Looking for a quick and inexpensive way to boost sales? Add a coupon to your email marketing campaign. A November 2009 report by the credit bureau Experian showed that 80 percent of marketing emails that include a coupon had a higher transaction-to-click rate than those without. This held true whether the emails were sent to a segmented group or full email list.

Savings Drives Sales

The study shows that consumers are looking for a deal. The new mindset in the marketplace is frugality, and marketers who understand that are going to be more successful than those who do not. Experian found that two-thirds of US households are using coupons and the number of people using online coupons has grown 46 percent over the past three years.

Coupons Increase Engagement

In addition to higher transaction rates, marketing emails that included coupons averaged 24-25 percent open rates compared with 16-18 percent for campaigns that did not include a coupon. Click-throughs were also 17 percent higher for coupons redeemed online and 24 percent higher for in-store coupons sent by email.

Best Practices

Here are some of the take-aways from the study:

• Test your coupon amount and frequency to see what gives you the highest return
• Use targeted lists and make sure you’re sending them the right offers
• Create urgency by limiting the time frame and use the word exclusive to make recipients feel special
• Tailor your coupons to your business cycles and offer deep discounts to clear inventory
• Include a “share with a friend” or “share with your network” link to expand your reach

If used effectively, coupons are a win-win situation. You drive sales and clear inventory while you customers enjoy the savings they crave. To read the full report from Experian, click here.

Whether you need a confidentiality policy will depend upon what type of information you feel you need to protect. Some specific items that can be protected by a confidentiality clause or agreement are customer lists, trade secrets, inventions, discoveries, data, formulas, business methods, processes, machines, manufacturers and compositions.

Definitions of confidential information. If you decide to have a confidentiality policy, you need to specify exactly what you’re protecting and what you consider confidential in order to prevent current or former employees from later claiming that they did not realize that the information they were using, sharing, etc., was protected. Here is an example of a clause specifying what is considered confidential for purposes of nondisclosure.

Example: The term “Confidential Information” means information, not generally known, previously acquired by ABC Company and/or which may be acquired by the employee and/or ABC Company during the period of the employee’s employment by ABC Company, relating to products (whether existing or under development), the business activities of ABC Company, technology or its inventions.

Consideration clauses. “Consideration” is a legal term that refers to the “thing of value” that passes between parties to a contract. In the case of an applicant, getting the job might be considered adequate consideration. If the employee has been working on a project, and you decide that the employee’s research or work is confidential, consideration might be continuation of employment or a bonus of some kind.

Warning

For the agreement to be binding, the bonus or other consideration must be enough to reasonably compensate the employee for what he or she is giving up by signing the agreement. A $100 bonus, for example, may not be enough.

The examples below demonstrate how to build the consideration for the employee into the agreement or policy.

• Example: In consideration of my employment by the Corporation and of the further continuation of such employment, and of the salary or wages paid to me in connection with such employment and for other good and valuable consideration, I agree as follows:
• Example: In consideration of the above nondisclosure and noncompete agreement and in an effort to avoid possible conflicts and unethical actions, ABC Company, Inc., employees are required to read and confirm that they are familiar with these policies and that they have no knowledge of any violations of these policies.

Remedies and damages statements. If you’re concerned enough about confidentiality in your business to have a policy, you’ll want to give that policy some teeth. Make it clear to employees what the repercussions are for violating your confidentiality policy.

Warning

Remember — noncompete agreements, whether as a part of a policy or as a separate document, are difficult to enforce. Before asking employees to sign or before trying to enforce such an agreement, consult an attorney.

The example below may help you devise a set of remedies or damages that you will want to collect if you have to enforce your policy.

Example: The employee agrees to pay liquidated damages in the amount of $___________ for any proven or admitted violation of the covenant not to compete contained in this agreement/policy.

Noncompete statements. Some employers choose to make noncompete clauses part of their confidentiality policy that employees are asked to sign. Alternately, employees may be asked to sign noncompete agreements that are discreet, separate documents.

About the Author

Winmark Business Solutions (WBS) is a free Web site for small businesses and entrepreneurs containing over 6,000 pages of business-critical information and downloadable tools at www.WBSonline.com. WBS is a division of Winmark Corporation, a multi-brand franchisor with nearly 900 franchise locations in North America. With over 25 years working with small businesses, WBS draws upon years of experience to bring important small business articles, information, tools, forms, checklists, calculators and downloadable forms to the small business owner to help their business grow. WBS contains over 6000 pages of business-critical information all available at www.WBSonline.com.

