Welcome to the Online Publicity Journal! Online publicity comes in many different shapes and colors. One thing you must remember is that it is very important to actively perform online publicity and PR to spread the word not only on your services or products but to also build your brand online. This blog is designed to help website owners start to venture online and proactively promote themselves through all means possible.

Below are some of the various sections on our blog that should help you with your online publicity and PR journey:

Attracting Media Attention – If one of your goals is to get the attention of various media outlets than you will want to read up on this section of our blog.

Creating a Buzz – Whenever you start performing online publicity strategies your goal should always to create some sort of buzz. Sure the links from doing press releases are important but if you can get people talking also that is even better.

Online Publicity – Online publicity comes in many different shapes and colors so it is important to try various forms. This section has been built so that you can see all the various types of online publicity efforts that are out there.

Press Release Distribution – PR and press release distribution will become a very important area for your publicity. Depending on where you distribute your online publicity it will end up through different channels.

Press Release Management – When you start getting serious with your online PR you will want to manage and create a schedule for yourself so you can keep track of everything that goes out.

Press Release SEO – When you start writing your PR you will want to use SEO friendly techniques. Learn various techniques to maximize your PR efforts.

Press Release Writing – There are many different styles and approaches to writing PR. We have designed this category so that you could understand all the various approaches to writing PR.

Public Relations Books – At some point in time you might want to educate yourself on various public relations and publicity related books that exist.

Reputation Management – Online publicity can also be used to strengthen a businesses or a specific person’s online reputation through PR.

To answer your question SEO and online publicity are both very important. You have to assume that SEO is important in almost everything you do online. Search engines are not artificial intelligence so whenever you do anything online that requires the use of text and sometimes images it is always important to apply some SEO efforts.

You have to assume that in the event that your online publicity campaign does not get picked up a handful of other syndication sites it will be visible in search results. This does not mean to you have to spam the search engines with a keyword stuffed press release. the approach with search engine optimization and PR should always be tasteful. I will repeat that again, always be tasteful. This goes with everything you do online. There is already a tremendous amount of clutter online getting in the way of the good information and web pages, don’t add to that clutter. An approach that tends to work great is pick three to four keywords or phrases and use them sparingly in your press release. make sure to apply at least one in your title and also a few in the first paragraph. the first paragraph is very important because many places online will publish the first paragraph or show a snippet online so it is important to have a very compelling written first paragraph with the existence of keywords. If you put together a very nice title utilizing a keyword or two you drastically increase the chances of traffic stumbling into your online publicity. Any time writing is envolved SEO efforts should be utilized to the best of your ability. The name of the game is creating as many pathways to your website as possible to increase visitors. This is just one additional way you can do that.

Have you found yourself in a predicament where your online reputation has been torn apart a bit? Are you loosing business because someone got mad and post something negative on your business and now it appears for everyone to see? If you have been proactively marketing your business online you might have enough of a barrier to keep the bad press back but if you haven’t you will have to actively put together a press release and online publicity campaign to fight the bad press.

Before you decide to do this try planning things out. A well thought out strategy will allow you to have much more of an impact with your press release campaign. You will want to put a very aggressive online publicity campaign together launching multiple releases through various distribution sites each month for at least 12 months. The goal of all this is to move the negative press. You will most likely never remove it entirely unless you get the website owner to actually remove the link from their server so you can only pump out so much new information that you actually move the negative press. You will always want to target your company name in the title and the body of the release as much as possible to get the releases to rank for your business name. the goal of this campaign is for all the releases to appear when someone searches for your business name.

Many times we run into these situations where people seriously over think their online PR. First you have to ask your what is your goal for your online PR. Some companies are trying to write so that editors of magazines or newspapers can see what they are doing or possibly just other bloggers to pick up the information and write about it for their audience. Some companies write just for link building purposes.

If you are an online marketeer and you have realized that link building is a very important aspect of your search engine marketing campaign than writing press releases and distributing don’t really require a great deal of thought, they just don’t need it. Sure you want them to be written well and inviting for other to pick up but if you take a campaigned approach you might eventually run out of things to announce. Chances are if you are doing this just for link building there is a good chance that not too many people will even read it. Don’t over think it to the point where you start to stress yourself out and nothing gets done. If your goal is to put out a press release once every months really announcing something new going on your business than yes it should be structured and approached a little differently. There are many different ways to approach online press release campaigns. Once your business starts to really get involved with them and has some experience in this area you will find a way to structure them to your business as well.

So you have realized that online publicity is an important part of growing a buzz about either yourself or your business. Online publicity is what gets other bloggers and websites announcing anything new that might be occurring at your business. Creating a buzz comes in many different forms. Once you launch your PR you might want to give it an extra little push to get it moving around just in case no one picks it up.

Here are a few things you can do with it:

1. Social Bookmarking: Sites like Mixx and Digg are great for giving your release a bit of an extra push. Often times you will see the links for where your release might be hanging out in search engine results that have been submitted through the various social bookmarking websites.

