The lightbulb went off for me when I was searching for very specialized software and came upon a press release for such a product posted at another site, not that of company producing software. Of course that release led me to company's Web site, which was itself nowhere in search engine listings.

I therefore went looking for sites that welcome free posting of press releases and found more than 100 of them. I posted my own press release at more than 20 of them and now, two months later, a Google search on phrase "free syndicated business content," which was theme in headline and body of my release, turns up three of these in first 20 listings, including in position #1. If I type in "attract repeat business visitors," which is an exact quote from headline, eight of eight items that come up are instances of press release.

If you have timely news, for instance about an upcoming conference you’re sponsoring, this technique won’t benefit you as much as if you have offerings that will continue to be of interest for months or years in future. I like this strategy because, like Tom Sawyer’s legendary painting project, it enables you to let other people do hard work, here of getting good search engine rankings. The site hosting your press release for free then benefits from traffic your release draws and so do you. Search Engine Optimization and Free Press Release Distribution

Here’s how to profit from this strategy, in six steps.

1. Decide on a keyword phrase that ties in to product or service you are promoting and that people actually search for. You can research this conveniently at Wordtracker.com.

By Robin R. Nobles

We all agree that it's important to check your search engine rankings periodically. After all, unless you monitor your rankings, you won't know when pages have slipped in ranking or fallen from index altogether.

While there are some excellent software programs for checking your rankings, such as our favorite, WebPosition Gold, until recently, there hasn't been a Web-based reporting service.

But why would you want to use a Web-based service? Let's look at a few reasons.

Advantages for Using a Web-Based Service

Believe it or not, many people still access Internet using a modem. If those people have a lot of search engine marketing clients, or if they're dealing with hundreds (or thousands) of keyword phrases, using a software program could really tie up their resources for literally hours.

While you can certainly run ranking reports at night, that doesn't mean you won't be "booted offline" sometime during night, to where you'll have to start all over again next day or night.

Also, if you have a lot of clients, you've probably found that ranking reports take up an enormous amount of space on your hard drive. In fact, some companies devote entire computers just to ranking reports.

Another reason for using a Web-based service versus a software program is if you're in a location where you still have to pay by minute or hour for Internet access.

Finally, some people like idea of turning over various search engine marketing functions to someone else, to where they can concentrate on other areas. For those people, Web-based reporting is ideal.

Introducing WebRank (http://www.webrank.com). . . a new Web-based Reporting Service

Besides doing its job quickly and easily, there are two things I look for in a software program or tool: intuitiveness and good customer support.

Like most people in search engine marketing industry, time is crucial to me, and I have none to waste. WebRank is so easy to use that you can get started immediately, without even having to access help files. However, to help you get started, they have a "SupportMail" follow-up system, where new subscribers receive little tips through e-mail on how to use WebRank.

And, I found that if I had any questions or problems, their technical support folks answered those questions or concerns quickly and efficiently.

How does WebRank work?