Getting a journalist to write about your business is an excellent way to promote your brand for free. But most small businesses aren’t making it easy for journalists to write about them.

Today most journalists start their writing process with an online search, most often using Google, according to a 2009 study by Jakob Nielsen. They are turned off by Web sites that don’t give them the information they need in a clear and concise way. If they have the choice, they’ll choose another company to write about because tight deadlines often lead them down the path of least resistance.

Don’t hand your chance for free publicity off to your competitors. Use the following tips to design the press section of your Web site to make it journalist-friendly.

Stick with the Facts

Journalists are trained to be objective and present the facts of a story so the reader can form an opinion. Design the press section of your Web site to include facts, and leave the marketing pitch for your home page and product pages. For example, a journalist might find explanations of the technical innovation behind your product interesting if it’s presented in a factual way. It’s the exact opposite of how you write your marketing copy. Think features over benefits.

In the Nielsen study, one journalist looking at the BMW Web site commented:

“This term ‘crumple zone,’ I would find use for in my article… About the lights, these are all high-tech things I think readers would find interesting. Those are the kinds of specifics I would be looking for.”

Be Clear about the Company’s Mission, Purpose, Products and Services

A journalist who visits your Web site is looking to find out what makes your company unique. Take a look at your mission statement and ask yourself whether it could apply to your competitors, or any other company. If the answer is yes, rewrite it to make it specific to your company. It should communicate quickly and clearly what your company is about and how it’s different from the other industry players. The same is true with descriptions of your products and services.

As you’re writing this section, try to get to the core of your message in as few words as possible. The more specific you are, the easier this will be.

Use Simple HTML Pages

Most journalists work from home and are not on the cutting edge of technology. Don’t crash their computers. Make the press section of your Web site accessible without the latest version of Flash. Use simple HTML pages to present your information, and make sure the whole thing is easy to read using older Internet browsers and operating systems.

Optimize Your Web Site for Google

Because most journalists start their research with Google, a good ranking in the search engine’s results can give you an advantage. If you need help developing a search engine optimization plan, we offer plenty of articles to help you get started.

Include Links to Previous Press Coverage

Like everyone else, journalists trust independent third parties more than a company advertisement or press release. If other publications have written about your business, include links to the articles in the press section of your Web site. You’re making it easier for a writer to learn about your business and proving that your company is newsworthy.

Provide the Name and Phone Number of a Press Contact

The number one reason journalists in the study gave for visiting a company’s Web site was to locate a public relations contact, specifically a name and phone number. Don’t give them just a generic email address to contact. They’re on a tight deadline, and they’ll write about the company they can reach right away. A journalist can’t risk waiting for you to check an email box.

Present All the Important Company Information

Another important reason for visiting a company’s Web site is to get the basic facts such as the company’s full name, the spelling of an executive’s name or the location of the company’s headquarters. Include a fact page with all of this information plus graphics such as a head shot of the CEO and the official company logo.

Make Your Content Scannable

Again, deadlines dictate the amount of time a journalist will spend on your Web site. Eye tracking studies show they skip the intro paragraphs and get right down to the information on a page. Make all of your headlines concise and easy to understand just by reading a few words. Present your company facts in bulleted lists rather than paragraphs and make all of your copy scannable.

Creating a journalist-centric press section of your Web site will not only help the journalists who stumble upon your company through the search engines, it will give you a great place to direct writers if you personally pitch a story to them as well.

Starting a business? No matter what product or service you plan to sell, your success depends on how well you complete the following steps:

Write a Business Plan

You are already forming a plan in your mind whether you realize it or not. You know what type of business you want to start, and you’ve probably begun thinking out how you’ll make it work. A business plan is just a document that maps those things out and gets you to think through some things you may not have considered yet.

Business plans include:

• A description of your business, its legal status and structure
• Your marketing strategies—how you will get customers to buy from you
• Analysis of the competition
• How you will design and develop your product (if you’re selling a product)
• Your operations and management structure
• Where you will get your start-up money
• How and when your business will become profitable

Your business plan is a high-level overview to guide your actions as you start and manage your business. Think of it as a living document and update it as your plans change.

Learn more about writing a business plan.

