel that you will make it right. If you offer a strong return policy, a customer will be more likely to purchase from you, knowing that they can get their money back if they are unhappy in the end.

4. Offer the best possible warranty to ensure that they know they are getting a quality product. Some places offer little or no warranty on products, but customers want to know that if they are spending the money on a product, it will work just as you said it will. If it doesn't, they deserve their money back, and you can communicate this thought to them through a strong warranty. Customers will always know that they are sure to get their money's worth through your products.

5. Whenever possible, sell the best quality products you can get. Selling junk inspires no customer confidence. If you sell a good, quality product to people, it will be recognized. Your sales will go up through word-of-mouth recommendations just based on the sheer quality of the products you sell.

6. Teach your sales staff to smile and don’t use high-pressure sales techniques. Pushing customers to make purchases as soon as they come through the door is not the best way to get a sale. Having sales people available for questions is the right way to handle sales. Additionally, making sure your sales staff looks like they can be approached is a good way to keep customers coming back.

7. Be visible to them. When the owner and operator are approachable, customers will come back. Customers like to see that you are truly part of your operation, not just a figurehead who doesn't care about their needs. If you demonstrate that the customers are a part of your life and your business, they will return on a regular basis.

8. Try to learn your customers’ names to breed a feeling of familiarity and friendship. Customers like it when they are known. They like to feel important in the lives of the businesses they use on a regular basis. Knowing them by name and having knowledge of their needs will make them more likely to return to you.

9. Try to greet and say goodbye to every customer that enters and leaves your store. Customers like to be recognized. Ignoring someone who comes in the door is the fastest way to lose a customer. Even if this is the first time a customer has come in, be sure to greet them and thank them for coming in as they leave. It is sure to make them feel welcome to come back in anytime.

10. Using a customer loyalty program is one of the best ways to ensure repeat business. One of the best and most successful programs in force today is utilizing complimentary vacation incentive packages. As a business owner, you can use paid travel vouchers as a customer loyalty program reward. Those customers who frequent the company can earn points that will lead to a free vacation to many destinations around the country. Best of all, it will not cost you an arm and a leg. Find the right customer loyalty program with us today.

Travel Vacation Vouchers offers the only affordable, value-packed travel incentives where a few dollars translates into a multi-thousand dollar experience of a lifetime.

Find out how you can use high-value vacation incentives to grow your business, improve team performance and attract new customers, visit us at: http://www.travelvacationvouchers.com

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The Filtered Internet

Every parent knows that they should keep tabs on their kid’s online activity... Right? Well here are some statistics if you disagree...

There are currently 4.2 million pornographic websites on the market, 68 million pornographic search engine requests (25% of all search requests). The average age of a first time visit to a pornographic page is 11 years of age. The 12-17 year old age group is the largest consumer group of pornographic material.
90% of all 8-16 year olds having viewed porn online (usually while doing homework).

Internet filtering can be a useful tool when you cannot monitor a child’s every move on the web. When looking for a good filtered internet company one should do their homework and find one that will not only filter out objectionable content but be scalable and customizable to the level of filtering desired. Make sure that there is a monitoring program built into the system that will categorize or tell you what the child (or spouse) has been visiting without actually having to go to the site and view pornography. This will save you from virus problems and spy ware.
Also try and find a filtered internet company that will offer a time lock to lock out a user from the internet during certain time periods like 10pm to 8am for example...


If you cannot watch what they are doing in person, then invest a few dollars in a piece of software that will and get more peace of mind... don't be a statistic...

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New form of Advertising Slows Traffic

vehicle wraps could drive traffic to large and small businesses.
By Tor Black mobile marketing expert from Amstand and GetWraps

Now Tivo & D.V.R.s lets you skip TV commercials, Satellite Radio is commercial free, Internet killed phone book ads and newspaper print ads, internet now has spam blockers and popup blockers stopped internet ads. So where are companies going next to keep your attention? Car ads!

