Did you know you can use News Releases to get immediate 1ST PAGE (or worse case 2ND) page rank on Google & Yahoo with a carefully written, keyword rich News Release?  What do I mean by IMMEDIATE? I mean IMMEDIATE! As soon as you submit your release you can Google your keywords and your release will come up at or very the near the top.  Skeptical? I was too until I tried it. 

Before you read on try this: open a new browser window and Google Search the following term: "NotaryBids launches" or better yet let me do it for you: http://www.google.com/search?q=notarybids.com+launches You will see 109 results returned, all from one well written, keyword rich news release I submitted about 2 months ago. 

A business associate and friend of mine Norm Bour of the Radio Show "The Weekly Real Estate and Finance Show With Norm And Mike" ( http://www.normandmike.com ) realizes the importance of marketing "you". Meaning don't sell your product, market "you". One of the ways he has been successful at doing this is by regularing submitting News Releases (aka Press Releases).  His News Releases have had a dramatic effect on his success and notoriety and they have also been instrumental in helping him to be recognized as an "expert" in this industry. 

Up until about 60 days ago my marketing efforts did not include News Releases.  Boy what a mistake!

I spend a lot of time educating myself on SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Currently NotaryBids.com has the number 7 position on Yahoo for the search terms "mobile notary signing agent" out of 299,000 results.  That was obtained over time using carefully developed content, title tags, descriptions and lots of other tricks.  But I was BLOWN AWAY at how cheap and fast using a news release got me the traffic and exposure I wanted for NotaryBids.com.

Another example: Here is another recent example of a news release strategy I used for my sisters website www.WorshipToys.com She is a struggling single mom in NJ and works full time and then some to support her daughter. She recently became affiliated with a company called Blessed Toys (www.BlessedToys.com) They are a faith-based toy company that offers affiliate relationships to people that want to sell their toys.  The site they provide leaves much to be desired: http://www.blessedtoys.com/members/angels/ I set her up with her own website and explained to her that we need to do a News Release to kick start her marketing efforts.  We needed a way for 1) people that are looking for faith-based toys to find her site and 2) find a way to piggyback on the success and exposure her affiliate company BlessedToys.com is currently enjoying and 3) put her site above the many other BlessedToys.com affiliates. I decided the best thing to do is write a news release announcing the launch of her business and filling the title with keywords like "BlessedToys.com", "Faith-Based Toys", and of course her website title WorshipToys.com.  If you Google "BlessedToys.com" you can see her news release on the 2nd page at the very top. Initially when I submitted it we had first page #3 for about 2 weeks.

Wrap UP: A carefully written news release with a keyword rich title is a great way to enhance your internet advertising strategy.  The site I used was www.WebWire.com They offer a terrific service for just $19.00.  The next phase of my research and strategy will be submitting news releases on a regular basis, either weekly or bi-weekly as I have noticed that over time the news release losses it's relevance in the search results.

Like anything in life there is no guarantee this will work for you. Results will vary depending on your writing skills, keyword relevance and luck but I encourage you to give it a try.

If you would like a simple 10 step quide to writing and submitting a News Release I have written an eBook you can download here for just $19.00 http://www.NewsReleaseEbook.com 

- Chris

Do you get tons of email everyday like I do?  Most professionals do these days. Some of it is wanted email and some of it (lately a lot of it) is unwanted email from people we don't know pushing everything from Viagra, to the next great stock to other unmentionables... Microsoft Outlook offers a great way to automatically file your legitimate email in various folders based on who it's from or who it is to or the subject line or whatever the content is in the body including keywords you can choose. I am not talking about "Spam" management here. This is for email from friends, family associates, clients, whoever.

First off be sure you realize when I say Outlook I don't mean Outlook Express, the built in email program that comes with Windows and Internet Explorer. Microsoft Outlook is part of the "Office" suite of programs that are available for purchase from Microsoft like Excel and Word.

Outlook rules are basically quidelines you set up for your inbox.  The rules can do everything from file your email in specific folders automatically as they are received to color coding or playing a specific sound or even a special pop up message you can choose to notify you of important emails.

The most effective and common way I use rules is the filing in specific folders part so that my inbox stays managable.  (It's still pretty unmanaged but I do my best!) Say for example I want to make sure I don't miss emails from my sister.  I can create a folder called "Laura" and then set up a rule that tells Outlook to "move emails from Laura to the "Laura" folder automatically when they arrive".  Prettty cool huh?  Of course you have to make sure you have the "Folder List" showing. If you have Outlook you can do this by clicking the "View" menu and then select 'Folder List".  That way you can see that there is new email from Laura because Outlook will display the number of unread messages next to each folder.