Secure Your Start-up Funds

Every business needs some money to start with. If you make a product, you’ll need to finance the first production run. If you’re a freelance designer, you’ll need a powerful computer and expensive software. You may even need to rent office space or a store front before you earn your first dollar.

There are a few ways to get financing. Consider a loan from a family member, banking institution or venture capitalist. The option you choose should depend on the business you’re starting and what you qualify for. Without a proven track record for success, it may be difficult to get a loan from a bank or venture capitalist.

If you have a family member with the means to help you out, write a formal loan document that spells out all of the expectations on both sides. Include things like payment schedule, interest rate and whether the loan gives the lender decision-making power in the business. Be as detailed as possible to avoid surprises later.

Learn more about getting a loan for your business.

Develop a Distribution Plan

How will you serve your customers? That depends on the type of business you’re starting. If you’re opening a restaurant, you’ll need a physical environment where you serve food. If you’re selling clothing, electronics or other products, you have the choice to sell online or in a physical store.

Selling online has the advantage of low overhead and the ability to reach a wider audience. If you choose this route, you need an ecommerce Web hosting plan, shopping cart software, SSL certificate and merchant account. Take a look at your start up budget and the number of products you’ll offer to see what you can afford and assess your needs.

If you’re selling in a store, find a general location that gets heavy foot traffic from your target market and take a walk around the area to find store fronts for rent.

Set Up Your Base of Operations

Every business needs a center of operations—the place where you will answer phone calls, check your email, keep the books, pack orders, etc. Whether you plan to work from home or rent a space, you’ll need to set yourself up for business. Here’s a list of office equipment essential to most businesses:

• Computer with appropriate software
• Fax machine or fax over email plan
• Phone line (wireless or land)
• Email accounts and email client
• Data storage (physical or digital)

Execute Your Marketing Plan

You created a marketing strategy in your business plan. Now it’s time to implement it. First, gather the elements of your business identity. You’ll need:

• Logo
• Color palette
• Web site
• Facebook page
• Business cards and stationery
• Signage for your location

Next, get the word out about your business. If you’re planning to advertise online, start making a list of keywords you want to go after, choose a search engine and write your ads. Identify other sources of customers, and build an email list for your email marketing campaigns. And don’t forget to write a press release announcing your arrival on the scene.

Now that you have all the information you need to get started, it’s time to think about growing your business! Learn more about driving traffic to your business.

First, let’s define the term Explosive Results for our usage.

A standard social media campaign helps spread the word about you and encourages other people to as well.

An explosive social media campaign has inherent viral exposure, inspires community-driven communication, helps make the Web a better place and even brings joy to people, however fleeting.

When you share in social media, if your goal is just to get more people to see your links, you’re on the right track, but at the same time, you’re limiting your potential. You may think that getting explosive results from social media will take more time, energy and money, but this doesn’t have to be the case.

If you’re a business owner, you know that working harder doesn’t necessarily mean better results — what if you’re working hard on the wrong thing?

Sometimes the remedy is working smarter. Here are a few small changes you can make to your social media approach that can propel your social media results from lukewarm to smoking hot.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #1—Hot Content

The cornerstone to any social media campaign is the content. If you get this component wrong, it doesn’t matter if all other elements are perfect. Study what’s going hot in your targeted topic and find a unique angle to tailor your content into what people already like, without stealing their ideas.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #2 — Niched Network Nuances

The more tightly focused your submissions to social media sites are, the more likely they are to go viral, whether they are links you share by other people or yours. Here’s the logic.

People follow other people with similar interests. They’re on sites like Google, Yahoo!, StumbleUpon, Delicious and Digg actively looking for new content. Put those two things together and you have a whirlwind of clicks happening. The only question is, will it be your link that gets clicked or passed over?

Having 5,000 connections on Twitter or Facebook is useless if you are connected to people who don’t want your broadcasts, and you’re just as useless to them if you don’t want theirs. If my interest is in improving my existing business and you’re trying to get me to sell your network marketing products, it doesn’t matter how many times you ask me. If I’m not interested, your continued broadcasts will be ignored, or worse yet, blocked completely.

It’s about the perfect balance of quality AND quantity.

And if I’m not paying attention to you, I can’t and won’t spread your message. If you are in network marketing, why not go after people who love the network marketing concept but can’t seem to find the right company? That’s a perfect match and can dramatically cut down your search for the right partners and prospects.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #3 — Simplify Sharing

It amazes me how many people miss this one.

