Some time ago, a small-business client approached me about handling public relations for her firm. She had been writing her own press releases and submitting them to press but all of her efforts had generated no press. She asked me to critique her work to discover what she might be doing wrong. Upon reviewing her press releases, I found that her writing skills were outstanding but problem came when I began to investigate methods by which she was submitting her releases. The five rules below illustrate lessons that she learned about distributing press releases to media.

Rule #1: Do your homework on reporters. You can start with Bacons' Media Directory, which serves as public relations practioner's Bible. If you don't know what it is, basically it lists name, address, phone number, fax number, e-mail, beat (issue or specific type of story to cover), deadlines, and story preferences and angles for most every reporter and news producer anywhere in world. There are five volumes of books: Newspapers, Magazines, TV/Cable, Radio and International. You can purchase books or get same information from Bacons' in CD-Rom format or through an online subscription. These books are invaluable but unfortunately are also very expensive. Here's a tip: You can access them for free usually at your local public library or a college library. Use these books to help you narrow down reporters that you think would be helpful for launching your story. If Bacon's is completely out of your budget, just follow your favorite local newspaper to determine which reporters cover which stories.

Without website traffic it's same as building an expensive billboard and, instead of placing it alongside a busy highway, you hide it in your basement where nobody can see it.

Upon realizing they need traffic, most website owners run out and start blowing chunks of money and time trying to get "hits" to their sites, but they fail to realize that all "hits" are not created equal.

In their quest to get eyeballs to their websites, most online operators don't realize there's a big difference between driving "general" traffic to your website and driving "targeted" traffic. Just getting any traffic is same technique TV advertisers use. They flash ads on screen in front of people who can't afford or don't need advertised product. Since general advertising can't hit specific targets, they hit everyone and hope that someone in their target audience is actually watching at that moment. Spam, banner ads, "safe-lists" and similar traffic techniques fall into this "general" category. "Targeted" traffic is made up of people who are genuinely interested in what you have to say or sell online. These people either share same interests or have an immediate need or problem they are trying to solve.