Here’s what business owners, in similar positions to you, are asking freelance writers to do:

• The writer is to draft an article related to the client’s business. (There’s nothing wrong with this part.)
• The writer is expected to include one or more links — generally “dofollow” links — to the client’s website. (This is sketchy depending on the circumstances, which we’ll get to below.)
• The writer is also expected to “place” this content on third party websites they already have established publishing relationships with. (This is a huge problem that can ruin a freelancer’s career, but it also puts your own reputation at risk.)

The Issue of Backlinks

I mentioned asking your freelance writers to include dofollow links in their articles can be a problem. Now, if those articles are on your own website, or going on your own social media profiles, there’s nothing wrong with this.

The problem is when you require them to publish that content elsewhere with your links (their website, their social media accounts, or third party sites they have separate relationships with).

This isn’t always bad. But for this to be ethical (and following FTC guidelines if you, the writer, or the site involved is based in the U.S.), those articles would need to:

• Feature clear and conspicuous disclosure of the writer’s paid relationship with you (“clear and conspicuous” means it can’t be stuck at the bottom of an article, in a sidebar, or anywhere else that wouldn’t make it clear as soon as a reader sees that link);
• Make the links “nofollow” if the writer’s being paid in any way for this content with links as a requirement (otherwise you risk being penalized by Google for buying dofollow links to manipulate your search engine rankings).
• The other website involved would need to be aware of the arrangement.

The Issue of Ethics

When I see these gigs advertised, the problems are two-fold:

• They always seem to want to sneak the links in (dofollow links with no disclosure).
• They don’t want the writer mentioning it to the sites they’re publishing on (these often include well-known sites like Forbes.com and HuffingtonPost.com).

There’s no way around this. If you do either of these things when you hire a freelance writer, it’s unethical. And any freelancer who would willingly do this for you is both unprofessional and putting your company at risk.

The Consequences

If you took part in one of these “freelance writing” link-building schemes, what could go wrong? Quite a lot.

• If Google finds out you’re paying for links to manipulate rankings, you could end up with SEO penalties that hurt the rankings you were trying to build in the first place.
• If you fail to disclose paid relationships for those links, recommendations, or reviews in articles, you could run up against the Federal Trade Commission for violating those FTC guidelines.
• If the site that got exploited in this scheme finds out, it could cause the freelance writer to lose their relationship with that company, and it could cause irreparable damage to your reputation and get you blacklisted from any legitimate coverage and links in those media outlets in the future.

Don’t think the last will happen? I can tell you for a fact these media outlets are not only aware of this scheme, but they’re actively looking out for suspicious placements.

I have colleagues who have been told as much by the large sites they write for. One was caught up doing this without realizing what was wrong and she lost a long-time gig. And another freelancer I know did other work for a client who was guilty of this (she wasn’t even involved in their link placement on the site). And it cost her that relationship simply for being professionally associated with a company engaging in these kinds of unethical practices.

It happens. And you will eventually get caught.

So please. Don’t do this. As a PR professional, it blows me away that people don’t see the obvious reputational risks involved. I would hate to see you get caught up having to clean up a mess you might not fully recover from. And as a freelance writer, I have professional standards of my own that would never allow me to take on a gig like this.

When it comes to your relationship with your freelance writer, it’s important to pay attention to their ethical lines — not just your own. If they make promises to place content somewhere, make sure they’re not willing to engage in a conflict of interest. If they’d screw over one client, why wouldn’t they do the same to you? After all, you wouldn’t want them getting paid to place links in content on your site for another client without your knowledge.

Looking for an ethical freelance business writer to assist with your blogging or content marketing? Between my business writing and public relations experience, I can help you come up with a plan to improve your visibility, backlinks, and reputation in ways that are both effective and ethical. Get in touch, and I’ll let you know how I can help.

The post Asking Your Freelance Writer to do This Could Damage Your Reputation appeared first on Pro Business Writer.

In addition to being hired to write releases, I’m often asked to give feedback on releases business owners tried to write for themselves. And I still see the same nauseating mistakes today that I saw 15 years ago.

Some of those mistakes are silly matters of oversight. Others come from business owners getting bad advice from marketers. (Tip: Never get PR advice from marketers.)

Fortunately these problems — whether based in laziness or ego — are fixable. So the next time you write a news release hoping for attention from the media, give your release a once-over. If you find these issues, clean that wreck up before you waste journalists’ time.

7 Press Release Problems That Make You Look Like an Amateur

Let’s look at seven problems I often see that lead to godawful press releases unworthy of media coverage. If you want your story out there, make sure these don’t describe your news release.

1. Your press release headline is so “cutesy” no one could possibly tell what your news is by looking at it.

Remember that headlines need to be descriptive… think catchy, not cutesy. And make sure people know the gist of your news just from the headline. Your job is to tell the reader what the release is about, not make you look clever.

