Networking – Quality vs Quantity
How many networking events do you attend when you feel like a guppie in a shark tank? Everyone’s coming at you, thrusting their card at you, making a few seconds of meaningless small talk and then moving on to their next “victim”?
Did you arrive home or back at your office and look at the pile of cards and think who are these people? Wonder what you learned about them and their business and even worse, will they remember you or know what you do?
Try this at your next networking event. Don’t hand out your card to all and sundry. Only give out your card if asked for a card and maybe only after people have spent some time having a genuine converation with you.
I honestly feel if I’ve made one or two good connections at a networking event, I’ve had a great event!
The Benefits of Search Engine Optimized News Releases
The SEO Benefits of Press Releases
Author:
Lee Jenkins
Copyright (c) 2008 Lee Jenkins
Search engine optimized press releases are still relatively new in the field of SEO (during some research I found an article from 2004 claiming they were the new ‘secret back door to top search engine ranking’), but they are incredibly beneficial to an SEO campaign.
But why?
Some of the most frequently asked questions I get from clients are ‘Why does my company need to do press releases? How will press releases benefit my SEO campaign?’
Part of the answer is in the anatomy of an optimized press release. A properly optimized press release will include your top keywords as well as links to your website.
Backlinks:
Once the optimized press release is distributed, it gets picked up on various sites and channels including news search engines such as Google news and Yahoo! news. Every time another website picks up the press release, it reproduces the release along with all of your keywords and links. This has the effect of generating widespread backlinks (links back to your site).
These backlinks are one of the factors Google uses for determining a website\’s search engine ranking. Google looks at how many backlinks you have, and where they\’re coming from, so add in the fact that most of the backlinks are coming from news websites which have very high page ranks, and you have a good amount of quality backlinks that will increase the page rank and link popularity of your website.
Increased Keyword Rankings and Visibility:
News stories on the web are considered more time sensitive than regular web pages, so when your press release is distributed, it will be linked very quickly, giving you early visibility in news sites, news searches and standard search engines. Many news web sites also archive stories which can help to deliver long term link value, rankings and visibility.
In addition, online news search queries are generally much more targeted than standard web searches. In other words, people searching for news related to your industry are more likely to search for the terms that are used in your press release, which gives you a better chance at increasing the ranking of your website for popular and competitive search terms.
Credibility and Increased Traffic:
Last but not least, well written content will always add credibility to your website. The more information you show that you know, the more trustworthy you become. When your press releases start appearing in Google news and Yahoo! news for your keywords, potential customers searching for your product or business will see that you are a credible source of information in your industry and that you can be trusted. Those with Google alerts for your keywords will automatically receive your press release in their inbox, which will generate interest and relevant traffic to your site as well.
Bottom Line:
So bottom line, ‘Why does my company need to do press releases?’ Because search engine optimized press releases are one of the quickest and easiest ways to start generating more backlinks, visibility and traffic for your website, and are a beneficial addition to any SEO campaign, no matter what your industry.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/the-seo-benefits-of-press-releases-455124.html
About the Author
Getting your target audience to find you is becoming more challenging, which is why adding Press Releases to your online marketing arsenal is of key importance. Learn more about SEO Optimized Press Releases as well as other topics by visiting our blog!
The 12 Days of Christmas
You could be singing this song this time next year, if you partner with Prime Admin Solutions
On the first day of Christmas, my VA did for me
gave me more time for my family
On the second day of Christmas, my VA did for me
formatted my report
and gave me more time for my family
Where can you more productively spend your time?
You’ve consulted with your clients, done the workshop and now you’re:
- sitting at your computer in the evening compiling evaluations, typing wall charts, preparing reports and managing the output from the workshop
- or worse, you’re doing this during business hours when you could be doing more financially beneficial work
A client has signed the contract for you to do a three-day workshop. You have put together the material for the workshop and just like the example above, you’re formatting the prework, slides, etc. in the evening or during the business day.
Doing your own admin work either in the evening or during the day has a cost to you and your business. In the evening you are missing out on quality family or relaxation time and during the day you could be doing more lucrative work that you are an expert at.
Why not outsource your admin to Prime Admin Solutions. As a consultant you can build that into your client billing. The big companies, Mercer, AON, PWC, etc. all do it. As an independent consultant you can too!
Contact Prime Admin Solutions today to learn more about how you can increase your business, save money and have an excellent work-life balance.
Take a look at the two pictures below. Which scene would you rather see yourself in?
Prime Admin Solutions can take are of things so that you can be in the second picture while your word processing is taken care of.
Happy Father’s Day – How often do you see your kids?
A 2010 survey by Career Builder on work life balance for working fathers who are the sole breadwinners in their family reported that “close to four- in-ten (37 percent) of working dads said they spend two hours or less with their children each work day. More than three-in-ten (35 percent) reported they missed two or more significant events in their child’s life due to work in the last year”. Continue reading
A stolen laptop, potential loss of priceless memories
A laptop was stolen this week from a hospital. Luckily it was found and the person who stole it charged (http://www.newstalk1010.com/news/565/1132306).
This drove home the importance of backing up. Whether you back up your files to an external hard drive at your home or use an off-site service like Carbonite, please back up your files. A computer can be replaced, your family photos can’t.
