THINKing

11 Ways To Promote Your Website

There are a number of ways to boost traffic to your website - or blog. I’ve just written an article on the subject - 11 Ways To Promote Your Website. You’ll find in in the My Resources section of my website at My Creative Team.

In fact, what I have just done above is one way to boost your traffic. Notice, I’ve linked to three different pages at my website above using different anchor tags. Linking is one of the best ways to build traffic.

Online PR is another way to direct people to your site. Write releases and distribute them via PRWeb and you’ll grow links to your site, too. Check out this Google search of “My Creative Team.” Notice the links from news organizations.

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Social Media Experiment Redux

Recently, we talked about my experiment in social media for my wife’s new book, Double Dead. It continues. The book is now available at bookstores and online at Barnes & Noble and other places. Today she received a marvelous review from the Bible: Mystery Scene Magazine.

I have posted a release at several of the free release websites we discussed yesterday like Article University and Free Press Release. I also posted it to Digg. I sent the release out via PRWeb on 2/20/2007. You can drop in keywords at PRweb. I included the following for this release: SOUTHERN, MURDER MYSTERY, TERRY HOOVER, DOUBLE DEAD, DETECTIVE FICTION, NOVEL, GOOD READ, MYSTERIES, PRIVATE EYE. Additionally, I used the feature that allows Technorati tags.

Please help with the experiment. Visit Digg and vote on the story. As I write this, there are two votes for it. So, you’ll know how it is going when you visit and place your vote. Or, you can also tag the story using del.icio.us. Suggested tags are “great_mystery”, “murder_mystery”, and “good_read”.

So, help me out. Or, just go buy the book.

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Free Press

In the old days (yes, I’m old enough to remember the old days) you wrote a news release and actually sent it to the media in the hopes that you would get coverage. Reporters were the only ones who saw the news release. Not so, today. In fact, the news release is even more important in this web-enabled world. So, write those releases and get them out there into the digital cosmos.

I recommend paying to distribute your important releases via PRWeb. This gets you widespread distribution directly to the media, interested consumers and into syndicated feeds to thousands of websites.

Next, post your releases on the many free release sites out there. Mr. SEO has posted a list of 22 free press release sites.

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Gays Stopping Snickers

Short on time this morning so only a quick update: You’ll remember perhaps that we discussed the Snickers ad and others after the Super Bowl. Snickers now has shut down its Super Bowl ad website and stopped airing the spot because of protests from homosexual rights groups.

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Global Payoff

No matter what you think about the recent paper on global warming, it is never right to pay someone off for an opinion. This is what appears to have happened at a foundation linked to Exxon Mobil. Reports indicate that the foundation offered to pay scientists up to $10,000 to offer their critique to the recent UN report on climate change. There are shortcomings in this report on a topic that has become highly politicized. However, cash is not the way to expose those flaws.

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Think Hits The Power 150

Todd And, who has an excellent blog, has launched the Power 150.
This is his listing of the top blogs in Marketing. Think is now on the list at #174. I want to move up the list, but I’ll need your help. You need to subscribe to the Think feed. If you are using the superior Firefox browser, congratulations! Just go up to “Bookmarks”, pull down to “Subscribe” and you are being fed by Think. IE7 makes it pretty easy, too. Hit the RSS icon and follw the instructions from there.

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SuperBowl? Nope.

Neither the game nor the commercials were that great this year. (Although I was pulling for the Colts.)

The biggest misstep was by Snickers and its Brokeback Mountain moment between two burly men. Unless Snickers really is going full tilt for the gay market.

I thought the Sprint Connectile Dysfunction spot was good but could have been improved if they had hired Smiling Bob from the Enzyte ED commercials.

My biggest problem with the ads is that - although many were funny - they didn’t do anything to build the brand, connect to the brand or sell products and services. After all, isn’t that what advertising is all about? Reprise Media has a report on who fumbled the handoff from TV to the web. In my estimation, virtually everyone did. Pizza Hut did something cool. They bought paid search ads that sent viewers to YouTube instead of Pizza Hut corporate. There, viewers could continue the discussion on their own.

Check out all the Super Bowl spots here in case you missed some.

PS - For the 9th consecutive year, Anheuser-Busch has won USA Today’s exclusive Ad Meter real-time consumer focus group ranking of Super Bowl commercials.

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Guerrilla Stupidity

By now you have probably heard about the PR stunt in Boston carried out on behalf of Turner’s Cartoon Network. This was not guerrilla PR. It was guerrilla stupidity of the highest order. Knucklehead PR operatives placed electronic boxes with blinking lights in them all over Boston in hopes of generating publicity for a cartoon show. I will not name the show because I refuse to help them with their publicity.

In this day and age when terrorism is on the mind’s of everyone, who would think to do such a thing? I can’t believe that somewhere along the way some sensible person didn’t say, “guys, have you thought this through?”

According to Hollywood Reporter, “Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28, were released on $2,500 cash bond after each pleaded not guilty to placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct for a device found Wednesday at a subway station. They waved and smiled as they greeted people in court.”

Turner Network officials, Berdovsky and Stevens all should be strung up.

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Bad PR, Naughty PR

Are you guilty of bad PR? Do you indiscriminately email or fax news releases to all carbon-based lifeforms on the hope that the shotgun approach will bag some coverage? If so, stop it immediately. You are giving us all a bad name.

Reporter Jeff Crilley has a nice piece on the 7 fatal flaws of PR programs. Read it and take it to heart, gentle reader.

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