Free Press Release Generator

Weekly Recommended Resource

Lisa Manyon of Write On Creative created a free press release tool called Write On Creative Press Release Producer that I use and recommend. This wonderful tool requires just two easy steps:

1. Input your information in the required fields.
2. Hit “Display My Press Release” and your draft release can be viewed and copied on the following page.

And don’t forget to click on the “Grab Your Free Stuff “ icon at the top of the page to receive your free copywriting action plan from Lisa.

I recently had the great pleasure of interviewing Lisa on my BlogTalkRadio Show, “Your Partner In Success“. She gave our audience some really terrific tools, tips and advice about copywriting and how to get people to pay close attention to the message that you are delivering. If you didn’t have an opportunity to listen and download yet, you can listen here.

Free Search Engine Simulator – Test Your Site!

Weekly Recommended Resource

This free search engine simulator tool from To the Web.com shows you just how the search engines “see” your web page. I recommend you test your site(s) right away. I tested all of mine and found that one of them had the following meta tag incorrectly installed which means that Google DOES NOT FOLLOW that link.

<meta name=’robots’ content=’noindex,nofollow’ />

I am a web developer and know better, but these things do happen and you need to be sure that you are building and testing your pages correctly. Find the best tools for the job at hand and use them!

Here are the basic No Follow question and answers from Google, Ask.com and Yahoo.

How does your search engine treat the No Follow attribute?

• Google : The Googlebot does not follow that link.
• Yahoo : If we find a link we make it available to our algorithms to find new content, whether it has a ‘no follow’ attribute or not. However, if the ‘no follow’ attribute is present, it means that no attribution is given to the target from the source of the link.
• Ask.com : We have never officially supported No Follow, so your questions don’t apply to our crawler/ranking.

If a site has no web citations and only has one link pointing to it, and that link is from a Wikipedia entry, would your search engine find that site and index it even though the link uses a No Follow attribute?

• Yahoo : Yes, the link is available to our crawlers for finding the target. Then the target will be crawled and indexed based on our algorithms.
• Google : Assuming that link is still no-followed per Wikipedia’s current practice, we will not find much less index that page (remember, this is page, not site related; if links to other pages on that site are not no-followed, we will see and potentially index those pages).On a related note, though, and echoing Matt’s earlier sentiments… we hope and expect that more and more sites — including Wikipedia — will adopt a less-absolute approach to no-follow… expiring no-follows, not applying no-follows to trusted contributors, and so on.

Is there any quality given to sites which attract No Follow links from authority sites, besides the lack of the passing of PageRank, Link Authority or “Search Juice”?

• Google : Since the Googlebot does not follow no-follow links, this isn’t really an issue.
• Yahoo : As promised in the semantics for the ‘no follow’ tag, the anchor text and attribution will not be carried over to the target of a ‘no follow’ link.

WP WishList – Membership Site Plugin

Buy 1 License, Get The Second for $25 Until March 17

If you, or a client want to create a quick and VERY powerful membership site using your current or planned WordPress installation, I highly recommend Wishlist Member. 

As more and more web development clients discover the power of WordPress, we find ourselves working regularly with  projects that integrate this membership plugin.

Right now Wishlist Member is offering a Two License Promo (this is not advertised on their site) meaning that anyone who purchases a Single Site License has the opportunity to get a second license at a whopping 74% discount. It’s the best deal they’ve ever offered and for an extra $25, you get a second license – which means you can use it on another site.

If you’ve been thinking about starting a membership site, private community or you need a way to deliver a digital course, then you’ll want to take a look at this. 

Why do I recommend this plugin so highly?

Because I work in it almost daily for myself and for our Web Development and Virtual Assistance clients. It’s by far the best solution for creating a membership site and there are even 30+ videos available for free showing you how it’s being used.  Besides the huge savings, you’ll find that once you start using WishList Member, you’ll quickly see that there are many ways to use it. 

For example, a little while back they released a free training video demonstrating 10 of the most popular kinds of membership sites (and some of them don’t even have content inside!). You can view that here.

My Web Development team is expert at working with this plugin so please feel free to ask any questions you like!

Does Your Small or Online Business Have a Toll Free Number?

One thing we always recommend during a web development project is that the client consider obtaining a toll free number. Having a toll free number on your website while offering credibility, also offers the opportunity to not publish to the world your home or cell phone number. In this day of work-from-home entrepreneurs, this is an important consideration.

My office uses Grasshopper which used to be called GotVMail. Grasshopper is very easy to set up. Just pick a toll free number for your business, or transfer your current number. Then record your main greeting. You will also have the opportunity to have it professionally recorded if that is your preference. Add departments and employees, choose what phone number you want your calls to terminate to and you are done. I actually don’t have my toll free number ring to my office as it can be terribly disruptive. What we have done is to create mailboxes and departments and have the voice messages emailed to the proper department as an .MP3.

There is also a “Read Your Voicemail” function available for an additional $10 a month. If you are on the run a good bit, the voicemail transcription will be emailed to you as readable text. You’ll be able to stay connected when you can’t listen to the .MP3 file of your voicemail. You can also listen to your messages on your Blackberry or iPhone. Just click the “Play It On Mobile link in the notification email and you’ll be listening to your voice mails without dialing or logging in to your account. For those of us on the run, this is a great tool.

Another really great feature is that you have unlimited extensions for your small business. Each extension has its own call forwarding, voicemail and message delivery settings. Even if you’re the only employee, by utilizing unlimited extensions you are giving your small business the big business sound that it needs.

Truthfully, there are too many features for me to list here. What I can tell you is that we use it, and love it. It is also very affordable to have a toll free number these days. Plans start at $9.95 a month and there is a $25 activation fee. My monthly bill seems to hover around $25 a month which given all that the system offers is remarkably affordable. Be warned though, if you make a habit of answering the calls that come through on your toll free number you will run your bill right up through the roof. I strongly recommend that you treat this strictly as a voice mail system and return the calls at your first opportunity.

To train with Denise Griffitts to become a highly technically savvy, highly paid, highly sought-after Virtual Assistant please visit Virtual Assistance University.

**You have permission to reprint in your publication or to your website/blog any articles by Denise Griffitts found on this Website as long as Denise Griffitt’s name and contact information is included. Denise Griffitts, Virtual Assistance Industry Expert, http://internetmasteryblog.com, info @ virtualassistantindustry.com, 888-719-6711.