Internet Promotional Strategies
An Overview & Alternatives
1. The Law of the Dead
End Street
Setting up a web site is like building a
storefront on a dead-end street. If you
want any shoppers, you must give
them a reason to come.
2. The Law of Giving
and Selling
Attract visitors to your site by giving
away something free, and then try to sell
something additional to those who visit.
3. The Law of Trust
Trust is the essential lubricant of Web
business; without trust, business grinds to
a halt.
4. The Law of Pull & Push
Pull people to your site by your attractive
content, then push quality information to
them regularly via opt-in e-mail.
5. The Law of the Niche
Small businesses often succeed by
finding niches that are either unfilled
or only partially filled, and they fill
them with excellence.
Ten Major Types
of Online Promotion
1. E-Mail marketing
2. Search engine marketing
3. Linking strategies
4. Viral strategies
5. Public relations
6. Traditional media
7. Networking
8. Weblogs (Blogs)
9. Paid advertising
10.Affiliate Marketing
Improving Link Popularity
• Link popularity, which refers to the number of links
pointing to and from related sites, is considered by
many search engine experts as the most important
element of a site's relevance in search engines.
• Do not confuse link popularity with site popularity,
which refers to click through popularity, and how
long visitors remain at the site when they get there.
• There are three types of links that will increase the
link popularity of your site
– Internal
– Incoming
– Outgoing links
Types of Links: Internal Links
• Internal link popularity refers to the number of links
to and from pages within a site.
• Make sure you cross link your important related
pages back and forth. This will help build up your
site's theme (used by search engines to categorize
the theme of a site). By doing so, you are telling
search engine spiders that those are the most
important pages of your site.
• Cross linking your pages also helps the search
engine spiders find and index your most important
pages quicker, especially if some pages are buried
deep within your site.
Types of Links: Incoming Links
• Incoming link popularity refers to links pointing to a site from
other related sites. In addition, there are two types of incoming
links:
– Links From Sites You Control
You can control your site's theme by setting up several small
related sites. Then cross link them all together, including links
back to the main site.
Select keywords that describe the theme of the main site and use
those same keywords to link to the main site from the other sites.
The reason for doing this is because some of the major search
engines, such as Google, place a great importance on the text
used within links.
– Links From Sites You Do Not Control
There are two ways of finding sites to link to yours. The best way
to get other sites to link to yours is to ask them politely. And the
best way to find likely candidates is to ask those sites that link to
your competition!
Tools for Measuring Link
Popularity
• LinkPopularity.com http://www.linkpopularity.com/
• MarketLeap Link Popularity Check http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/
• Link Popularity Check http://www.submitexpress.com/linkpop/
• Link Popularity Checker –
http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com/linkpopularity/
Finding Sites That Link To
Your Competition
• Did you know that search engines can tell you which
sites link to your competition? To find out, visit your
favorite search engine and enter, "link:" followed by
the competitors domain name (with and without
"www").
• For example, "link:theirdomain.com" and
"link:www.theirdomain.com." (Quotation marks not
required)
• To check the link popularity of your own sites,
simply replace "theirdomain.com" with your own
domain names.
Finding Link Partners in
Directories
• Do not forget that all the sites listed in the same
category as yours in the major Web site
directories, such as the Open Directory Project
and the Yahoo Directory, are ideal link candidates
too.
• Once you have compiled a list of related sites, add
a link to them in your site. Then send an e-mail to
each site owner informing them that you have
linked to their site.
– You may decide to politely ask them for a link back to
your site. Don't forget to tell them about the benefits of
exchanging links in this manner.
Finding Sites That Accept Site
Submissions
• Another way of finding sites to link to yours is to find sites
that accept site submissions. To find such sites, visit a
search engine, such as Google, and search for: "add url"
"your keywords“
• Replace "your keywords" with those related to your site.
Include the quotation marks to ensure the search engine
only return pages with the exact search phrases you enter.
• Also try replacing, "add url" with one of the following sets of
search phrases:
– add site, add link, add a url, add a site, add a link, submit url,
submit site, submit link, submit a url, submit a site, submit a
link.
Types of Links: Outgoing
Links
• Outgoing links refers to links pointing to
other related sites from your site.
• Search engine spiders will crawl your site's
outgoing links and determine that the
content of the sites you link to are related to
the content of your own site. This will
improve the theme rating of your site.
• Some search engines now place a huge
importance on a site's theme in determining
its relevancy.
Link Keywords
• It is important to name your internal and outgoing links
carefully. Since keywords are important in determining the
relevancy of a page, it is essential that they are used
throughout a page.
• Suggest that you always name a page using the keywords
relevant to the page. In turn, the visible link text used on other
pages to link to the page should use the same keyword phrase
as the page name.
– For example, if the title of a page is "Link Popularity." Then the
page name should be "link-popularity.html," or
"link_popularity.html."
– Make sure you include a hypen or underscore between each word.
This will ensure that search engines index each word as a separate
keyword.
– Do not pack all the words together. For example,
"linkpopularity.html."
– You should also make sure that all links to that page use the link
text, "Link Popularity." You notice how everything fits together?
Link Quality
• The quality of the links is just as important, if not
more, than the number of links to your site.