2. You neglect to leave your full contact information.

Journalists don’t give a rat’s behind that you’re worried about spam. If you want significant news coverage, you’d better include an email address and phone number. If spam is that big of an issue (an excuse I’ve often heard from clients who want to leave this info out), then create an address or number reserved only for media contacts.

A journalist’s job isn’t to simply re-publish your press release. You want them writing their own story about you, and that can include additional research and interviews. Make yourself available.

3. You don’t tell us why your story is newsworthy until the end.

No journalist is going to read to the end of your release if you don’t hit them with the news up front in your lede (the first sentence or two of the press release body).

You need to get their attention early. Don’t start off telling background stories. Follow the “inverted pyramid” style — the most important information first (ideally answer “the 5 Ws” in your lede), then work down to your background info at the end.

4. Your news release resembles a novel.

Huge blocks of text and multiple-page press releases just aren’t practical for a busy journalist. It’s rare your press release needs to go beyond one page. Keep it short, to-the-point, and don’t get lost in the swamp of news releases journalists and bloggers can find themselves drowning in at any given time.

5. Any 6th grader could tell you were too lazy to proofread your press release.

If your release is littered with spelling and grammatical errors, don’t count on it being read. If you want someone to take the time to consider your story, respect them enough to take the time to proofread your release before distribution.

Not much of a writer or editor? Hire someone to write your releases for you or look over your copy with fresh eyes.

6. Your press release reads like a testimonial.

Despite what some business owners and marketers think, a press release is not an advertising or marketing tactic; it’s a media relations tool.

Journalists don’t give a damn about what your customers say, or how great you think you are. So don’t add customer testimonials or boastful quotes from yourself or your staff. If you have to say your product, service, or company is great or “the best” in some way, do it elsewhere if you need to satisfy your ego. But really, that’s not for you to say or decide. It’s like someone referring to themselves as a “guru” or some nonsense. It just makes you look like an ass.

If you want to run an advertisement where you can brag, buy advertising space.

7. You clearly think you deserve a front page story.

This ties into my last point. You might think you have the best thing since sliced bread. But so does the guy down the street with his own business or launch… and the guy across town… and the guy across the country… and all their brothers.

You might think you have a high quality, solid news angle that journalists should be fighting over to break. They might think your news is a total yawn. No amount of manufactured excitement will convince a journalist to agree.

Run your news angle by unbiased parties when possible. And if they’re not impressed, don’t dismiss them. Find out why, and fix it before you waste a journalist’s time. Getting giddy about “nothing” news doesn’t make it any more important in anyone else’s eyes. But the best way to fix this? Make sure your releases are written for (and sent to) the right people. A journalist with a consumer magazine might not give a damn about your new product, whereas industry-specialized writers might totally geek out about it alongside you.

It’s amazing what a solid news angle, a carefully written and edited release, and something as basic as contact info can do. Yet, you’d be surprised at how many press releases are distributed every day violating these and other press release writing sins. As someone who’s worked on both sides of this fence — both as a PR professional and someone who gets bombarded with shoddy press releases as a writer — I have one piece of advice for you:

Do better.

The post 7 Signs Your Press Release Sucks appeared first on Pro Business Writer.

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There’s one thing in particular that drives me crazy in working with webmasters on press release writing and distribution. Far too many honestly believe that “press releases” and “articles” are the same thing. I stumbled upon a job posting where someone was looking for a press release writer this evening. Here are a few of the ridiculous comments:

“Each month, the contracted freelancer will write 4 SEO PRESS RELEASES (must be genuine, not cut/paste work) and submit to 50 press release sites, I will need to see and approve the list as well as the articles before the submission begins. I must see 200 backlinks every month as a result of this.”

Problem: First, like I said, press releases aren’t articles. Also, you can’t judge the effectiveness of press releases by your number of backlinks (frankly, one or two backlinks from quality, relevant news sources or authority sites is more valuable in the long run than 200 crap backlinks from unrelated PR sites and scraper sites). And then there’s the “50 press release sites” thing. I’m sorry, but that’s just pathetically stupid, and shows the poster doesn’t know the first thing about effective press release distribution. So here’s a quick note to webmasters: learn what a tool is before you jump into using it just because everyone else is. Otherwise, you just waste your time, waste your money, and end up not achieving the results you’re hoping for, all while making yourself look like an idiot.

“Next month you can submit to the same article sites but will have to write new articles which I need to approve of first.”

Problem: This is something else I see far too often… people wanting to submit press releases to article directories. If you can’t see the problem with that, then, I’m really not sure what to tell you….

