One of the great secrets of the Web is that with a killer online press center, you’ll be able to attract many more editors and reporters to your company Web site, and generate many more stories about your firm in the news media.

The trick to putting together such an online presence is knowing how to trigger story ideas, knowing how to relentlessly promote what you’re offering, and being sure to post the equivalent of a neon ‘welcome’ sign for members of the press who stop by.

“News publicity costs you nothing,” says Thomas Wong, author of “101 Ways To Boost Your Web Traffic.”  “It often produces better results than advertising, because people trust news articles more than sales ads. Press releases often lead to personal interviews on the phone or TV or radio appearances, which can make you and your Web site very popular.”

In fact, there are so many tactics and new Web technologies available for courting the news media, building a killer press center on your company Web site can become an ever more sophisticated, ever more free publicity generating pursuit.

But for starters, here’s what you’ll want to do:

*Offer Web-friendly press releases: While some text, quotes and contact info is a good start for a press release, you’ll get better play with online press relations if you optimize press releases for the Web. This means embedding a relevant keyword in the press release headline, as well as in the text, if possible, so it can be easily found by the search engines.

It’s also a good idea to make it easy for others to spread the word about your release — written by a crack press release writer — by adding a social bookmarking tool like AddThis.

Another good practice is to ensure visitors can effortlessly cut-and-paste your press release text into an MS Word or similar word-processing document. (On some sites, press release text is impossible to copy; others use Adobe .PDF documents, which are sometimes tough to cut-and-paste.) 

*Trigger coverage with other content:  Editors and writers are always hungry for story ideas, so you can never offer too much story idea content in your press center. The over-arching guideline here is to clearly state that all — or as much as possible — of the content you post can be directly quoted by editors and reporters. The importance of this practice cannot be overstated. Essentially, this little permission can save the press five days of phone tag with your company, and mean the difference between getting covered, and being skipped over for a more press-friendly company.

Specific content ideal for launching press coverage includes company white papers, as well as executive quotes on recent industry news, legislation or studies. The press also loves transcripts of executive speeches they can quote (always include a name and title), transcripts of recent company Webcasts, company case studies, industry survey results, and customer/client testimonials. (Always include a name, title and company for the testimonial.) If you’re lucky enough to have already been covered, also offer links to these news stories.

*Add dimension with rich media:  Once you’ve implemented the essential elements of your press center, mixing in esoteric rich media like Web video, podcasts and even virtual reality can bolster your message in an extremely compelling way.

Besides posting your company video on YouTube like thousands of other firms, you can also embed a YouTube video player on your own Web site for free.  YouTube offers a video on how to do this, as well as a companion video on how to customize the player.

One caveat: have your attorney look at YouTube’s fine print before you get too aggressive using the player or the You Tube site strictly for advertising your company. As with many things Web, this area is still very gray.

Other multimedia you can add to your site are podcasts (check out Podcast Directory for all the skinny on those), and virtual reality, or 3D-like moving images. Software for creating virtual reality includes Quicktime VR and IPIX.

*Become a media authority: You’ll get even more coverage if you establish one or more executives at your company as a media authority. Blogs are one of the quickest ways for an exec to loom large before the press — but only if the blog is interesting and insightful. One of the easiest ways to guarantee this is to simply hire a good ghost blogger.

Meanwhile, you can enhance the credibility of your media authority execs by publicizing them on the various “expert stables” on the Web — places where recognized authorities gather to be quoted by the media. Some of the more prominent stables include Profnet, and ExpertClick.

*Be charming:  Most companies ‘get’ that offering a name, voice and email contact info for all key public relations personnel in your press center is a good start. But the same contact info for key executives who are open to being interviewed is even better. A promise — and practice — to turn around all press requests within 24 hours will go even further towards winning you instant friendships in the press. And a stated openness to quickly respond to a media “email interview” will inspire reporters to wonder if they’ve died and gone to heaven.

*Tweak under the hood:  During the past few years, Google has released a number of free tools designed to help your press center appear as high as possible on Google search engine returns.  Sign up for a free Google Webmaster’s account and all these tools are yours to use. Plus, once your press center is search-friendly for Google, the center will also be optimized for most of the other major search engines as well.

While you’re at it, also be sure your press center downloads like quicksilver.  For speed optimization tips, check out Andrew B. King’s book, “Speed Up Your Site.” Founder of Web Site Optimization, LLC, King also offers a free toolthat will check to see if your press center is optimized for speed.

*Promote relentlessly:  One of the great equalizers of the Web is that a tiny, nimble company can leap ahead of the largest goliath with the right promotion. Offering press releases and a company e-newsletter gets this process started.   But you can also offer the same information via RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds, for reporters who like their news delivered via that technology. (IceRocket will make your page RSS-friendly for free.)

*Other tactics that work:  Circulate your news through a professional press release distribution service like PRNewswire, or via free services (use keywords “free press release distribution” to find these on the search engines). Post a “send-this-page-to-a-friend” button on every page of your press center, and Web site. Establish an industry links directory with FocalMedia’s PowerSeek SQL or similar software, to attract more traffic to your site. Add a live chatroom to your press center if you have a staff person who can babysit it – LivePerson is one of many good live chat solutions. And establish a presence on social networks like Facebook, MySpaceand Twitter, as well as in virtual worlds like Second Life if your target audience tends to cluster there.

Measure your success: The quickest way to an increased press center budget, as we all know, is quantifiable results. Document how journalist traffic has increased on your press center with Google Analytics, another free program.
 
Or, if you’re looking for even more robust analytics, check out software like Coremetrics, WebTrends and Omniture.

Safeguard your reputation:  Once people start talking about your company on the Web – including editors, reporters, bloggers and others – make sure they’re not engaging in libel, slander or other image-tarnishing talk.

Specific service providers who will help you out with this reputation monitoring include Dow Jones Insight, Nielsen Online, BlogSquirrel and WebClipping.com.

Joe Dysart is an award-winning journalist with 20+ years experience, and author of the free ebook, “Killer Press Centers Demystified: