It’s true - while some PR people spend months trying to win over cynical reporters in order to wrangle a company profile or CEO interview (and get nowhere), an army of journalists are proactively hunting for facts, figures and interview candidates.

Now bad news: these same journalists say most online press rooms suck. Big time. If you’re thinking to yourself: ‘Uh-oh, we don’t have a press room,’ chances are you’re missing out on important media opportunities. If you’re thinking: ‘What’s a press room?’ you need to act fast.

In an ideal world, a press room is a vibrant, constantly updated section of your corporate website including company backgrounders, executive profiles, news releases (with a comprehensive, searchable archive), media mailing list and - perhaps most importantly - clear and concise contact information if journalists need to get in touch.

Want to see a great press room? As usual, Google pulls it off by keeping things nice and simple:

http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/index.html

If you haven’t got time or resources to put together a world-class press room like that, here are a couple of strategies that can help you in short-term. But keep in mind these are suggested as temporary measures - an accessible, professional press room is no longer a luxury for a company that considers itself professional, it’s an absolute necessity.

• Blog It!

Sign up for a blog at one of big free providers such as Blogger (http://www.blogger.com). These services are template based and you can have their standard layouts look and feel like your own site in a jiffy. To be honest, even if you use standard template, change title and give it odd tweak here and there you’ve still covered important bases.

Then place a link on your corporate website to new blog (perhaps label it as ‘News Blog’ or plain old ‘News Room’ or ‘Press Room’) and you’re ready to promote your news. Be sure to include full contact details in blog’s bio section - remember, journalists are always on one deadline or another and they want your input NOW! If you’re worried about spambots gathering your email address, include them as ‘name <-at-> domain dot com’. If a journalist can’t work that out you probably don’t want to hear from them anyway!

1) ‘Great Headline’ - Increase sales up to (1700%). You must have an attention grabbing headline or your prospects will move on to a different website in a matter of seconds. And all work you put into rest of your sales page is wasted because people won’t be reading it. So it is very important to spend a lot of time and effort into creating excellent headlines and sub-headlines. Study pros, brush up on your copywriting skills, and invest in some e-books on writing headlines.

2) ‘Strong Guarantee’ - Increase sales up to (400%). You should have a strong guarantee for all your products. Only offer products that you really believe in and you will have a smaller amount of returns. Have a rock solid, no questions asked, 100% money back guarantee and you will sell more products because your customers will feel safe buying from you. And longer guarantee more sales you’ll make. Now some people will return your products but with longer guarantee and increase in sales you can afford to have a few returns.

3) ‘Pop-Ups’ - Increase sales up to (300%). You can use a pop-up when people visit your website to tempt them to join your newsletter. Or have an exit pop-up when they leave. You can offer a discount here if you like or maybe offer a freebie to collect their names and email address to use later. Another technique would be to ask them why they are leaving. Offer them a free gift if they fill out a survey and you’ll be able to use this information to improve your future sales.

4) ‘Testimonials’ - Increase sales up to (250%). It will increase your sales if you use testimonials because it will add creditability to your products. If you are buying something online from someone for first time there’s no way of knowing if you’ll receive a good product. So it’s always easier to make that final decision about buying from someone if you can read a testimonial or two from people who have already purchased same product.

5) ‘Backend Products’ - Increase sales up to (250%). This should be a very good way to make lots of extra money. After someone buys your product, or joins your newsletter, you will add them to your list. It will always be easier to sell to someone that has purchased from you before. Send them an email that promotes one of your products and have links that will take them to your sales page or to your affiliate’s sales page. Also be sure to send them valuable free information whenever you can to help keep them on your list.