5. Online Communities
They call this Web 2.0 — a whole new cyberuniverse in which the readers provide the content. It began with blogs and has quickly progressed to a much bigger set of community sites, some with literally millions of members.
Myspace.com, for instance, attracts up to 65 million visitors, mostly under thirty, and so this has become a marketing must for rock band promoters, cosmetic vendors, and anyone who wants to reach today’s youth. A photo-sharing site, Flickr.com (recently sold to Yahoo.com), has up to a 2.5 million member community who simply share their snapshots with each other.
In the same vein is the venerable old-timer on the Web, Craig’s List, clocking in at more than 3 billion page views per month, and more than 10 million visitors. The community boards here can be a handy place to promote your free teleclass, or other group event. Classifieds are also useful though less likely to be free. An added perk: the list is divided up geographically so you can pick the cities most likely to respond to your offer.
Finally, don’t overlook an early version of this found on Amazon (
www.amazon.com). Here, as ever, you can leave insightful comments about books that are relevant to your field, speak to your market, and contain your URL in your sign-off.
6. PRLeads.com
This useful service gives you a heads up when journalists are actively looking for experts in your field to interview. The service provides several news feeds per day with articles covering all aspects of personal and professional life. Media participants can be as varied as
Diamond Dealer’s Weekly,
Good Housekeeping, or local TV news stations.
A monthly subscription fee includes personal training with a staff who takes you through the development of your pitch template, and helps guarantee a higher rate of success.
When I tested this service (roughly $100 per month), I landed a few articles in high-end newsletters, one on-line column, and a near miss with a major business publication who wanted to know more about my business. Well worth the money.
7. Articles That Get Used and Re-used
Once you start generating regular blog and e-zine content, the next step is to get them all over the Web. Simply post each article to your own article library on your web site, and let it get indexed there by the search engines. (Do this process with one article at a time.) Then, after a month or so, rework the article slightly by adding about 30 percent more content – even a short summary at the end will do the trick.
Next, submit the article to your own database of article content sites or article banks, or use an article submission service. (I like
www.submityourarticle.com.) These helpful web sites post your articles and allow anyone to use them – with your all-important bio attached.
In your bio, be sure to include your name, a line about how you serve your market, and a link to some helpful free content — either a free bonus, a podcast, or a blog that are relevant. Then sit back and watch the traffic roll in. This is how I’ve gotten more than 37,000 links on Google.com. HBM
Through her company, Get Known Now, Suzanne Falter-Barns helps package solo-professionals and home-based business owners to attract national media online. Learn more and get her free database of the Top 50 Names in Media & Publishing at
www.getknownnow.com/expertstatus.htmlPreviously published in the August 2006 issue of HOME BUSINESS® Magazine, an international publication for the growing and dynamic home-based market. Available on newsstands, in bookstores and chain stores, and via subscriptions ($15.00 for 1 year, six issues). Visit
www.homebusinessmag.com