Let’s summarize: If you don’t know what a press release is for in the first place, you shouldn’t be using them until you learn. That’s why the Web is so littered with crap “news,” and why social media press releases won’t come close to solving the underlying press release problem. Don’t hire article writers to write your press releases. Don’t submit press releases to article directories. Don’t submit press releases to hoards of press release distribution sites unless you have lots of time to kill for absolutely nothing. Just don’t….

I really don’t understand why so many people these days (probably because anyone and their brother can start a business online without batting an eyelash) can’t be bothered to learn the basics of business. No one wants to deal with business planning. No one wants to deal with marketing plans. They want everything handed to them on a silver platter, and they want to pay next to nothing, all while expecting the world in return. It just doesn’t work that way… you can’t just jump into tactics that you’ve heard have worked for others. Every market and audience is different. The press release issue is really just a tiny part of a much bigger problem… people are idiots. I’ve hit on a pet peeve today; can you tell?

The post What Press Releases Aren’t appeared first on Pro Business Writer.

Some Traditional Link-Building Methods:

• Submitting links to Web directories
• Social media outlets (social bookmarking, social content sites, social networking sites, etc.)
• Sig links in forum posting
• Submitting articles with their URL to article directories
• Submitting press releases with a live URL to press release distribution sites
• Link exchanges
• Buying text or banner links on other sites

Traditional backlink-generating methods do have benefits:

• They’re quick.
• They’re often easy to get.
• You can often hand-pick your backlink locations to a degree.

Those methods also have their downsides:

• They can get expensive if you need to build a large quantity of links.
• Many times the links require a reciprocal link, so they’re not one-way.
• The links are very often found on irrelevant sites to your site’s content.
• The links aren’t always permanent.
• It can be difficult getting links on authority websites using those methods.
• Many of those links don’t drive much direct traffic.
• The value of the links (often low for the reasons I’ve stated) isn’t always worth the time and/or money you sink in to get them in an SEO sense.

So even though you can see some of my problems with traditional link-building methods, where does PR come in, and how can it get better results?

First of all let me say: I’m not an SEO expert. But I’ve definitely picked up on a pretty basic concept: The most valuable links (especially in terms of influencing the Google Pagerank of your site) are one-way, relevant links coming from highly ranked authority websites. With that as our premise, here’s how public relations can help you reach those goals, and some of the benefits of using PR:

• PR is cheap if you learn how to do it yourself.
• Even if you hire a PR professional (a good idea if you have serious media aspirations), they often pay for themselves pretty quickly. The exposure from one or two good media pickups can lead to more traffic and natural backlinks than just about any traditional link-building method.
• PR efforts allow you to reach a wider audience, and actually increase your visibility, as opposed to simply stuffing a directory people rarely use for browsing with your links.
• PR efforts help to position you (as the company or site owner) as an authority figure and go-to source for background information in your niche – build your media contacts, and put out good opinions and news, and after a while, journalists will come directly to you for information and opinions on related stories.

So how can you specifically get one-way, relevant, permanent backlinks to your website using PR? Here are some specific tools, and how they can work for you in your link-building efforts:

• Press Releases – I’m not talking about writing a lousy article stuffed with keywords, throwing it into a press release template, and paying to have it submitted to a distribution site like PRweb. That’s traditional link-building, and can’t compare to real media relations. Instead, write a quality press release with a real news angle with broad enough appeal to spark interest in a story. Then choose a few (specifically online) niche media outlets. Find the appropriate editor or beat writer related to your particular news angle. Pitch the story to them (all of that is free, assuming you do it yourself, or you can pay someone to write a press release for you). One or two decent pickups will get you authority links off the bat. On top of that, when a large outlet picks up your story, it usually has a trickle-down effect over smaller niche sites (more permanent, relevant backlinks), and then to niche blogs (still more permanent, relevant backlinks).
• Pitch Letters – Similarly to a press release, a pitch letter is asking a journalist to cover your story. In this case however, you’ll often ask them to cover a specific product or feature. You might also offer to send them a review copy, free access to a download for review, etc. The piece would then be product- or review-oriented rather than news-based.
• Features – A feature is an article written and distributed to the media, with the intention of it being published as-is (as opposed to press releases, which are supposed to be inspiration for a larger story). The story would be more general (and perhaps evergreen or seasonal in nature), and be about something much broader than you, your site, or what you’re trying to promote. Your name, company/site, and URL would be worked in through something like a relevant quote from you, which cites you as the source, and mentions your company/site as a credential – you should use the same tactic often in press release writing.
• Op-Eds – Op-ed stands for “opposite editorial.” It’s an opinion piece submitted to a paper or website that you hope will be printed. Again, the piece shouldn’t be specifically about your site, service, product, or company, but rather a related issue, and you would include your name, title, and company information with the piece when you submit it. You shouldn’t be mass-submitting op-ed pieces. Choose a highly-targeted outlet, where you’d like to see your URL mentioned. If they reject it, you can always pitch it somewhere else. If it’s a well-read site in your niche, chances are that it will be mentioned elsewhere, such as in industry-related blogs.