2. Blogger Outreach: Put together a list of blogs that you frequently read or comment on and ask blog owners if they would pick up your PR and use it for their site as blog posts. Many bloggers won’t respond but it only takes a few to say yes and you just developed a few more links plus great exposure.

3. Local News Sites: Your local newspapers and publications are many times starving for new information and publicity. Some of your bigger news publications usually have an online submission section for PR or just news topics. It only takes a few moments to submit your press release. It doesn’t hurt to try.

When you think of online publicity you automatically think of a launching a press release campaign or announcing something happening at your business or for yourself. Online publicity can mean many different things to different people or businesses. The act of proactively announcing certain items of choice does not have to only come through a press release.

Just launching website for yourself could be a form of online publicity. Gaining exposure does not have just one path. Writing an article on your industry and positioning yourself as an expert is also a form of proactive online publicity. If you own a local business getting to know the online writers that write for your local magazines and newspapers. At best reach out to them and stay on their radar. This way you can increase your chances of someday having a story written on either yourself or your business. Anything you can create and put out online will help with your online publicity attempts. The various other components coupled with an online PR campaign will create great news surrounding your business and also yourself.

Yes tough times are for many businesses large and small and with a reduction of costs necessary for many businesses some areas will still require a skilled person. The last thing you want to happen is put out work for the world to see that doesn’t exactly carry your messaging or image in a positive fashion withing your publicity. Writing is what spreads your companies message so it is important to get a skilled writer, even if you have to outsource.

One thing you have to always remember is that your online publicity is your branding and what will ultimately carry your business through the internet. Your press release could very well get picked up by many other blogs and publicity syndication sites where a great deal of your audience could be reading. If a potential customer or client reads a press release about your business and it looks like a child wrote it even worse, you might have outsourced it overseas and it clearly shows that it was poorly written you could have a reputation management issue on your hands. When it comes to messaging for your business you never want to cut corners and save costs. Good quality written copy goes a long way and could lead to many new clients and visitors to your website. Find other areas of your business to perform budget cuts.

When you finally decide to start launching an online publicity and pr campaign for your business you might find that there is a great deal of topics you can announce and write about. Scheduling out what you want to write about and when and where you want to distribute it will be very important.

Each time you write a press release you don’t want to be scrambling around trying to remember where you submitted your online publicity last time and what topics you have already announced. Try scheduling out everything either 6 or 12 months out so that you know exactly what is happening each and every month. One thing you never want to do is duplicate an announcement from a few months back. This could cause a reputation management issue if someone notices it and decides to call your business out on the duplication. Press releases should always be written with some keywords placed naturally in the text to get them really moving around in the search engines for others to read.

This type of scheduling doesn’t just apply to your online publicity schedule but just about everything you do with your online marketing. A serious online marketing approach requires many different directions and efforts all working at the same time. keeping everything on the same schedule will be important to keep your sanity.

Online publicity can mean different things to different people but most principals will stay the same and apply to all growing businesses. Writing and distributing some press releases online is not difficult and most business minded people can get the job done easily. But why stop there? Take that press release and run with and give it the extra mileage it deserves. if you truly have something news worthy to talk about don’t stop just at the distribution.

If you are serious about your online business you will want to light a match under the press release to let run through your industry a bit more than just the distribution channels of whom ever you use to distribute your PR. if you do not have a list of all your industry blogs and writers you should start making one. When you have some newsworthy to announce reach out to all the bloggers in your industry and send them your press release. Sure you will not get all or even half of them who want to talk about you and your business but the likelihood of getting one is high. That one blog post could very easily take a good run through industry. The links that the blogger will most likely include in the post should generate some nice power.

Also, if you take your post and tag it through the social bookmarking sites you can very easily gain some ground this way. Once you have posted your release in any of the social bookmarking sites most of them have a share me button. Use this to your advantage and share the release on any of your social profiles that might be listed with the share this button. If you take this approach regularly this will be a great way for yourself and your business to gain some traction in your industry.

Online publicity is an area of marketing that every customer should be in. When ever doing anything online to further marketing your business or yourself some search engine optimization techniques should be implemented so that website traffic can find what you are doing.

SEO is something that many people still don’t understand but the reality is that it does work. It works great for online press releases also. If you are a business or a business owner who is looking to market themselves online knowing your industry keywords is imperative to the success of your online marketing campaign. using keywords and phrases relevant to what you do or offer will only allow others to find you that much easier. This approach must be done tastefully so that you readers recognize you as a legitimate business and not someone just trying to scam the system to be visible. You press release should always be newsworthy with elements of SEO applied for increased visibility.

SEO is not amyth or an urban legend. it is a technique that has been proven to clean up search results and user experience when done right and not abused. SEO techniques also apply to launch PR and any writing including articles also. The important thing to always remember when launching your online publicity is to not abuse

When first approaching online marketing for a business you must make sure you have your defense shields on so that your online reputation does not get tarnished in the search engines. There are many ways things can bad for your name online. Everything from disgruntled ex-employees to angry clients can easily bad mouth your name or company online cause serious paralysis for incoming revenue stream. StepRep is an a new tool that helps you monitor your online reputation very quickly.