How do you set up Outlook Rules?  I have 2 versions of Outlook on my various computers, Outlook 2002 (aka Office XP) and Outlook 2003. I can only speak intelligently about those versions. There are 2 ways to set up rules, the fastest and easiest way is to simply right click on an email and you will be given the option to create a rule relating to that email.  The dialog box that comes up is pretty straight forward and too lengthy to go in to here but I'm confident you'll figure it out. <wink>

The other way is from within Outlook to click on the "Tools" menu on the main menu bar at the top and select "Rules Wizard". This gets you a more comprehensive list of rules and options but can be a bit overwhelming.  I always say "Microsoft thought of everything you think you need, the trick is figuring out where it is and how to use it" ha ha...

Rules are also a great way to clean up your inbox. If you are like me you have had as many as 2000 emails sitting in your inbox. What a mess!  Outlook also offers the ability after you set up a rule to "Run It Now". You'll see this option after you set up the rule. By doing so Outlook will take all rules and apply them to your inbox. In seconds you will see your inbox immediately cleaned up and organized.  

BACK UP YOUR RULES! Finally, one important note about rules. You have the option to create a lot and some can be complicated so back them up!  I have had to recreate mine several times before I finally got wise and found a way to back them up.  When you have the rules wizard open click on the "Options" button. You will see an "Import" button and an "Export" button. Exporting is for saving and importing is for restoring them if you lost them or had to reinstall Outlook. 

So, those are the RULES for RULES sorta...don't forget you can always find plenty of help by selecting "Help" from the main menu in Outlook.

- Chris

I was reading some of Brad Andersohn's blog posts today, in particular his posts about Google and their various tools and features. (Great posts Brad, thanks so much for the info. I signed up and started using Google Alerts today)  There is another hidden gem in the Google arsenal I have been using on my site NotaryBids.com that I would like to share.  In fact before I wrote this post I used the search feature on this site to make sure there were no recent posts about it and low and behold, Active Rain uses it too.

Google custom search is a free tool non technical people can use to 1) add a quick and easy site search box to your website, blog  or any online content and 2) to actually build your very own search engine!  Although the site search is helpful I found there are endless possibilities Google gives us with this and the best part is it is free and it can be live on your website in about 15 mins! However, you must have a Google account to use it.

You are probably asking yourself, why would I want my own Search Engine? Well, I will tell you a little more about how Google Custom Search works and I think you may start seeing it could be a great traffic generator and marketing tool.

With Google Custom Search you control what sites get searched when someone uses your search engine. Using their easy to follow wizard you actually specify the URL(s) (website address) of the sites you want your search engine to search.  You can also specify if you want it to check the entire Internet as well or check your sites first then the Internet.  For example, I created a Notary Industry Search Engine called (you guessed it) NotarySearchEngine.com.  Currently if you follow that link it takes you to the search engine currently residing on my website but in the near future http://www.NotarySearchEngine.com/ will be a stand alone website and free tool for the Notary community. My vision is that NotarySearchEngine.com will be the place notaries and signing agents go when they want to quickly and easily find content on the web about their industry without getting hammered with ads and irrelavant content.

HOW CAN THIS HELP YOU? Lets say you set up a Real Estate listings search engine (and of course promote it at every opportunity). Who will use your search engine? Potential customers!  In addition, they will also see any content you want them to see around your search box.  Again the great thing is you pick and choose what sites they will see in the search results. It could be yours only or any number of other sites.  In addition, you might consider contacting other listing site owners and charging them a fee to be in your search engine...The sky is the limit!

ONE WAY TO USE AND PROMOTE YOUR SEARCH ENGINE: The actual html code you insert in your website, blog or other content to display your search box is very small and is completely self contained. Therefore you can offer the code to others to insert it in their websites as a way to drive traffic to their site which drives traffic to your site when they search. (I know that may seem complicated, feel free to contact me for clarification) Here is an example on NotaryBids.com: ADD OUR SEARCH ENGINE TO YOUR SITE 

THE DOWNSIDE: There are several downsides to consider before using this service:

1) Even if you use this as a way to search your own site Google's technology is not actually searching your site. It's searching THEIR INDEX of your site. In other words, your site search is only as good as how many pages Google has indexed on your site in the past. Try Googling your website address and you will see how many and which pages they have in their index first. If most of your site is not there a Google custom site search will not be valuable to your visitors because searches will not return any results. You can add your website pages to their index by going HERE but it takes a few weeks before your pages will show in searches.

2) There will be ads on the search results pages which may take your visitors off your site and in my humble opinion detracts from the professionalism of your site.  However, there is one way around this...Google offers a paid version of the Custom Search Engine called the "Business Edition". For about $100 a year your search results will not contain any ads and there are other benefits as well.

3) You may be making it easy for people to leave your site. Choose and plan your search engine carefully so that you are not sending your customers to someone elses site!

I would be interested in hearing about how others are already using Google Custom Search or plan to use it.