But they often miss out most powerful marketing channel for driving hundreds of thousands of visitors. What is it? Media publicity!

Almost every person on this planet is exposed to some form of mass media daily - be it newspapers, radio or television. Such wide media reach drives huge traffic.

How do you get media coverage for your website?

One highly effective way of getting media publicity for your website is through press releases.

All businesses, large and small, use press releases to disseminate information to public. Editors and journalists use them to get fresh information about latest happenings in their fields of coverage.

Should you write your own press release?

That depends on how much a writer you are. If you don't enjoy writing, you should outsource to a professional PR firm.

The major advantage to using a PR firm is that they can write your press release objectively in a style which adheres to media editorial requirements.

Press releases are often written like sales letters. That's number one reason why many press releases get trashed. Editors are interested in stories, not sales pitches.

Next, you need to distribute your press release to relevant editors and journalists. You can submit your press release through email, fax or postal mail.

That's what I did - and am still doing - with my most recent book. However, it's something that can be used with any product, service, event or cause.

Here's what you do. First, boil down your basic, most essential message to no more than nine lines. Here, for instance, is my message:

ABRAHAM, THE DREAMER An Erotic and Sacred Love Story A fast-paced, provocative, biblical novel by ROLF GOMPERTZ Publisher: iUniverse.com $14.95 ISBN 0-595-17697-6, paperback, 260 pages Browse and buy at www.iUniverse.com Or call toll-free number: 1-877-823-9235 Also www.amazon.com or ANY bookstore.

I then bought a 25-sheet box of No. 8163 Avery ink jet, white shipping labels (2"x4"), with 10 labels to a page. I printed out this message, making as many copies as I needed, and some extras.

I played around with colors and typefaces, caps and lower case type, to make information look attractive. I used blue for Internet addresses, and red for book's title and subtitle. I used bold face for information which I wanted to highlight; I also used italics.

Since I could not find a 3" label, I trimmed one inch off 4" label.

I created this label to fit on back of my business card. I did not want to dump perfectly fine business cards I had, nor did I want to print double-sided ones, since that would also increase cost of cards. Furthermore, I did not know if I might want to change any of basic information at some time, in which case I would be stuck with a lot of printed cards and I would have to go to cost of printing new ones.

Indeed, I did "redesign" label several times, changing a word, or a line, here and there.

As you can see, there was very little waste involved.