Using press releases, and distributing them online, has been a well-used tactic for supporting online communications for some time now, supporting content publishing, as well as allowing exposure on a range of specialist and niche online publications. Recently the immediate benefits of PR publishing have started to become evident for search engine optimisation and traffic generation purposes.

Alyona Frendo has been quick to realise the potential for sharing this information with fellow public relations colleagues and internet marketers alike.

Hi Alyona. Can you tell me how long have you been doing business on the internet for?

I have been in internet marketing for the last 6 years, however I left my day job 4 years ago and started working only as an ‘internet marketer’ since then.

Why the internet as a channel for your business?

I have always been into publicity as my full time job. Publicity is related a lot to marketing and I found it very easy to start in internet marketing because the internet allows you to start from an absolute zero. You don’t need to invest much to start in internet marketing, whilst in reality to start an offline business you have to invest a considerable sum of money.

Do you work full-time as an internet marketer?

I work full time as an internet marketer, however on the side I also run ‘real-life’ publicity campaigns for a small group of clients, but I consider the publicity area as my part time.

You created and sell Press Release Traffic Booster which is an ebook which explains how distributing press releases can help Google rankings.

Do press releases have special features that make them more attractive to Google?

The answer is a definitive YES. Let me elaborate on this. Google loves press releases because of their news value and press release websites (where you publish your press releases) normally have a high pagerank therefore the backlinks you get from press releases are much higher than the normal article marketing which everyone is doing. Press releases are also featured on Google News which is an extra source of laser targeted traffic!

Does your system allow the press releases themselves to appear in the search results and to rank highly or do the press releases link to pages which then appear in the search results?

The system I outline in the ebook helps people do some ‘free’ publicity for their website. The press release itself will eventually get on top of Google and Google News, whilst the backlinks you get from the press release will also help your own website to climb the search engine results this will have a domino effect where you will get an ever increasing amount of laser targeted traffic. Such traffic will result in more profits for the internet marketer!

Can you give me some examples of how you have seen press releases rank in the search results?

Using the special strategies I outline in the ebook, I have had clients who wrote press releases which are still on top of Google itself for highly competitive keywords even after years of them being published.

Can distributing press releases help generate back links to my site?

Definitely. Apart from the backlinks generated from the press release itself you will also get some good backlinks from third party sites that republish your press release. I have had also instances where interesting press releases have been published on magazines and newspapers. The traffic you can get from such exposure is phenomenal.

Does your system work with the main Google search results or with Google News search results?

Both. The press release will be published on Google News within hours, if you follow the guidelines in the ebook and will be published on Google itself within a day and the impressive thing is that it will start climbing steadily to settle in the first page for even the most competitive of keywords!

Do you need to be a PR person with established contacts in your industry or can the system work for a person with no PR experience?

The ebook is intended for anyone, even new incomers to the scene. The ebook has easy to follow guides with templates. Anyone could be rolling his first press release without any difficulty after reading the ebook.

I’d like to talk to you about how you market Press Release Traffic Booster.

How long has your ebook been around?

The ebook has been around for 2 years and I can say that it’s a best seller. Around 75% of my total income from internet marketing has been from the sales of this ebook.

Why did you decide to create this type of ebook? What kind of research did you do to establish demand?

I had some good ideas in mind for a new ebook, but was unsure which one would be the most successful, so I decided to send out surveys to people who had purchased from me years ago and asked them to choose which one of these ideas would work best for them. I threw in some freebies and some prizes to people who respond so the amount of people who replied was actually overwhelming. I noticed a pattern of people wanting to read and learn about how to do free publicity using press releases and so I decided to write Press Release Traffic Booster.

Do you sell the ebook to PR people or to internet marketers who want to harness the potential of your system?

I sell to both actually. PR people buy it so they can understand the difference between a real life press release and an online press release, because there are some major differences whilst internet marketers purchase because they want to learn how to harness the power of press releases since most online internet marketers only do article marketing and backlink building which is much less effective than press releases.

How have you marketed Press Release Traffic Booster?

I marketed the ebook to my customer list and via joint ventures. I am now going to launch a high paying affiliate program which will probably pay a 75% commission!!! I am so convinced that affiliates will make me even more profits that I am willing to pay them such an exorbitant amount!

Any other techniques to create buzz?

I want my ebook to go viral therefore I am planning to create some videos and facebook campaigns this year.

Is there anything you would do differently to market another product? Have you launched any other products since?

I am thinking about launching another product later this year. However the success of this ebook was so great that I couldn’t really focus on anything else. I will follow the same formula I used for Press Release Traffic Booster so I will ask the people on my list to just let me know what the best idea in their opinion is for an ebook!