StepRep works by logging into your Google account and monitoring chatter real time. This means that even the social networks will be monitored to make sure that nobody is bad mouthing you in any way. Often times if not caught immediately it can be very difficult to clean up later on down the road. If someone on Twitter decides they want to start complaining StepRep will pick it up. StepRep also allows to fight back right from the dashboard of your account. The Internet has made it very easy for people to complain about other people or businesses. Websites like Rip Off Report make it very easy for someone to tarnish another companies image. When someone does it is important to catch this right away and do what ever it takes to clean it up. More and more shoppers search for companies online before they do any business or make a purchase so it is important for your search results to look clean as possible.

Online press release marketing and distribution is a vital component of any online marketing campaign. It must how ever be approached strategically. Your online PR is important for many reasons. You need to spread the word online about your products and services and you need to build some one way links pointing at your website. Is launching a press release every month too much? It all depends on whether you are doing this for link building reasons or if you actually have something of value to announce to the community.

If you are launching products every month that are valuable for people to know i would say know but remember that if you do anything in excess it will eventually dilute it’s effectiveness. It could also be one of those boy cried wolf situations where when you do have a product that is very important to be visible it might be difficult for it to stand out from the rest of the online publicity you have already done. It is always important to blend in other online marketing initiatives into the picture so you do not exhaust one approach. So ask yourself what your goal of your PR is first. IF you are looking to execute online PR to build up your one way links I would say that publishing every month might be too much.

A proper online marketing approach would be to incorporate many different items to hit different demographics of people. This effort will maximize the power of your online PR as well. Even if online PR works amazing for your business it is important to introduce other forms of online marketing into your approach so the search engines can see that you are trying to actively brand your business.

These days launching a new business in today’s economy can be very difficult. If you have a small or new business online publicity could be a great way for a relatively low cost to help you get the word out on your business. These days continuing your off line marketing in newspapers and magazines can be quite difficult. You can’t just stop your marketing because that could be death for you business, so what do you do?

Online publicity can help you spread the word on a new product or service while help you gain exposure in the search engines. You can also get creative by doing some research on your industries keywords and incorporating them tastefully into your press release and also your press release title. If you sell products locally chances are you have keywords that people use to find your products or services. It will be important to use these keywords in your press release as this could easily drive in highly qualified visitors to your website. Online PR can be done relatively inexpensive. There are some free distribution services available and some very inexpensive services if you want to spruce up your press release with photos and links.

Online PR travels quickly. Often times you can get your press release ranking for keywords before your website just from publishing it live. If you are feeling the pain of the economy taking the free distribution is perfectly. Many times you can get very similar results to a higher paid distribution cost.

With everything occurring in the economy these days many companies and businesses are not sure what to do with anything anymore. Some are forced to layoff thousands of employees usually taking some marketing people with the downturn. Restructuring is here and finding people within the walls of your organization to continue bringing new business in will be very important. If you have had to do cut costs and let your outsourced online marketing firm go don’t let your online publicity take the brunt of the recession. Here are some tips to help you make it through the recession without having to become invisible to your audience.

1. Free Press Release Services: Find someone on your team now that has some writing talent. If you have a blog for your company maybe who ever has taken turn writing in the blog can help you write some press releases and distribute them through any of the various free PR distribution websites. Some even allow you to include direct links to your website right in the release.

2. Social Networking: Almost all social networking websites are free to use they just require some time and effort. Finding someone at your company now that might not be as busy as they once where and have them work those social networking sites. Getting on Twitter and Facebook and really spreading the word on your organization is not rocket science. You just have to have someone that is willing to do it.

3. Write Articles: Having one of your writers put together some industry related articles and distributing them through free article distribution websites is another low cost alternative to not only produce website traffic.

There are many low cost options for online marketing if you take the time to explore them and learn how to implement them in your business or organization.

The internet has allowed people who have normally been quiet to now have a voice, and sometimes a loud one. That voice can lead to negative online publicity that can easily cripple your business model and stop or slow down revenues coming like a wrench thrown into the gears. One online complaint can send ripples very quickly through your business model.

Whistle blowing websites are everywhere and frustrated clients and customers are waiting for a reason to shout and make noise if things go sour with their experience. If you haven’t’ done any proactive online marketing and online publicity and your reputation has not been tarnished yet than that is great. But all it takes one angry customer to ruin that good luck streak and you just never know when it could occur. Many times it will be from an angry customer you have never even heard from who just didn’t even bother contacting you first to try to fix the problem. If you take a proactive approach right from the beginning you can allow yourself to build up an online publicity barrier and wall against new, fresh new negative publicity coming in. It is much easier to build a barrier for you business of positive information before negative press finds it way to your search results. With consumer confidence down and online customers becoming more and more savvy each day more and more online shoppers want to see a squeaky clean online image. If they see any angry clients or customers it could easily trigger them to purchase or do business with a competitor. Online publicity is a very quick and easy way to start building a clean online reputation. As others pick up your releases you will effectively add more content to your search results. As these links sit and age they become anchored into the search results making it much more difficult for any Rip Off Report and Pissed Consumer listings to make their way to your search results generated by someone search for your personal or business name.