One of the biggest uses of public relations is raising awareness. It’s been in use far longer than traditional link-building methods, and the methods are tried and true. The trick is knowing how to adapt them to the online world to get live links in authority publications, and to raise awareness of your site so it generates its own natural backlinks more easily. It might not happen as quickly as something like directory submissions or buying links, but the effects can be long-lasting, lead to a greater amount of natural incoming links, and can give you added exposure and name recognition in the process.

The post PR vs Traditional Link Building appeared first on Pro Business Writer.

There are three keys to a successful press release:

1. A quality news angle (never send a press release if you don’t have real news)
2. A well-written release (following proper formatting, writing styles, etc.)
3. A tailored press release distribution plan (there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to distribution)

This guide will walk you though the components of a press release and offer several press release writing tips you can use when learning how to write a press release for your business.

Press Release Components

• Release time – The top of a press release should either have “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE” or an embargo date listed (EMBARGOED UNTIL DATE) if the news isn’t to be published immediately.
• Headline – The headline is like the title of your press release. It should grab the reader’s attention, make them want to click or read more, and still manage to introduce the news angle itself.
• Summary – Press release summaries are popular in online press release distribution. This should be a two to four sentence summary of the news, expanding on the headline but not as detailed as the press release body. When using offline press release distribution methods, this can be substituted with a one-line sub-heading.
• Dateline – The dateline of a press release comes directly before (but on the same line as) the opening body paragraph. It will include the hometown of the company issuing the news release as well as the release date.
• Press Release Body – The first body paragraph of a press release should briefly answer the questions of who?, what?, when?, where?, and why?. Following paragraphs will include supporting details and often a quote from a representative of the company.
• Boilerplate – A press release boilerplate is a short backgrounder on the issuing company, person, or organization, generally no longer than one paragraph.
• Call to Action – The call to action invites the reader to get in touch with you for any additional details they may need in writing a story.
• Contact Information – At a bare minimum include a media contact name, phone number, and email address. It never hurts to include a mailing address, cell, or fax number as well.
• Closing – All news releases should contain a closing mark (often ### or -30-), which signifies to the reader that there’s nothing more to come. If a release goes to a second page, the first page should be marked with something like -more- to make it clear that another page will follow. You can list any addenda (such as photos) just before the closing.

Proofread your press release carefully before distributing it to journalists or posting it to a press release distribution site. If you’re still not confident enough to write your own news release given these tips and template, hire a press release writer or PR firm to write your release for you.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• Try to keep a press release to one page whenever possible. People don’t generally have a long attention span when reading them.
• Only send a press release when you have press release ideas with real news to distribute. Littering the Web or hounding journalists with too many “fluff” releases can damage your chances of coverage in the future.
• Write using the journalistic inverted pyramid style (with the most important information coming first, and working down to less vital, supplemental details).
• A release in the 300 – 400 word range is often adequate. If your press release is longer than that, see if you can cut something without losing effect before deciding to keep the longer copy.
• Don’t forget to add complete contact information!
• Publish your press release to your company website. This creates an archive of your news for journalists to later refer to, and makes your press releases more directly accessible to your customers, clients, or visitors.
• Publish your press release to an online press release distribution service that will get it listed in news engines such as Google News or Yahoo! News. This makes your press release available via search. Paid services such as PRWeb can do this. Some free services, like PR.com, can get a press release listed in Google News as well, although you generally have to pay to include live links.
• Write using short paragraphs and sentences.
• Avoid testimonials or other promotional language. A press release is news; not advertising.

The post How to Write a Press Release appeared first on Pro Business Writer.

1. Using the business blog to present company news, or the owner’s (or other high level executive’s) take on industry news issues.

2. Using the business blog as a way to educate the public, and more importantly your target market, about your products, services, etc.

3. Using the business blog as a tool to offer free industry information or articles, as a means of then driving Web traffic to other areas of your business site.

By creating a business blog for any of those reasons, you also have a free or inexpensive, yet powerful, PR tool. There are a variety of public relations benefits to business blogging, such as:

1. The ability to disseminate news.

2. The ability to quickly and directly gather feedback from your target audience.

3. The ability to build a company or personal reputation as an authority source in an industry or niche.

In order to best take advantage of the PR benefits of blogging (sometimes referred to as the marketing benefits of blogging), it’s important to keep the blog honest and ethical by industry standards. As much as blogging can be a PR benefit, it can also lead to negative publicity just as easily (such as if you were to release false information or just hype about a new product release), so always keep your business motives in mind when deciding to launch a business or corporate blog, and when deciding whether to blog yourself or hire a ghost writer as your business blogger.

The post The PR Value of Business Blogging appeared first on Pro Business Writer.