If you want to purchase Press Release Traffic Booster you can do that, or get more information, at the Press Release Traffic Booster campaign page.  As a special offer, you can currently purchase the ebook for just $15 instead of the usual $49.

Find out more about Alyona at http://www.alyonablog.com

Photo by Johan J.Ingles-Le Nobel

Last night my brother-in-law came over to discuss a new business plan with me. He and a friend want to start an online business and wanted my advice.

My advice mostly consisted of a series of questions that everyone needs to ask before they begin a business.

1.  How much money do I need to make for the business to be worth my time?

If you can work full time and make $30,000 a year then it doesn’t make sense to start a business that will make you less money for the same amount of work.

In fact starting a business is a risky venture and so you may have to be able to earn twice as much money for it to be worth your risk.

Before you build the business you must decide how much it must earn to be worth your time.

2.  How much time, money, and other resources in my willing to commit to the business?

Building a new business often requires some money invested and a lot of time.

If you’re building an online business then you may need to register a domain ($10 for one year), pay for hosting (say $10 a month), and pay for an auto responder service like Aweber (about $20 a month).

The total cost of these items is $10 up front about $30 a month. That’s a total of $370 for one year.

Whatever your business is, you need to understand what the startup costs are going to be. This way you can make an educated decision whether you are comfortable with these expenses.

Be sure to break it down into monthly costs and the total cost for one year.

If you’re not sure what the cost would be then find someone who has run a similar business and ask them for a detailed list of the various expenses to start your business.

Another thing you must consider is your time commitment. How much free time are you willing to commit to this business? And where will that time come from?

If you determine that running your site business requires 20 hours a week and you can only commit to 4 hours a week in your business will probably fail.  You need to be realistic about how much time you really can devote to a venture.

3.  What is the product that I’m selling?

You need to find a product to sell. And it needs to be something that people will buy.

You may decide to sell a physical product online. In this case the product you’re selling is obvious and it’s easy to track your success. All you have to do is track the number of widgets you have sold.

If you decide to build an information website and make money off of advertising than your product is actually the advertising space that you sell.  Selling advertising space can be tricky if you don’t have much traffic. To be successful at this you must match the advertisements to the visitors on your website. You must also put the advertisements in locations where readers will see them without annoying your readers.

4.  How many products do I need to sell?

If your goal is to make $5000 a month and you sell widgets for $5 and you need to sell 1000 widgets to meet your goal of $5000 a month.

This works out to 34 widgets sold every day. Is this goal reachable for you? Is this realistic?

5.  Who will be my customers?

In order to sell stuff you must have customers. Both who your customers be?

If you’re selling high-end golf clubs then you need to determine what kind of people would buy them. I’m guessing that the most common buyer of high-end golf clubs are wealthy men that are white and play a lot of golf.

If you’re selling a book that lists 10,000 baby names with their meaning and origin then your customers will be very different than the high-end golf club customers. They will most likely be women that are married and pregnant with their first child.

Whatever your product is you need to come up with a specific profile of your ideal customer.

6.  How will my customers find me?

Once you have identified the type of person is most likely to buy your product you need to figure out how that person will find you and buy your product.

How will they know they your product exists?

Putting up a simple website and just hoping that people will magically find it won’t get you anywhere.

Instead you should find out more information about your ideal customer. Where do they shop? What are they do for fun? Where did they go for advice?

People who buy high-end golf clubs spend a lot of time and money golfing on various golf courses. They might also be a member of a country club.  These places often have small shops that sell golf related paraphernalia. This would be a good place to sell your high-end golf clubs.

There are also golfing magazines, websites, and forums. All of these places would also be good to advertise on and sell your high-end golf clubs.

Individuals who buy baby names books might also shop at stores that sell baby cribs and baby clothes. For fun these people might go to the park and associate with other mothers of small children.

If they have questions about their pregnancy may go to online forums to get advice.

Figure out where your ideal customer spends much of their time and use that information to better market your product.

7.  How can I prototype the business to avoid unnecessary risk?

Beginning any business comes with some risk but there is things you can do to minimize your risk.

If you’re selling baby names books then I suggest paying to have no more than 10 copies printed.  Try to sell just those 10 copies even if you don’t make any money. The point in selling 10 copies is to prove your business model.

Once you’ve proven the business model then you can pay for 100 or 1,000 copies to be printed.

Another way to cut costs is with a website. If you’re just starting out and you don’t have any money then consider getting a free blog to host your website. Once you’ve actually made $10 then reinvest that money and buy a domain.

Are you doing what you love?

I’ve been a customer of Amazon.com for several years now and have spent hundreds of dollars at their website on books, movies, and music.

