You have probably seen many websites with images and descriptions of related products, either physical or digital products. Do you know that these products can be automatically posted to your website?

We have already described in previous posts how RSS Feeds can work as a mean to distribute and get fresh content, but you can also use Feeds for commercial purposes.

For instance, you can drip feed your website from qualified sources like Amazon, Clickbank or eBay with affiliate products related to your website content. This can be easily done using scripts especially tailored for this purpose. Here is where software like RSS Gadgets comes in handy.

RSS Gadgets is a Feed Agregator that places affiliate products on your web pages from Amazon, Clickbank and Ebay, based on the keywords you’re targeting within your own niche market. Feeds can be used individually, altogether or in any combination. This software also provides with news feeds from Yahoo News and MS Live to provide fresh content to your website to please your visitors and search engines as well.

If you’re getting traffic to your sites you need to convert them to sales – why not avoid the hassle and automatically offer up related products, news and links to keep their interest and make a few bucks as well?

Using Data Feeds is a great way to monetize websites by promoting affiliate physical products and not only digital products. The main hurdle of this approach has been to find the adequate script that allows you to place targeted products in your web pages. RSS Gadgets is an easy and cheap solution to achieve this.

1) Displaying RSS Feeds From External Sources

If you have a RSS Reader, you can subscribe to your favorite sites that provide RSS Feeds. The reader will automatically check all the sites you’ve subscribed to and show you new updated content when it is added. By doing this, you get traffic to your website by displaying targeted fresh content from news sites and other sources which in turn boost your position in search engines.

2) Syndicating Your Own Content

If you produce your own RSS Feeds, you can have your content syndicated to the internet, especially if you are using blogs as a publishing format where RSS Feeds are automatically created and visitors can easily subscribe to those feeds.

On the other hand, potentially hundreds of other websites can publish your news and articles. This will provide free exposure and free traffic.

RSS also gives you a new marketing venue to display your ads, messages, and news directly onto your subscriber’s desktop. It will also build your credibility and brand name online with little effort!

Submitting Your RSS Feeds To RSS Aggregators

A site owner or blogger using his site as a pulpit for any number of topics can make his content available via RSS. Once done, his comments or content can be fed to the news aggregators for syndication/delivery to those interested in such content.

Submitting your RSS Feeds to RSS Agregators can be manually done if you have the time to do so. You can also use specialized software like RSS Bot where with the push of a button you can submit your RSS Feeds to dozens of RSS Aggregators with the benefits of getting one-way backlinks, quick indexing in search engines and a steady stream of organic traffic. It’s a no brainer!

RSS Bot also has the capability of creating full RSS Feeds with its RSS Feed Creation Tool for your website if you’re not using a blog as content platform. This is a very useful feature when having static HTML or PHP web pages.

First of all, I would recommend sending out press releases regularly. Send them out at least once a month and you’ll see results. Every couple of weeks is not a bad idea.

Here are some reasons to send out a press release:

Every time you create a new product
When you launch a new website
When you launch a new blog
When you are teaching a new webinar
When you are holding a tele-seminar
When you form a partnership
When you win an award
When you hold a contest
When you get a degree or certification
When you start a new business
When you receive industry recognition
When your product ties into current events
When you donate to charity
When you hold a fundraiser for charity
When you have a sale
When you hold some kind of publicity event at a brick and mortar store or physical location – decorating contest, costume contest, etc.
When you hold a raffle
When you hire someone
When you promote someone
To promote holiday sales or events

Now, whether you write a press release yourself or someone else writes it for you, it is YOUR property – so consider re-using it.

You can rewrite it as an article.
You can rewrite it as a blog post.

Additional Tip

You can create a media area on your site and put every press release that you write on there in that media area. Call it “Press Clippings” or “Media Area” or “Latest News”. This gives you a HUGE credibility boost, makes your site and your business look professional, and puts additional content on your site, making it more search engine friendly.

..and don’t forget that you can automate the press release creation and submission process using Press Bot Software

First, let me tell you a little bit about a press release.

They are structured exactly like a news story. They are fairly formulaic. There is a standard list of information that needs to be included in each press release – the five W’s – who, what, where, when and why.

One of the best ways to learn how to write a good press release is to go to a press release distribution site and read the press releases there to get a feel for how they flow, what information is included, and in what order the information is written. www.prweb.com, for instance, has dozens of press releases on their front page. Read at least half a dozen from beginning to end.