Just a thought.
Why it makes sense to hire a professional
Some business people think it’s cheaper to hire a high school student to come into their office and do their email campaigns and other admin tasks. I’d like to present one example of why it sometimes can be a false economy.
I had a call this week from a lady who owns a little store who was totally panicked. She had hired high school students to do office work for her while she was out front selling. She trusted them to do their jobs and found out that her mail campaigns hadn’t been going out, that when they were sending messages, they were taking a very long time to send them out.
After a short conversation I was able to calm her down and offer her a solution to her problem. I gave her a service to sign up for an account to send email campaigns and when she gets her account set up, she’ll be forwarding me the information to import her list into the mail service and send out her email blast.
Sometimes it is more cost effective to pay a little more to someone who is experienced and professional versus an inexperienced high school student. This is one of them.
Some thoughts on Selecting a Virtual Assistant
I keep seeing blogs and articles in Google News Alerts about starting a virtual assistant business. They talk about how if you have a home computer, you can be a VA.
This concerns me, especially around areas of confidentiality. If you are looking for a virtual assistant, this should be one of your main questions to a prospective service provider, “what procedures do you take to ensure confidentiality of my data?”. The computer is a big one. Is the computer only used by the VA or is it a shared family computer in the kitchen or dining room? Do the Virtual Assistant’s children (and their friends) have access to it for games, surfing and Facebook activities?
For example, Prime Admin Solutions does the following:
- My computer is password protected and only I know the password.
- Our internet connection is protected by a firewall.
- I have a locked shredding box and only I know where the key is (many VAs like to say they are paperless, I readily admit that I am not, I don’t feel that you can proofread properly on screen, and when I receive instructions by email, I like to be able to print them off to check off and refer to while I’m working, saves time from switching between my email program and back to my work).
- My office is in a room of my house that is only used for my business.
- Only I have access to my computer.
- Does the VA take his/her laptop to a wireless hotspot to do your work or is it done at home?
Just a few things to consider when you are looking for a Virtual Assistant.
Is your recipe for success missing a key ingredient?
I love to cook. I know that if you add too much of one ingredient and not enough of another, a recipe will not turn out as expected. For example, if you make a loaf of bread and add too much flour and not enough yeast, you’ll end up with a lump of baked dough that didn’t rise well.
Compare your business to a loaf of bread. You spend lots of time on your document formatting reports, fancying up your PowerPoint presentations and even compiling the evaluation forms from a session you facilitated. That’s the flour. You get so caught up doing these things yourself that you miss out on networking and other business building opportunities or doing the more lucrative work that you excel at (and has a higher dollar value per hour). That’s the yeast.
Knowing when to delegate is another key ingredient to your business success. Everyone’s time has a value. Chances are, your time is worth more than the cost of outsourcing your admin tasks to a virtual assistant. You may even be able to build those costs into the rates you charge your clients. Writing a report and getting it typed up in the rough and then handing it off to a virtual assistant to polish for you also allows you to move on to other client work. You are able to satisfy two clients’ needs instead of just one. What could be better.
If you’d like to make Prime Admin Solutions one of the key ingredients for your business succes, contact me today.
Making a small world smaller
It never fails to amaze me with how the universe can send the right people into your life at the right time. Last year I took VA Classroom’s social media marketing specialist program and really enjoyed it. When VA Classroom offered an updated version for 2010 I signed up immediately. I wanted to learn more about what was new in the industry.
The requirement for completing the course was to create a social media marketing program for a business.
During the course I connected with a lady by the name of Lori Shandle-Fox on Linked In. She has written a fascinating book and is hoping to get it published – it will be the first of a fascinating series of books. Honestly, I can see it as a reality show. She had questions about WordPress, should she self-host or use WordPress’ site. Many people answered her question and she ultimately decided to self host. She then asked questions about themes, customizing them, etc. and again I offered by two cents. Over the course of emails we developed a relationship which ultimately led to a phone conversation. We bonded over the fact that she is a stand up comic and I am a comedy fanatic.
I felt comfortable enough with Lori to offer to do a social media plan to get reader interest, develop a following to hopefully attract the right attention that someone will publish it for her and generate pre-orders for book sales (whether she self-published or worked with a publisher). I told her it was a win-win for both of us; she’d get a social media marketing plan and I have a juicy subject for my VA Classroom assignment.
This morning I received word from Craig Cannings of VA Classroom that I successfully completed the assignment and passed the course. This has led me to definitely decide that I want to market my social media services to authors. Why? Their work is fascinating. I’m a fledgling author, working on my first novel and I love reading. So as they say in the networking world, “you never know who anyone else knows”, if you know authors who would like a social media action plan set up and implemented, please pass my website URL along to them.
I absolutely love how the social networking world has made a small world smaller and how it brings people together and removes boundaries. Craig Cannings of VA Classroom is in British Columbia, Canada. Lori is in Raleigh, NC and I’m in Ontario. Amazing, isn’t it?
Check out: http://www.vaclassroom.com and http://www.laughingISconceivable.com (content coming soon)
Twitter
LinkedIn
Facebook