You’ve got great content. You’ve got a massive, niched network.

Why feed them content that’s hard to share? Does that report have to be in PDF format? If so, does it have to be behind an opt-ín wall if you’re spreading it among people who have already opted in? Anyone connected to your business through its Facebook page, or your Twitter stream, is also part of your opt-ín list. Yes, it would be best if they were on your email newsletter list, but what faster way to get them there than to show them you don’t need to hold them prisoner there?

If your whitepaper is of such high value that you don’t want it to spread, well, that’s something different. But if you’re sharing it so other people will spread it, make it easy for others to share.

• Send your su.pr link so all they have to do is click the Thumbs-Up button.
• Put a few sharing links on your page.
• Make it easy for them to retweet.

The easier it is for them to share, the more likely they are to do it.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #4 — Consistency

And now we come to the area I fail at the most. It’s one of the things I know I need to do, but I haven’t quite gotten the hang of how to brainstorm, create and distribute quality content consistently, and still give the best possible service and support to my customers and clients. I always err on serving people who have bought from me, figuring that next blog post can wait until tomorrow.

Then at some point, I noticed a decline in return traffic — people weren’t coming back because they’d already heard everything I had to say. The solution? I got help for my content creation process. The ideas are still mine, but I was able to barter help for research, transcribing and editing. I am also able to get audio and video polished much less expensively than I thought, though I don’t always use this option due to time constraints.

The other thing that helped a lot was getting over my perfectionism complex. Release your content as soon as you can. I can’t tell you how much money I’ve left on the table from my old fear of the typo and grammar police. Not to mention the fact that I felt like I was leaving my audience hanging.

You subscribe to something because you want to get regular updates. If your favorite daily news show started coming on once a week, you’d probably switch channels. If you’re inconsistent without explanation, your audience numbers will drop and your network will fade.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #5 — Think Engagement

Measuring your results by pageview alone is a thing of the past. When the Web was mostly text and images, it made some sense that how many pages a visitor viewed at your site was a true measure of engagement.

Nowadays this isn’t the case. You want to look instead at how long people are at your site. The exception, of course, is when customers are coming to your site to buy, and the order processing system takes them off your page. But if people aren’t leaving your site because they’re ready to buy or subscribe, you truly must look at why they aren’t paying more attention to your content, and what changes you can make to get them to stay.

This is critically important in understanding which content will go viral naturally. What posts are people staying on your site to comment on? When do they take a few extra seconds to retweet? Are they watching your videos all the way through?

Once you know the content your audience is most connected to, and why, you can make more of it.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #6 — Three-Way Connection and Communication

That’s not a typo. Three-way communication is when the way you conduct yourself online is observed by a third party, who is also indirectly being addressed by your manner or statement. I wish I could credit the proper author of this, but I just don’t remember who it was who first observed that three people are positively affected by an act of kindness — the person giving, the person receiving and the person observing.

One example of this in action is having a conversation with a peer about their new product on a social media site. Your friend is probably dying to tell someone about the testimonial they just got, but don’t want to be rude or are too humble to brag. Ask them in front of your audience, and the conversation is exposed to your connections and re-exposed to theirs.

Connection is just as important — if communication is the conveyance of information, connection is doing so in a way that bonds. Several hundred closely bonded contacts will spread your message faster and farther than several thousand distant acquaintances.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #7 — What’s In It for All?

In the 80s, we all thought about what was in it for ourselves. In the 90s we decided to focus on others, hence, what’s in it for them. Today, we’re in the age of the win-win-win situation. Tell them how you benefit and tie it to their benefit.

Want someone to help you spread your stories? Make sure they know how important it is to you, why you came to them for help and how they’ll be perceived for being the bearer of your good news.

You may look at the list above and feel that it’s intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Focus on doing just one of these things better each day for a few weeks, and before you know it, you’ll be doing them habitually. The results you’ll get will help these new habits stick.

About the Author

Can you really get up to 27,000 visitors in a week from social media? I did and I can show you how to do the same without cheating the system, or spending 20 hours a week on social media sites. Find out how in this free video at http://www.freetraffictip.com/27kvisitors and see the proof for yourself, today.