Standard Press Release Format

Here is the standard general format of a press release:

FIRST PARAGRAPH: Summarize the “news”, the reason why you’re writing this press release. Let’s say you’re a personal trainer and you’ve released a new series of flat ab videos which feature exercises that won’t hurt your back. You’d start out saying something like: Tens of thousands of people suffer back injuries every year while doing exercises meant to flatten their abdominal muscles. Now, (your name here) is pleased to announce the release of (Your Product Title Here), the first series of ab exercise videos targeted to those who are prone to back injuries”.

SECOND PARAGRAPH: A quote from someone at the company, talking about the news event – why you created this product, or how happy you are to be forming this new partnership, or how honored you are to receive this award, etc. So here, a quote from the creator of the videos, saying something like “So many of my clients were seeking exercises that they could do to flatten their abdominal muscles, which wouldn’t injure their backs. I looked everywhere and couldn’t find a good resource – so I decided to create my own series of videos”…etc.

THIRD PARAGRAPH: More details about the news, product, etc. In this example, perhaps say how many videos there are, how many exercises, how easy these are to do, etc.

FOURTH PARAGRAPH: Another quote talking about the product, how it’s helped people, etc., or what your qualifications are for creating this product – “I’ve been a trainer for 17 years, and have been certified in xxxxxx” (name awards, training, certifications, etc. – it’s good for credibility. “I designed these exercises specifically to….” etc.

FIFTH PARAGRAPH: A testimonial from customers, if you have any. Here you would quote a satisfied customer talking about how well this product worked for them or what this product accomplished for them.

SIXTH PARAGRAPH: Wrap up about the product, including the URL you want people to go to.

This isn’t set in stone, you can deviate from it a little bit, but if you go to any press release distribution site, you will see that this is the basic, standard formula for any press release.

So you always want to include:

A couple of quotes – and always attribute them in the third person, even if you are quoting yourself. It is ALWAYS “According to Joe Smith of Smith Enteprises,” even if you’re Joe Smith.

Remember to place all of the who, what, where, why, when information – what date and time and place an event is taking place, where people can find your website, etc.

Check the previous posts on this subject:

How to Write, Format and Distribute a Press Release I
How Do Press Release Sites Work?
Why to Write a Press Release?
How to Write Optimized Press Releases
And don’t forget to check Press Bot to help you write and get automated distribution of your press releases

This is the fourth post from a series of posts dealing with using press releases in your marketing efforts.

Let’s get started!

Using Keywords

When you are writing a press release, treat it just as if you were writing an article. Do your keyword research. Pick keywords that are frequently searched for, and relevant to your subject area.

Ideally you would like a keyword or keyword phrase that is searched for at least a few thousand times a month but doesn’t have too many competing sites which contain the same keywords.

Incorporate a keyword phrase in your headline, in your first paragraph, and a couple of times throughout the body of your press release, while making sure it does not interfere with the flow of your writing, of course. When people are searching for, say, dog training videos, or a book of cupcake recipes, or online businesses, they will go on the internet and type in keyword phrases like “dog training videos” or “cupcake recipes”, and if you have included the relevant keyword phrases in your headline and press release – that is how they will find you.

Compelling Headlines

The headline that you choose is very important. It should contain a good strong action verb and should succinctly describe your story. It should also contain a keyword phrase that you have come up with, which gets a lot of searches – at least a few thousand a month – and doesn’t have millions of competing sites which have the same keyword phrase in the title.

For instance, if you are creating videos about flattening your abs, a headline could be “Flat Abs Now: Personal Trainer Releases New Series Of Ab-Flattening Videos For Back Pain Sufferers”. Flat Abs and Ab Flattening would both be keyword phrases – although again, do your keyword research first to make sure that you are using highly searched keywords with ideally little competition.

Here is a list of commonly used action verbs in press release headlines:

Announces, Appoints, Unveils, Reveals, Presents, Launches, Promotes, Hosts, Upgrades, Expands, Provides, Introduces, Debuts, Offers, Improves, Selects, Reports, Supports, Joins Forces With, is Recognized For, Invited To, Prevents (illness, disaster), Recognizes, Awards, Is Presented With, Opens, Features, Reports, Honors, Visits.

In our next post we’ll discuss How to Write and Format a Press Release. Until then.

Check our recommended software Press Bot to help you write and get automated distribution of your press releases