Until recently I had a wish list on Amazon with over 100 items on it. (Last week I deleted my wish list for privacy reasons but that’s a story for another time.)

So it’s safe to say that Amazon has a very good idea of what things I like and what items I am likely to purchase in the future.

Amazon is losing money

Every week I get at least one email from Amazon with their current deals and specials. Unfortunately for Amazon, I have absolutely no interest in 99% of the items they email me about.

This sort of mass marketing of the most popular items to everyone is the kind of thing I would expect from retailers that know nothing about me.

But Amazon is different! They have a long list of products that I have purchased in the past as well as a lengthy wish list.

They know exactly the types of books and movies that I purchase on a regular basis. Why aren’t they emailing me with offers and deals on these types of products?

They know that I recently purchased a Kindle and they have an excellent idea of what books, newspapers, and accessories that people buy within the first couple months of owning a Kindle. Why aren’t they recommending these things to me?

Don’t they want my money?

Yesterday’s email

Here is a screenshot of yesterday:

One of the products they are advertising in the email is the $139 Kindle, which is the exact same Kindle but I purchased a few weeks ago!

I recognize that the purpose of the email is to suggest gifts for other people but I was still very surprised when I saw that they emailed me an advertisement for a product that I just purchased from them.

100 times more likely to buy

If they email me with products that I’m actually interested in I am 100 times more likely to buy the item right then and there.

Why aren’t they doing this?

Don’t they want my money?

Whether it’s SEO or Viral Marketing or your name, you can have Google send you an email whenever someone mentions it online.

Some of you may remember my debut Search Engine Land post which looked at the process for buying an iPhone 4 on various UK retailers. The article went down quite well so I’d like to repeat this process for another set of websites to see how they convert visitors into buyers.

This time I’ve chosen a few UK supermarkets that allow you to place orders online. This is an interesting topic given that Amazon recently moved into the grocery market and therefore started competing directly with established supermarkets.

Read: Case Study: Which Online Grocer Has The Best Conversion Process

Richard writes in with a question: “When can a person tell a blog is just about making money with affiliate sales vs. truly helping a person or business? Sometimes they sound really alike.”

This is a great question. Many bloggers–myself included–run promotions for both our own and other products on a regular basis. Some blogs are heavily promotional, with an affiliate link in nearly every post, whereas other bloggers make their money mostly through advertising and only rarely include affiliate links in their posts.

First, let’s look at things from a blogger’s perspective. Then, I’ll give you a few metrics to help you decide which marketers to follow online.

Read: Why Most Internet Marketers Fail

I HATE buying shoes.

It’s not just a mild dislike. It’s an actual hatred of buying shoes.

Why? Because stores never seem to have anything that fits.

Sure, now I’ve discovered online sites like Zappos to buy shoes from, but I’d still give any local store less than a 10% chance of having anything that fits well.

Read: Why One Size Fits All Is a LIE

Sometimes it can be difficult to come up with a good title for your blog post or article.

One of the things I’ve found useful help get the juices flowing is to look at examples of good titles.

Below is a list of titles I found some years back.