You’ve been collecting customer email addresses for a while, but haven’t quite made the time to design your first customer newsletter. The good news is that it’s not very hard to get started. We’ll walk you through the process of designing your newsletter.

Design Considerations

The design you choose should reflect your goals for your newsletter. Every business has a different reason for creating a newsletter. To make sure it achieves your objectives, think about your goal before you do anything else.

If, for example, your newsletter’s goal is to inform customers of sales on specific items, you will want an image-heavy design with little copy. If you’re trying to position yourself as an expert in your field, you’ll want a text heavy newsletter with information articles and tips.

Once you have an idea of your overall content, consider what sections your newsletter will include. Come up with headings that last beyond a single newsletter. Here are a few ideas:

• Product spotlight that gives tips on new ways to use your products
• Special promotion just for newsletter subscribers
• Reader survey
• Top 10 Tips
• Customer profile
• Company news
• Letter from the CEO

Take a look at your competition’s newsletter, if you can, to see what other companies in your industry include. You might get a few ideas you can improve on for your own newsletter.

Once your section headings are finalized, it’s time to look for a design. If you have someone proficient in HTML on staff, you can opt for a completely customer design. If not, you can use a template from the email marketing software you use to send your newsletter.

Email Newsletter Software—What to Look for

Email marketing software makes it easy to manage your newsletter. Any good software program will automate the tasks of:

• Handling opt-in subscriptions
• Removing opt-outs from the list
• De-duping your list
• Providing analytics

Additionally, make sure you choose a software package with a good template library unless you plan to use a custom design. Look for templates that complement your company color palette and include design elements similar to your Web site. For example, if you have rounded corners and organic design elements on your Web site, you should choose a template to match.

Take a look at our email newsletter checklist for more ideas on your customer newsletter.

A noncompete agreement is either a separate agreement or a clause in an employment contract that prohibits an employee from working in a related business in your area for a certain length of time. Noncompete agreements are used to prevent an employee from using your business’s confidential information.

You can make the signing of a noncompete agreement part of your terms of employment without creating an employment contract. It’s important not to make it seem that by signing the noncompete agreement, an employee can expect to be employed forever. A noncompete agreement applies only to one specific aspect of an employment relationship — the confidential information related to your business.

The challenge lies in deciding if noncompete agreements are right for your business and which employees should sign them.

The bad news. While some consider noncompete agreements an effective way to protect the business’s time, money and resources, such agreements are difficult to enforce and are not looked favorably upon by many states’ courts because they restrict an individual’s choice of employment. Check out our tips for making noncompete agreements enforceable.

Who should sign noncompete agreements? Not all your employees may need to sign noncompete agreements. The janitor, for example, may not have access to any sensitive information, so you shouldn’t ask that employee to sign one.

Employees who should be asked to sign noncompete/nondisclosure agreements are:

• all employees who are engaged in or related to research or product development work
• all engineers and drafting employees engaged in design or engineering work including, for example, tool room engineers, plant engineers, manufacturing trainees, etc.
• all employees engaged in the service of machines, apparatus, appliances and similar products made or sold by your business
• manufacturing, maintenance and production department heads, if applicable, who have substantial supervisory authority over the manufacture or production of products, apparatus, machines and the like made by your business
• all employees who may reasonably be expected to do creative work relative to trade names, advertising, broadcasting, sales promotion material and the like
• all sales/service employees who are likely to encounter customer problems, suggest solutions, etc.
• all clerical and office employees whose position and responsibilities require complete direct accounting for or processing of details relating to any experimental, inventive or creative work
• all employees who have sufficient information about your business to be able to start up a similar business that would compete with you

Enforcing noncompete agreements. Noncompete agreements are hard to enforce. Many courts perceive them as attempts to limit an individual’s ability to obtain employment. For that reason, most courts will insist that a noncompete agreement be reasonably limited in geographic scope and duration. To ensure that your noncompete clause or agreement is enforceable:

• Have your agreement drafted by your attorney. If you ever have to enforce this document, it will be closely scrutinized by the courts.
• Make sure that it follows applicable state law.
• Be sure there is sufficient consideration (i.e., compensation) given to the employee for signing the agreement.
• If the agreement is part of the hiring process, giving the employee the job is sufficient consideration for agreeing to refrain from competing later on.
• If the agreement is signed later on, the promise of a raise or a promotion is probably sufficient. Even the promise of continued employment may be enough consideration if you are prepared to show that you would have fired the employee for failing to sign the agreement.
• Have it drawn as narrowly as possible. Generally, only those restrictions that are reasonably necessary to protect a company’s legitimate or “protectable” interests will be upheld.
• Define the company’s legitimate or protectable interest. Be specific in terms of equipment, information, technology, strategy, sales prospects and other pertinent proprietary information. Even though you specify it, it will be up to the courts to determine if it is confidential.
• Reasonably relate the restrictions to what the company seeks to protect. If the time and geographic restrictions, for example, are too long or too broad, the agreement will not be enforceable.
• Structure the agreement with an eye toward partial enforcement. Even if a court finds the restrictions too broad, you can include a clause saying that if one part of the agreement is held invalid, the remainder of it should still be enforced. This may give you some protection, even though it is not everything you required in the agreement.
• Do not selectively utilize or enforce such agreements. Make all similarly situated employees sign them, and make sure all employees comply with the agreements they sign.

About the Author

Winmark Business Solutions (WBS) is a free Web site for small businesses and entrepreneurs containing over 6,000 pages of business-critical information and downloadable tools at www.WBSonline.com. WBS is a division of Winmark Corporation, a multi-brand franchisor with nearly 900 franchise locations in North America. With over 25 years working with small businesses, WBS draws upon years of experience to bring important small business articles, information, tools, forms, checklists, calculators and downloadable forms to the small business owner to help their business grow. WBS contains over 6000 pages of business-critical information all available at www.WBSonline.com.

Your brand is more than your logo and color palette. It’s what customers and potential customers think of you. For decades, if not centuries, businesses have worked to create positive associations with their logos, products and all other customer touch-points.

In today’s online world, branding has become even more important. Branding drives customer loyalty. Create a favorable impression with your brand, and your customers are likely to return to your Web site to buy from you again. Get it wrong, and they can post negative stories on blogs, social media sites like MySpace and Facebook or business rating and review Web sites.

Making a Good Impression — What Customers Want

Advertising and marketing saturation has made most people tune out the thousands of messages they receive. So, nothing creates a more favorable impression on potential customers than hearing about your business from a satisfied customer. In the online world, it’s easy for customers to share their experiences, and that can be a great way for you to generate positive associations with your business.

Branding is about making yourself stand out from the competition in a crowded playing field. There are many different strengths you can emphasize. A recent Double Click survey asked online shoppers what brings them back to a Web site. The top two features were free or flat-rate shipping and privacy policies.

If you sell a product similar to other vendors, negotiate a better deal for shipping. Customers are sure to notice. You might consider purchasing stronger encryption than the competition, or looking for ways to really promote the security measures you have in place.

The survey was targeted to a general audience, but if you serve a niche market, the possibilities are endless for making yourself stand out. If you have the best design, fastest turnaround time, or biggest selection, use one of those as your differentiator.

Another key finding of the Double Click survey was that 70 percent of consumers belong to frequent buyer or loyalty programs. For more ideas on how to build customer loyalty for your business, read Inexpensive Ways to Keep Customers Coming Back.

Online Channels for Branding

Once you’ve defined your brand, it’s time to spread the word. The Internet offers many low-cost ways to get your Web site and message in front of potential customers. Search engine optimization and pay per click advertising are two of the most popular.

Search Engine Optimization — Optimize your Web site for your brand name. You may have a lot of competition for generic industry terms, but you can rank number one in the results for your brand name if it’s unique.

Pay Per Click Advertising — Reinforce your message and generate traffic by placing ads for keywords that relate to your business. Even if people don’t click, they’ll see your business name, and you’ll make an impression. Make sure your ad text highlights your specific brand message to make you stand out from all the others.

As you build your brand, remember it’s what your customers think about you, not what you would like them to think. Listen to their feedback and they’ll tell you what your brand means to them. Then highlight your strong points and work to fix the less-than-perfect aspects to grow your business.

How can you turn new innovations, grand openings, volunteer work and charitable contributions into links to your Web site? Writing press releases with embedded links and distributing them across the newswires can give you a number of high-quality links to help your search engine ranking.

Pen Your Press Release

All you need to get started is some news. Once you know what you want to announce, determine which keywords you want to focus on, and start writing your press release using your keywords. Then embed links to appropriate pages of your Web site using those keywords. Those links will help your search engine ranking for your keywords.

