Free Content for Your Fact Sheets and Brochures

Fact sheets and brochures branded with your name can enhance your image as an expert. If the information is helpful, people will keep these items and pass them on to others.

You don’t need to write all the content yourself. Save time by using material that’s already out there. You can use documents produced by U.S. government agencies – such as NIMH – without getting in trouble for plagiarizing. Why? Anything produced by the U.S. government is in the public domain. It is not copyrighted. That means:

• You don’t need permission to use the content. 

• You don’t need to pay royalties.
• You are free to use the content in any way you like. You can modify it, adapt it, or use just parts of it.
• You are not obligated to cite the source. In fact you can put your own name on it.

Here are a few examples of publications from NIMH:

• Fact sheets on ADHD, PTSD, The teenage brain, Suicide warning signs

• Booklets (some have Spanish version) on Anxiety disorders, Autism spectrum disorder, Eating disorders, Men and depression

• Statistics on various mental conditions and disorders

• An image library with images (mostly of the brain) to enhance your brochures

All of the above publications from NIMH are in the public domain, absolutely free for your use. More resources on psychological topics are available at the websites of other government agencies. For example:

• Post-stroke rehabilitation fact sheet, from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
• Anger Management booklet from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
• Homework tips for Parents, from the Department of Education

How to find public domain content in government websites:

USA.gov is the main portal. From there you can search within specific agencies (e.g., NIH, NIMH, Department of Justice, etc.) or type your keywords into the search box to get results from more than one government agency.

Alternatively, you can search Google, adding the following to your keywords: site:gov (no spaces between the characters.) This tells Google to search only within government websites.

NOTE: Although all documents and images produced by the federal government are in the public domain, you may find some material on government websites that was produced by an outside contractor. Such material may be protected by copyright.

Therefore, when searching for public domain content, add the phrase  “public domain” (in quotes) to your search. A Google search for tips on anger management would look like this:
“anger management” tips “public domain” site:gov

With public domain content you can quickly churn out fact sheets and brochures on several topics. Just copy and paste. If you have more time, you can modify the content so that it better reflects you and your practice.

Where to Distribute Fact Sheets and Brochures:

• Give them to clients when appropriate.
• Drop them off (after getting permission) at the offices of other professionals (physicians, attorneys, etc.) as well as at hair salons, health clubs, schools and other places where your prospective clients hang out. 

• Post them for download on your website.

• Hand them out at your presentations.

Be sure to include your full contact information on every product. This not only makes it convenient for people to get in touch with you; it also helps to brand you as an expert on the topic.

** Please join my free, monthly conference calls focused on marketing. Sign up online at bit.ly/monthlycalls
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NAMS 5 Webinar Series, and more...

A couple of weeks ago I was part of a week-long NAMS 5 webinar series - 26 hours of presentations on the latest tools and techniques in online marketing and productivity. 

My presentation was titled: Beat Procrastination...For Real This Time. It generated a bit of Twitter buzz, since it's a problem we can all relate to.

By the end of the week I had tons of notes and links from the other expert presenters that I've already put to use.

After the webinar series was over, organizer David Perdew kept working. He gathered all the Powerpoint presentations and put them on a download site. Then he added:

• PDFs and Audios of the presentations
• Audio files from FOUR previous NAMS 3-day conferences (150 hours) 
• Software - Article Twister and Local Domain Hound

As if all that isn't enough, he's including the following, which are coming up:

• 18 hours of "deep dive" interviews over the next few months
• A free ticket to the NAMS 6 live conference in August.

How much is he asking for everything (and more) mentioned above?

UNTIL FEB 4 at 5 pm Eastern, you can get it all for $397.

I've never seen so much quality, expert content offered for this fee. I strongly recommend that you take a look a this before the Feb 4 deadline.

Here's my affiliate link to learn more and sign up. I'll be at NAMS 6 in August. If you're there, I'll treat to dinner on Friday night.

pw

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Outsource for $5?

Outsourcing work can be kind of scary. You have to trust people you've never met, based on recommendations from other people you've never met.