Great Headline Examples

1. “Here is an extra $50, Grace – I am making real money now!”
2. “I Gambled With 3 Cents And Won $35,850 In 2 Years”
3. “I Have Tried Em All, But This Is The Polish I Use On My Own”
4. A WARNING To Men Who Want To Be Independent In The Next Five Years
5. Announcing the new Ford cars for (year)
6. Are You Ashamed of Smells In Your Home?
7. Buy No Desk Until You Have Seen The Sensation Of The Business Show
8. Can You Spot These 10 Decorating Sins?
9. Can You Talk About Books With The Rest Of Them?
10. Car Insurance At Low Cost – If You Are A Careful Driver
11. Car Owners Save One Gallon of Gas Every Ten
12. Do you make these mistakes in English?
13. Don’t Read This (or the Kitty Gets It)!
14. Don’t Read This!
15. Double Your Money Back If This Is Not The Best Onion Soup You Ever Tasted
16. Five Familiar Skin Troubles – Which Do You Want To Overcome?
17. Free Book Tells You 12 Secrets Of Better Lawn Care
18. Free to brides – $2 to others
19. Free to high school teachers – $6 to others
20. Get Rid Of Money Worries For Good
21. Girls Want Quick Curls?
22. Give Me 5 Days and Ill Give You a Magnetic Personality Let Me Prove It Free
23. Great New Discovery Kills Kitchen Odours Quick – makes indoor air “country fresh”
24. Greatest Bible News In 341 Years
25. Hand Woven by the Mountain People of New Mexico
26. Have You These Symptoms of Nerve Exhaustion?
27. Here is a Quick Way to Break Up a Cold
28. How $20 Spent May Save You $2000
29. How $7 Started Me On The Road to $35,000 a Year
30. How a “fool stunt” made me a star salesman
31. How a Man of 40 Can Retire In 15 Years
32. How a strange accident saved me from baldness
33. How I Became Popular Overnight
34. How I Improved My Memory In One Evening
35. How I Made A Fortune With A “Fool” Idea
36. How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In Selling
37. How I Retired On a Guaranteed Income for Life
38. How I Started a New Life With $7
39. How Investors Can Save 70% On Commissions This Year
40. How The Next 90 Days Can Change Your Life
41. How To Beat Tension Without Pills
42. How To Collect From Social Security At Any Age
43. How To Do Your Christmas Shopping in 5 Minutes
44. How To Feel Fit At Any Age
45. How To Get Rid of an Inferiority Complex
46. How To Get Your Cooking Bragged About
47. How To Have A Cool, Quiet Bedroom Even On Hot Nights
48. How To Make Money Writing Short Paragraphs
49. How To Stop Worrying
50. How To Stretch Your Inflated Money
51. How To Win Friends and Influence People
52. How you Can Get a Loan of $500
53. I Lost That Ugly Bulge in 2 Minutes With This Reducing Belt
54. I Was Tired Of Living On Peanuts – so I started reading (publication)
55. If You are Filthy Rich Don’t Read This.
56. If You AreAa Careful Driver You Can Save Money On Car Insurance.
57. Imagine Me Holding an Audience Spellbound for 30 minutes.
58. It Cleans Your Breath While It Cleans Your
59. Lose Ugly Fat – an Average of 7 Pounds a Month.
60. Men who “know it all” are not invited to read this page
61. Money-saving Bargain from Americas Oldest Diamond Discount House
62. New A Cream Deodorant Which Safely Stops Perspiration
63. New House Paint Made By (manufacturer)
64. New Ways To A Mans Heart In This Fascinating New Book For Cooks
65. No Time For Yale – Took College Home By Reading The Harvard Classics
66. Now! Own Florida Land This Easy Way $20 Down and $20 a Month.
67. One Place-setting Free For Every Three You Buy.
68. Order Christmas Gifts Now – Pay After January 20.
69. Owners Save 20% to 50% On Fuel With The (name) Oil Furnace
70. Play Guitar in 7 Days or Money Back
71. Put this Down; It’s Not For You.
72. Quick Relief for Tired Eyes.
73. Readers Digest Tells Why Filtered Cigarette Smoke Is Better For Your Health
74. The Deaf Now Hear Wispers
75. The Lazy Mans Way To Riches – Most people are too busy earning a living to make any money
76. The Most Amazing Shakespeare Bargain Ever Offered
77. The Most Comfortable Shoes You Have Ever Worn Or Your Money Back
78. The Most Complete and Most Scholarly Dictionary in the English language $17.50 Publishers List Price: $90
79. The Secret of Making People Like You
80. The Tastiest Ocean Treat from Gloucester- Plump, Tender, Juicy Salt Mackerel Fillets
81. They grinned when the waiter spoke to me in French – but their laughter changed to amazement at my reply.
82. They laughed when I sat down at the piano – but when I started to play!
83. They Thought I Was Crazy To Ship LIVE MAINE LOBSTERS as far as 1,800 miles from the ocean.
84. Thousands Have This Priceless Gift – But Never Discover It
85. Thousands Now Play Who Never Thought They Could
86. To A $15,000 Man Who Would Like To Be Making $30,000
87. To A Man Who Is 35 And Dissatisfied
88. To A Mother Whose Child Is Three Years Old
89. To Men Who Want To Quit Work Some Day
90. To People Who Want To Write – But Can Not Get Started.
91. Tonight Serve This Ready-mixed Chocolate Pudding
92. Wanted – Your Services As A High-Paid Real Estate Specialist
93. Wanted: Safe Men For Dangerous Times
94. Ways To Beat The High Cost Of Living
95. Ways To Beat The Overweight Habit
96. What Makes A Woman Lovable?
97. Whats New In Summer Sandwiches?
98. Whats Wrong In This Picture?
99. When Doctors “Feel Rotten” This Is What They Do
100. Which Of These Five Skin Troubles Would You Like To End?
101. Who else wants a lighter cake – in half the mixing time?
102. Who else wants a screen star figure?
103. Who Else Wants A Whiter Wash – With No Hard Work?
104. Will Your Scalp Stand The “Fingernail Test?”
105. You Do Not Have To Be Rich To Retire On a Guaranteed Income For Life