Distribution

For the search engines to find your press release, you’ll need to post it in one or more Web sites. Here are some services that can help you do that:

Vocus
PR Log
PR Newswire
Marketwire

You may have to pay for some of these services. But not only do they give you a quality link from their Web site, there’s a chance news organizations will pick up your press release and post it on their Web site as well.

Can my site rank better with a keyword-rich domain name? Sure.

Can my site rank better without a keyword in the domain name at all? Absolutely.

I get questions (or assumptions) like this regularly. Actually, there are many other things going on behind the scenes that impact rank, and the domain name is rarely a significant factor.

Let’s say your Web site has been out there for six months or more, and you assume, for whatever reason, that you can get a higher search engine ranking if you were using a keyword in your domain name instead of the one you have. In addition to your company Web domain, maindomain.com, you rush to purchase keyword1.com, keyword2.com and keyword3.com.

From Google’s perspective, there is both a good way and a detrimental way to assign these additional domain names to your site. This can cause a much greater problem in terms of organic ranking if you get it wrong in terms of duplicate content and trust.

Common methods Web masters use to point multiple domain names to your Web server include:

• Domain Mirroring/Masking
• Domain Cloaking
• Domain Alias/URL Alias
• Domain Redirecting

Domain mirroring/masking is sometimes called a pointer domain. It looks like it is the domain name when it is used in a browser, but it is simply a mask overlaying the real domain name and its content. When someone types in www.domain.com, it’s really forwarding to domain.blogspot.com without the address changing in the address bar. The user continues to see www.domain.com in the address bar, although the site and its contents are really from domain.blogspot.com.

Domain cloaking uses an iframe or embedded frameset to display the content of another site.

Domain redirecting (also called URL redirecting) requires all traffic that is sent through the new domain name to be redirected to the main domain name. This can also be a domain redirected to a subdirectory of the main domain, or multiple domains redirected to a complex URL. This is different from domain mirroring/masking and domain cloaking because when a user types in www.domain.com, they end up on www.maindomain.com and the address changes appropriately in the address bar.

But, let’s back up a second and look at the issues you must consider deciding which method to use.

1. To limit confusion, it’s better to change the brand (or company) name to better reflect the keyword-rich domain name. This could be as simple as recreating the company logo, but you might consult your customer base first.

2. The technical procedure of redirecting domain names must be done so that the search engines do not get confused about what you are trying to do. Otherwise, you risk tripping a duplicate content filter, which would force Google to accept only one domain with that content (explained below). But the biggest risk is setting off an alarm at Google that you are trying to trick them to get a better rank.

Just for fun, let’s say you’ve gone through the trouble of changing the company name to reflect your new keyword-rich domain. Now it’s time to get technical.

If you use any method other than domain redirecting, you are going to be disappointed with your search rank. Domain mirroring, masking, cloaking and aliases confuse search engines because they see the same content under a different domain name. Google then selects one of the domain names to display that content and leaves the others out of the search results. Google chooses for you—since you are not aware of how to manage your duplicate content issues— and no one knows which domain name Google will choose. You could be saying “bye-bye” to all the hard-earned link juice pointed at your main domain name.

The more serious issue with domain mirroring/masking is the probability that Google suspects you are trying to manipulate search rank by suddenly using keywords in additional domain names. The result is either loss of whatever good ranking you did have or your site is banned from Google altogether. Ouch!

This is precisely what happened with a client. Despite my warnings, but thinking they might change the company name eventually, they bought additional keyword-rich domain names and had the Web master point them at their server (using domain masking). Within a couple weeks Google dropped their domain ranking across the board, but did not ban them.

Of course they came to me with their issue. I gently reminded them about how this should have been done, redirected the domain names properly (using a 301 redirect) and asked them to consult me next time they’re considering a marketing or technical decision regarding the Web site. It took about 6 weeks— a long and painful 6 weeks— for Google to restore their good rank again.

When a company acquires additional domain names, they should be permanently redirected to the main domain name—the one, central location on the Web for all of the company’s or brand’s content.

Redirecting a domain name should be handled differently depending on the type of server hosting your site (Apache or Windows), how much control you have over that server (hosted on a shared or dedicated server) and the purpose of the redirected domain name.

About the Author

Tom Shivers is an SEO consultant and president of Capture Commerce, Inc. — a professional SEO company focused on tailored Internet marketing.