What if you could outsource a small task - say, do a voiceover for your video...or send out press releases...or even build a Facebook fan page for you - any of these for 5 bucks?

Fiverr.com brings together people willing to give a small sample of their work for $5, and those who are looking for help with these tasks. It's a great way try outsourcing and see how it works for you.

There are some fun opportunities on Fiverr as well. Want an Elvis impersonator to croon "Happy Birthday" to your mom? Need a wallet made of duct tape (any color)? Interested in what happened on the day you were born? You can get all these for $5.

But there are some shady offers on Fiverr as well. Don't be tempted by those that promise you 500 incoming links to your website, or 25,000 views to your Youtube video. These links and hits are generated by software robots. Once Google catches on (and it eventually will) that they are not legitimate, you may suddenly find that yourself de-listed by Google.

5 Ways to be found in Google search results

Do you want to be more visible in Google search results? Here are 5 simple tips:

1. Get a free listing on Google Maps, When people search for a local product or service, a map of their geographic region is displayed ABOVE all the other search results. Even if you don't have a website, your business can appear on this map.
   
2. Post quality content on your website or blog, and post it often. Google ranks websites by the amount of content on a website as well the richness of content and how often it's updated. Great content is the best Google bait!
   
3. Try to match your keywords and key phrases with what your audience is probably typing into search engines. Use these keywords in the title and description metatags of your website or blog, and in the content you post on your website. Use the Google Keyword Tool for suggestions.
4. Post comments on other blogs and news sites. Arrange with colleagues to do a guest blog post on their sites, and invite them to do the same.
   
5. Get incoming links pointing to your site. Link from your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Ask noncompeting colleagues to link to you. Use contextual links that contain keywords such as marketing for professionals, rather than simply "click here." Contextual links that relate to what your website is about, are considered more relevant by search engines. If you have a lot of similar contextual links pointing to your site, you will likely get a higher ranking in search results when people search on those keywords.

Beyond bookmarks...

How do you save web pages and other online information? Still using the Bookmarks or Favorites feature of your browser? That saves the link, but only on the computer you’re using at the time. You won’t have access to your browser-based bookmarks from other computers or from your smartphone.

Moreover, with the limited sorting and categorizing capabilities of browser-based bookmarks, you might have trouble finding them later on your computer.

Nowadays it’s easy to store bookmarks and web pages “in the cloud” so that you can access them from any device connected to the Internet. You have hundreds of options. Here are a few, based on how you might use your bookmarks:


If you just want quick access to your favorite websites and links…

A simple online bookmarking service is all you need. Organize your links by categories, and/or label them with “tags” (keywords or key phrases) that will help you find them later. For example, suppose you have a collection of links to your favorite shopping sites, under the category Shopping. Each link saved under Shopping can be tagged with one or more keywords such as books, pet supplies, cameras, etc.

Later, when you search for the tag, camera, you’ll pull up all the links you tagged with that word – not just from the Shopping category, but across all categories. Thus, if you also had a Photography category of links, some of which were tagged with camera, these would also show up.

Simple online bookmark managers include: Google bookmarks, Yahoo bookmarks, Delicious.com (no categories, tags only.)


If you want to collect content for reviewing later on…

Use bookmarking services with extra features such as highlighting and annotating. You can highlight parts of web pages, and they will still be highlighted when you return to the page (assuming that you are logged into the bookmarking site.) You can also attach virtual sticky notes with comments.

Other features include saving snippets or snapshots of web pages, so that you can view them in your collection even if the original sources are taken off line.

My favorite bookmarking site is diigo.com. They have a free and premium version. In addition to the above features, the premium version ($40/year) gives you the option of saving only the text of your bookmarked pages (without clutter or ads) and full-text search of your bookmarked pages.


If you want to work with your collected content…

When doing research for a writing project, you need more than simply access to content. You also need to organize the content, extract what you need for your article or book, and make your own notes and annotations along the way. Here are two online tools:

Webnotes.net allows you to highlight text on web pages, annotate, and search for text within your annotations. In your Webnotes account you can set up folders for each writing project, keeping all related content together. One very useful feature is the ability to display text you’ve highlighted from different web pages (i.e., only the content that’s important to you) all in one interface. The “Pro” version of Webnotes ($35/year) adds features such as saving and annotating PDF pages, generating reports and automatically saving permanent copies of web pages.