As you sit in traffic you have to look at them. They are often mistaken for custom paint of murals or called custom car graphics but the proper term for them are called Vehicle Wraps, they take vehicles and shrink wrap an ad all the way around it (wrapping every nook and cranny). And it is the hottest growing form of advertising – it was even featured on an episode on NBC of Donald Trump’s the Apprentice.
It started in the 90’s with wrapping buses. These are the city buses that have ads covering the entire bus including the windows. It is expensive so it didn’t take off immediately and only large advertising firms and advertisers with major budgets took advantage of this form of marketing.

In the mid-nineties bigger business started to wrap semis and tractor trailers. With long distant drivers and millions of miles driven the impressions caught the eyes of large companies like fast food chains. So next thing you know you see a giant Big Mac driving down the road.

By the late nineties the mid-sized businesses like produce companies started wrapping their box trucks and refig trucks with pictures of juicy vegetables. The construction industry started jumping in with all there service pickup trucks and cube-truck wraps. Soon there was 50-100 local trucks and van wraps with pictures of beautiful houses with the builders name or icy mountain tops with a local air-conditioning - plumbing company driving around town all day they took off like wildfire.

In 2000 the word for those “in the advertising know” was wraps, wraps, wraps. Every business with any size fleet wrapped then from 1 van wrap to 25 fleet vans ponied up the cash. From florist delivery vans covered with gorgeous flower arrangements to pest control companies putting giant gross bugs wrapped on their sprinter vans both gained the desired effect of getting their potential customers attention while going about their daily business.

In the early 2000’s the wrap industry started to explode. Then small business and home based business figured out the return on this form of advertising and wrapped SUVs and started wrapping mini-vans and even car wraps. Now minivans wrapped with multilevel marketing elixirs and SUVs and Hummers wrapped with the local realtors face are now more and more visible.

The show cars are wrapped now placing designs and graphics all over their customs. Euros and drifters as seen on “Pimp My Ride - MTV show” and the “Fast and Furious Trilogy“ are wrapped. Wraps are the new airbrush paint job of the 2000s. Even NASCAR wraps their racecars so sponsors get the most visibility and can be replaced instantly if in a fender-bender! Their even putting trailer wraps on their car transport trailers!
What’s next?

Plane Wraps? Boats Wraps? Motorcycle Wraps? Personal Car Wraps? Personal Truck Wraps? Building Wraps? Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes. They are already being done as we speak. Planes have been wrapped with world cup soccer ads, southwest airlines did a supper successful campaign by placing two different sign of zoo animals wrapped on either side of the plane and it gave the appearance the fleet was twice as big. Get Wraps pioneered boat wraps in Florida gaining popularity on the offshore boat racing circuit by wrapping those long curvy expensive high-speed rocket boats. (This is a very hard on the material as the water beats against the boat as it speeds at over 100mph!) e bass fishing tournament industry now requires all boats wrapped as the few that were wrapped seemed to get all the camera time on ESPN 2 and all other televising stations. Now that is proof of the power of wraps!

By the way these wraps are very difficult to apply even with the best material 3M Scotchprint material controltac with comply (flexible non-damaging print material for wraps). So this spawned a whole new artisan or craftsman the Certified Professional Wrap Installer. And an International Association of Wrappers – the vehiclewraps.org. There is even a trade school for this specialty field called aptly The Wrap Academy.

For more information about wrapping (not the hip-hop kind), wraps, how they work, materials, installing, what they cost or any questions on the industry check out the vehicle wrap blog.

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3 Reasons why Headlines Fail

Many professional copywriters estimate that the headline contributes to 80% or more of the success of any ad, article, or sales letter.

One direct marketing expert goes so far as to credit the headline with 100% of the success or failure of any ad or sales letter, because if the headline fails to pull the reader into the main body of the ad or sales copy, then there is no chance of success!

And they are both right! If your headline fails to perform its' function of getting the reader to read further into your copy, then the headline is fully responsible for the failure of the ad or sales letter.

However, if the headline is successful, then other sales copy factors come into play, such as the benefits presented, the guarantee, the offer, the close, etc. Now they all share in the effectiveness of the sales copy as well. But if the headline fails, they then play no part.

Think about how you read a newspaper or magazine. Do you start with the first article and then read every word from front to back of the publication?

Of course not!

Instead, you quickly scan the headlines, looking for something that interests you, either because of curiosity or because there might be something in it for you. You skip over all the rest!

