I simply love this article, Getting into Google and Yahoo News, by Kim Roach of SEO-News. She offers so many useful tips about how to effectively write and post a press release so that it brings customers to your site.

One of her tips is about how to identify keywords to use in your press release. She recommends this great tool - Free Keyword Suggestion Tool - to help you identify words you can use to pump up the keywords in your press release. Check it out!

Another point I'd like to make is that so many people are touting that posting press releases on free newswires work. Roach contends that there are only a handful of newswire services that truly matter when it comes to getting your press release on Google and Yahoo News: PRWeb, PR Newswire, Business Wire and Internet.com.

http://www.prweb.com
http://www.businesswire.com
http://www.internet.com
http://www.prnewswire.com

And you may be wondering what's so great about ranking on Google News or Yahoo News? Roach says this:

"News web sites like Yahoo News, Google News and MSNBC Searchbot receive millions of visitors every day. If fact, Yahoo News ranks ahead of MSNBC.com and even CNN.com, while Google News ranks ahead of USAToday.com and the NYTimes.com."

I find these facts pretty convincing.

Thank you Paul Krupin of Direct Contact PR for this awesome publicity planner, spelling out all the normal calendar holidays and usual events too. This will really help journalists, bloggers, small business owners and PR seekers plan their stories, blog posts and pitches for the year.
Plan
Check out his publicity planner for yourself!

I just came across this article from MediaPost titled, "10 Things Changing Marketing in 2010." An interesting read indeed.

We all know the marketing world - PR and advertising and everything in between - is constantly and rapidly changing, so it's a must to stay on top of what's new and, even more important, what's next.

This blog post was written by advertising blogger Joe Marchese - definitely worth a read!

Many of us wonder if our social media efforts are worth all the buzz. I mean, after all, social media efforts are oh so time-consuming - we want to know if we're getting ROI on our investment of time.

A friend of mine included this great video (see below) in her monthly newsletter and I wanted to share the video with my readers too. I found it very powerful in helping companies visually see just how powerful social media can be.

One item I found interesting from this video is that a company called Naked Pizza admitted that 68% of its sales and 85% of its new customers were coming from Twitter. That speaks volumes to me. I, too, have seen the value of Twitter first-hand in making business relationship and have been lucky to meet some really cool new clients through the medium. On top of that, one of my clients recently told me her sales go down on week's she Tweets less too... she is able to see the impact social media plays in her business based on how much or little she Tweets. Interesting....

Attention small businesses. It’s time to enter your company for Winning Workplaces and Inc. Magazine’s, “Top Small Company Workplaces 2010" award.

Judges are looking for organizations that:

• Have outstanding cultures
• Build great work environments
• Deliver excellent business results
• Invest in the success of their people
• Are committed to the success of their business

For more information on the awards and entry criteria, click here to read their FAQ section.