Zotero.org is less intuitive to use than Webnotes, but allows you to upload files from your computer into your online account. It also includes a powerful citation manager. With a click of your mouse you can capture the bibliographic information for any web page or document, using any of several citation styles, including APA.


All the tools listed above are free, except where noted. No need to stick to just one – try a few and see which work best for you.

Build Incoming Links to Your Website

Would you like your website or blog to appear higher in the search results of Google and other search engines? One way is to have lots of incoming links from other sources.

The more places on the Web that point to your site, the more “popular” you are considered by search engines, and the higher you will be listed in search results.

Here are 7 ways to build incoming links:

1. Post comments on other people’s blogs. In your post, include a link back to your own blog or website. 15 comments = 15 more links pointing to you.
   
2. Post comments on news sites, and include a link to your site. BONUS: The journalists who write news stories read every comment. If they like yours, they may contact you for input on a future news story.
   
3. Write articles and submit them to article banks such as EzineArticles.com or GoArticles.com. You’ll be asked for several keywords or key phrases that describe the content of your article – e.g., shyness, overcome shyness, conversation starter, social confidence.  When someone types any of those keywords into Google, your article will come up in the search results.
   
4. When you post relevant content on social networking sites (Facebook, Linkedin, etc.) add a link back to your website.
   
5. Ask colleagues in non-competing fields to exchange links. On your website you place a link to theirs, and vice versa.
   
6. Make a Youtube video (2 minutes or less) on a topic of interest. It need not be you talking into the camera; it can be a slideshow with background music. On the first and last slides have a link to your website.
   
7. Get listed in therapist directories such as PsychologyToday.com or GoodTherapy.org. These directories will submit your name, location and other keywords to the search engines.

Tips for creating links:

• Give some thought to which page on your site that you want people to go. It won’t always be your main URL e.g., mywebsite.com. If your goal is to send people to an internal page, such as the “about me” page, make it easy for them. Have your link point to that exact page, e.g., mywebsite.com/aboutme.


• Use contextual links. These are actual words and phrases that link to a specific webpage. The most common phrase is click here, but there are much better ones. For example, let’s say you wrote an article on stress management. At the end of your article you might say, “See my website for more tips on how to manage stress.” Your link is not “my website;” it’s “how to manage stress.”
  
  This will help Google and other search engines recognize that “how to manage stress” is an important key phrase in your website. Later, when other people search the web for “how to manage stress” your site will already be identified as very relevant to that phrase, and will rank higher in the search results.

Get more mileage from your community presentations

One of the best ways to market your practice is to give presentations to local community groups. But for all the work you put into the preparation, wouldn’t it be nice to reach more than a few dozen people?

You can, if you take the content of your workshop and “repurpose” it into different formats for different audiences.

Let’s say you gave a presentation to a group of parents about communicating with their teens, and that you distributed a handout. You can repurpose the content of both your presentation and your handout:

• Take your handout and create a tips sheet for your clients. You may have to condense your ideas so that they fit on one page. If you have too much content for one page, create several tips sheets, each covering one sub-topic. 

• From the notes from your presentation, write an article – or a series of articles, depending on how much you covered in the presentation. Your articles should be no longer than 500 words. Post them online at your website or blog, or distribute them via email. You can also post them on article banks such as ezinearticles.com, where others can use your article in their own newsletters or blogs (with full credit to you.)

• Make video recordings of segments of your presentation and post them on youtube. They should be no longer than 3-5 minutes each.  If you covered 7 points in your presentation, make 7 individual videos.

• Make an audio recording of your presentation, using an inexpensive microphone connected to your computer. Using the free software, audacity, you can record, edit, and even add music to your recording. Post the mp3 file as a download on your website. Or put it on CD. For just $1 apiece at kunaki.com, you can create professional-looking CDs and jewel cases.

These are just a few ways to get more mileage from your presentations. Please share how you have repurposed (or intend to repurpose) your content. Post your comment below.