Well, guess what. That's the same way your readers view your ad, article, sales letter, or sales page.

So, here are the three main reasons for headline failure.

1. You Fail To Grab Your Reader's Attention!

Your headline serves as the ad for your ad, article, or sales letter. Its' mission is to grab the reader's attention, stop them dead in their tracks and get them to want to read further down into the article. If your headline fails in its' purpose, then the whole ad, article, or sales letter will fail because they will never get read!

2. You Fail To Tell The Reader What Is In It For Them To Continue Reading!

Where possible, your headline should present your strongest benefit to the reader. If the reader can identify a want they have with finding a solution to that want in your ad, article, or sales letter, then they will continue reading. If they don't see any benefit to reading on, they won't. Remember, it is all about what is in it for them, the reader.

3. You Fail To Connect With The Reader!

If your headline is not addressed to the reader, they will not be interested in what you have to say in the rest of your ad, article, or sales letter. There must be a match between the message and the target audience, of which the reader is a member.

So, in summary, if your headline doesn't stop your reader dead in their tracks and get them to read further into your copy, then all is for naught!

The time it takes a reader to scan most headlines and decide whether or not to stop and read your copy or move on is less than 3 seconds!

As a result, many professional copywriters spend as much time creating their headlines as they do for the rest of their copy.

Creating 100 or so headlines before picking the headline which the writer feels is most likely to succeed is not uncommon.

Alternative headlines can often be used as subheadlines in long copy. These subheadlines help pull the reader further along into the copy and towards the ultimate goal of a sale.

Be sure to give your headlines the time and effort they deserve and they will reward you with sizable sales. Your headline writing efforts will produce a great return on the time you invest.

Copyright © 2005

How to use Page Rank to get you more Traffic

Many surfers use the Google or Alexa bar that integrates into their web browsers which consequently makes it easier for them to search and navigate through Internet. However, how many have the “overall page rank” indicator on these bars which shows either a ranking or the importance of the page?

The overall page rank in directories like Google, Yahoo or Alexa is the key factor while doing a search. It decides which website or page deserves the top places in the results of the search of a keyword. The search engine basically calculates the importance of the webpage.

For example, let’s say that you prepared a webpage supplying the users with focused, detailed and understandable info. You think your page deserves a high importance, therefore when you search for the theme of your website, you believe it should be shown in the top 20. Well, sometimes life is cruel. If you don’t optimize your webpage for a specific keyword, if you don’t get enough inbound links directing the user to your site, you would be disappointed by the 1/10 importance rating in Google. Don’t give up! It’s still worth fighting for. There are several factors which decide the page rank of a website.

First of all, Internet is not like the streets of a city: if you put your “shop” in a busy street, people will drop by your place. No visit on Internet is a coincidence. You have to create your links from other sites (inbound links). You also have to increase the internal linking of your website so that visitors can just “hang around” in your site. So your first factor for the page rank is the linking of your page.

Secondly, pages which attract more users (i.e. number of unique daily users) are obviously more important in the “eyes” of the search engines. This, being the dependent variable in our equation, grows directly proportional to the inbound links. So, page rank also increases with the number of unique users.

At last, relative, focused content increases the importance of your page (page rank). Initially, every page you add to your site increases the overall page rank of the whole before you start adding in-context hyperlinks; “in-context” hyperlinks because according to Google authorities, the hyperlinks that you place inside the content of the page are accepted more valuable.

One of the best things you can do is add a Site Map. Google and other search engines love them! It their robots/spiders find your pages and properly index them. I have found an easy and free way to do this. Download Google's Free Site Map Generator here.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/sitemap-generator.html#download

Briefly, on the web, there are no lucky days, no coincidences or no serendipities. If you want traffic on your page, you have to create it yourself. You have to put quality, focused and original content, you have to increase the number of the inbound links. The traffic on your site will increase automatically depending on the other variables. Finally, one day you will look at your site and see that the page rank has jumped from 1 to 4 or even higher. Then you will understand that “La vita e bella.”

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Dan is offering a free report, "Amazing Traffic Formula" that is a viral tool to generate free and targeted web traffic. To get your copy go to:
http://www.1st-affiliate-marketing.biz/atf.htm

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