OVBlogger: Blogging and SEO

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Yes, I’ve written a few press releases in my day. I’ve published a few, too, back in my editor days, but I love what they can do for your business in terms of getting traffic. If you haven’t written one, they aren’t terribly difficult, either.

First and foremost, you need a good hook.

That’s exactly like a headline. So, if you’re good at writing headlines, you have half the battle nailed.

I like to tie my headlines in to something that people might currently be searching for. So, I cruise the headlines in the news. Of course, you have to tie your headline to the body of the press release or it won’t work.

I go to places like Google News and Excite or Yahoo to find the choice headlines, and the trick is to find something people are searching for. Right now, it could be Obama, Batman, or there’s always the fuel crisis.

Just be very careful how you do it or the release won’t be approved. If you can work a legitimate tie-in, though, you’ll be cool. Like, if you’re talking about Batman, you’d better have a gothic product or something superhero-like. I think that would be kind of hard.

Last year, when we were launching The ListBuilding Club, I did one for Tellman that said he was opening the club with more tricks than Harry Potter, which was out at the time, and then went on to say that Tellman’s not a magician, but he has more marketing tricks than a tutor at Hogwart’s. All worked out, you see?

Anyway, that’s my tip for the day. Have fun coming up with cool ways to get people interested. They may not even know that they want to know about your cool news, but well… when they get there, they just might be highly interested, eh? Get as many people reading your releases as you can.

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I just read a very cool post over at Jack Humphrey’s blog, The Friday Traffic Report. He’s on kind of a rant about all the Internet marketing gurus charging an arm and a leg for products that they know 90% of the people who buy them will never use.

Yeah. He’s right. But…

It’s not the gurus’ fault that people are too lazy to take action. It’s just the way of human nature.

But that’s not the part that interested me. He said that he gives 110% to the people he mentors. He wrote:

“I guess what I am getting at is that I know me. And people who have paid big money for my services know from that experience that I give everything I’ve got. They can tell there’s a country boy deep down inside me that blushes when he gets paid so much just to tell folks what he knows about marketing. And they ALL walk away appreciative and very much fulfilled from the experience. I make doubly sure of that. (Almost to THEIR embarrassment at times.)”

I’ve learned that from Tellman. The List Building Club is all about giving people value. We give them content that rocks. We give them the ability to ask questions and have them answered twice a month on calls. We offer tons of quality stuff.

But it’s only $29.99 a month. I’d say that’s what Jack’s getting at. It’s not about greed. It’s about giving value. I believe in that, too.

And so, it’s how I’ve modeled my site Blogging4BoomersinBusiness.com . I have clients that email me reguarly and I mail back to them the minute I can and answer their questions. If it’s too involved, they can find me on the phone every Monday night. I want to be there for them, you know? I have one member who told me today…

“WOW! Pat. You’re not only my favorite blog and SEO mentor, but you’ve taught me so much about interrelationship marketing. If everyone were like you, they’d have customers for life.”

Well sure, it’s flattering, but what makes me feel really good is knowing that I helped someone move forward. I remember stumbling around feeling stupid 4+ years ago when I got into Internet marketing. And I don’t want people to do that.

I really want to help them, and I love doing it.

But I can see where someday, I may not have the time to do as much as I’m doing today. And then what? Will I be one of those $2,000 product gurus who never gets near their customers?

I don’t think I will.

Part of the fun of being smart at Internet marketing and having information to share is sharing it. If I can’t do that, I don’t think it will be fun anymore.

Money’s nice to have, but it doesn’t pay the soul.

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