Our guest blogger Murry Shohat is back with the final installment in the series, Understanding Publicity.

Websites are dynamic, living things. They breathe (or they should). A static website that rarely changes or fails to regularly add content is like a store with goods on display but no employees to transact business. One good way to add life to your website is through publicity. This part of my series tells you how to get publicity and what to do with it to keep your website breathing.

Our guest blogger Murry Shohat is back with Part 2 in the series, Understanding Publicity. Let’s get to it.

In Understanding Publicity, Part 1, I mentioned that with advertising, you pay for space and time. With publicity, you mostly PRAY for space and time. The reason is simple: there is a sort of “church/state” separation or wall that is firmly in place in western journalism. You can buy ads but you can’t buy a news story. You can pay for a TV or radio commercial but you can’t throw dollars at a reporter for coverage, not in any media that’ll help your business. Online, you can pay for incoming links to increase your page ranking in major search engines, but many experts, and even Google frowns upon this type on insincere and inorganic form of website publicity.

If you study the media, you’ll learn that good editorial content receives five to twenty times more attention than advertising content. On the web especially, content is king. We sometimes mute commercials, or skip them, right? We do the same for interruptive flash banner ads. We usually read a newspaper for news and features, barely noticing the ads. Thus, if you can get editorial attention, it’s worth the effort because the attention provides leverage. Sitting on top, like whipped cream, is the endorsement value of publicity.

Today’s guest post comes from a long-time San Francisco Bay Area freelance writer and journalist, Murry Shohat. For over 20 years, Murry has been writing and providing PR and marketing services for technology and media firms. I figured Murry could enlighten us on how to publicize our small businesses and make us all famous and wealthy…maybe.

Small business owners tell me that marketing is one of the most difficult things to figure out. Energy flows in new and even mature small businesses emanate from the competency of the owner. Whether you are a chef, retailer, mechanic, accountant, e-bay lister, dentist, inventor, software developer, entertainer or what-have-you, marketing is not high on your list of new things to master. In fact, marketing often gets after-thought attention. And that’s a shame because winning new customers (and keeping current ones) is the chief focus of marketing. Done properly, proactive marketing becomes the lifeblood of the business, oxygenating every aspect.