photo by gnotalex

If you think only people like Paris Hilton or Tiger Woods take advantage of Public Relations, think again. Smaller businesses with very modest budgets have a lot to gain from PR. And now that businesses are popping up on the internet at an ever-increasing rate, a well executed public relations campaign has the power to set you apart from the masses.

Not convinced that you need some help to get noticed? Take a look at these statistics and maybe you will change your mind:

* From the years 1999 to 2000 there was a 50% increase in unique websites, from 3.5 million to 7 million sites.

* In February 2007, the Netcraft Web Server Survey found 108,810,358 distinct websites.

* In North America alone approximately 246,402,574 use the internet (as of March 2008).

* Today there are over 1,407,724,920 internet users Worldwide.

With all these websites vying for our attention, how do your potential customers know which ones are worthy of their time? The numbers show without a doubt that a wealth of new customers could be yours. But do you understand what it takes to attract their attention? With the help of a trusted PR firm you will be in a much better position to take advantage of the internet boom. Here are 4 major considerations you may want to keep in mind when choosing a firm that is right for you:

Read more…

Article directories are a great resource for building new website content, as well as enhancing your own website’s SEO. For some reason I really like article directories – as a matter of fact, I like them so much I created two of my own article directories: Avenstar’s Article Vine and Our Inner Source Articles. Avenstar’s Article Vine is a general Free directory with all sorts or articles on many different subjects, where the OIS Article directory is strictly geared towards inspirational articles.

artticle directories

So, why go to the trouble and expense to create my own directories? I was frustrated by the majority of directories being so limited. Too many rules like an unrealistic minimum of word requirement. What if you want to submit a poem or short story? Other rules involve not allowing images. What? I love images – images really help tell a story or make a point. Not to mention, add color and life to plain old text. I also wanted my directories to allow for HTML code so people can add a little artisitc flair to their articles.

There are other article directories that offer some of these features and even more. If you’d like to share some that you like or recommend, just make a comment and I’ll include them.

Mark McGinnis, bringyousuccess.com

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Hi friends,

This post is meant to give you a heads up when it comes to protecting your website. I manufacture and distribute an electronic moving and glowing Fireflies product with my partner, Kim. Since 2003 we have sold this cool gadget as Magical Fireflies under the url with the same name. In 2004 another website popped up selling their version of the electronic fireflies that are very lame – basically they are stagnant lights that only blink on and off “kinda like last year’s broken Xmas lights.”

So what do these creeps do? Five years later (last January 2008) they trademark the the name we have been using “Magical Fireflies”, hire a fancy lawyer, and sue to have our site transfered to them! This unscrupulous website is called Firefly Magic. Not once did they try to contact us in the 5 years we have been online. The only communication they initiated to us was to inform us that they were planning on stealing our website. We filed the response ourselves to the National Arbitration Forum-we were very confident with our evidence. This was probably a mistake, since I am sure their lawyer was much more schooled in the domain registry law lingo. But our first mistake was not having our name trademarked from the get-go.

We were naive to think that there were such unsavory thieves slinking around. We lost our nice high-ranking PR 4 website and now our customers are left not knowing where to find us.

But we have bounced back under a new name – we are now called Zen Fireflies and our site is at http://www.zenfireflies.com . We are PPC and radio advertising-and I am writing blogs and articles to spread the word. Do not let this happen to you.

Keep in mind that Kim and I had our original website protected under copyright laws since 2003. I clearly used the name “magical” to describe the fireflies for years, this is why we did not think we needed a lawyer – Copyright laws clearly state that work which is marked as copyrighted, is therefore protected.

Theoretically, the descriptive way in which you present whatever you are selling or writing about is yours and no one can take that from you. Again, this is why we did not hire a lawyer-clearly we would win, right? Well, we didn’t.

When things like this happen, I always try to look at the bright side. I know our loyal customers will find us. The alternative is using a product that is totally NOT magical. I know karma will bite Firefly Magic in the butt, and I know whoever reads this post will spread the word, and learn from our mistakes. Thanks for listening, and best of luck to all of you!

Mark/Zen Fireflies