free online publicity

Roshini Rajkumar, guest hosting on the Al Malmberg Show on WCCO Radio, interviewed me from 4:30am until 5am. Listen to the interview.

I’ve known Roshini for quite awhile and I’m actually a client of hers.

Her firm, Roshini MultiMedia leverages her years of experience in front of the camera in TV news to teach others how to be comfortable if the news media come calling.

She also teaches people how to do their own PR work to get “Ink and Air”, as she calls it, from the media. Check out Roshini’s blog.

I don’t know how many times I have come to a website and they have some little box halfway down the page that says “Subscribe to our newsletter” and a “click here” button. Give me one good reason why I would subscribe to that newsletter. Actually, I’ll give you several great reasons why no one will:

• They didn’t even consider it important enough to give it a name. How lame or unimportant must that newsletter be?
• And is there anything there telling me why I should subscribe to that newsletter?
• Any hint of the powerful or useful information I’ll be regaled with should I subscribe?

There are a lot of ways to promote your website online that don’t involve spending money on banner ads, tiles, or adwords campaigns. And in the long run, the no-cost methods are a lot more effective.

Why?

Because unlike TV or radio or magazines or newspapers or any other media, the search engines are not in the business of producing content for the sole purpose of selling advertising. Nor are they in the business of promoting businesses.