• The types of sites you should concentrate on getting
links from include major search engines (Google),
popular search portals (MSN), Web site directories
(Yahoo and Open Directory Project), high trafficked
sites (eBay and Amazon), news sites (CNN),
weblogs, and sites related to your site's theme.
• Search engines consider links from major search
engines and portals as a big thumbs up for your site.
Reciprocal Linking
•Find complementary sites, link to their site
from your site, and then ask them to link to
you.
–Some sources:
•http://www.linkexchanged.com/
•http://www.linkstrategy.com/
•http://value-exchange.sitesell.com/
•http://www.gotop.com/
•http://www.links-creator.com/
•http://www.linkautomate.com/
How to Set Up Reciprocal Links
• Find GOOD QUALITY, complementary sites.
• Place a link to them on your site.
• Only AFTER you've placed a link to them, email the owner of
the site a short, friendly note. Address him or her by name.
(If the name isn't on the site, you may be able to find it at
www.whois.sc)
• Genuinely praise something on the site. If you can't find
something worth praising, delete the site from your list.
• Tell the web site owner you've linked to their site, giving
them the URL of the page where you've place your link.
• Ask for a link back to your site, suggesting a page where the
link would be appropriate.
• Three weeks later, if there's been no reply, send a brief,
polite reminder. It's easy for emails to be lost or overlooked.
• Use the phone and/or snail mail. A link from a good site is a
very valuable thing. If you can't get noticed by email,
consider trying a phone call or posting a letter. They're more
expensive but also more likely to attract the answer you
want.
• Keep an alphabetical record of sites you've linked to and
requested links from. You need to know who you've
contacted and who you haven't.
Source: http://www.associateprograms.com/articles/48/1/Howto-get-reciprocal-links
Viral Strategies
•Encourage others to
carry your marketing
message via e-mail,
using their own
network of
relationships.
– www.hotmail.com
•Encourage site visitors
to recommend your site
to their friends
–recommend-it.com
–The key is to ASK!!!
Elements of a Viral Marketing
Strategy
• Gives away products or services – “free stuff”
• Provides for effortless transfer to others
• Scales easily from small to very large
• Exploits common motivations and behaviors
• Utilizes existing communication networks
• Takes advantage of others’ resources
Source: http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles-clean.htm
Public Relations
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There are free PR services and paid resources available
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–
http://www.prweb.com/
http://www.webwire.com/
http://www.pressreleasenetwork.com/index.html
http://www.bizwire.com/
http://www.prnewswire.com/
http://www.XPressPress.com/
http://www.online-pr.com/markpr.htm
http://www.online-pr.com/
http://www.prnewswire.com/
Develop an online media kit
– Begin with the basics (the five W’s)
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•
•
•
•
Who
What
Where
When
Why
– Don’t hide
• link under a “news” or “what’s new” or “about us” button
– Update the information and date it.
– Visit RU News
Online PR
•
The six tools of a strategic online communications strategy are:
1. A Corporate Web Site. This is the first point of contact for all external audiences. The brand
and the message should be consistent with all other offline marketing and PR material.
2. A Media Room. All information that anyone would ever want about the company, updated
on a constant basis. Linked directly to the corporate web site and controlled by the PR
professionals. Brand, message, design and navigation match corporate web site.
3. A Blog. This can in many cases actually replace a web site for a small company or
individual content writer. In larger cases, a blog should be used to supplement or enhance
the web site. Savvy PR professionals should not only be posting content to weblogs but
should also be monitoring relevant weblogs for their clients.
4. A Crisis Site. Dark until needed for an eventual crisis, this is the online component of a
company's overall crisis communications plan. An insurance policy, this site is controlled
by the PR professionals. The message is prepared in times of quiet and published to the
site in advance. When the crisis occurs, the site is made live and is used as a one-stop
resource site for both internal and external audiences.
5. A Corporate Intranet. This is a vital tool for internal communications, both in times of
normalcy and in times of chaos. Employees must share the vision, the brand and the
message and be able to communicate it consistently to the outside world. Also allows for
dynamic learning, training and presentations.
6. A Client Extranet. The company gives access to a secure area for its clients and customers.
It is separate from the corporate website and password protected. It can be used for
collaboration among account team members, for managing client billings and for commerce
if so required.
Source: http://www.aboutpublicrelations.net/ucrambeau.htm
Traditional Media
•Most people still
get the majority of
their messages
through traditional
marketing channels
•Put your web site
address
everywhere and
give reasons to
visit your web site
Networking
• Search out bulletin boards, newsgroups,
and discussion lists in your industry and
take an active part.
– http://groups.google.com/
– Be very careful that you DON’T directly
advertise in these forums.
– Reasons to Network:
• Your customers and prospects may see it, and be
impressed.
• Journalists may see it and contact you for a story.
• The search engines rank you or your site higher
because you have been mentioned online.
• When someone searches for you or your company,
all of these comments are pulled up, too.
• Use signature files wisely.
– Read www.easytraining.com/signature.htm
Weblogs - What is a BLOG?
•
Blogs are alternatively called web logs or weblogs. However,
"blog" seems less likely to cause confusion, as "web log" can also
mean a server's log files.
•
A Blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually
maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary,
descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.
Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.
•
A blog is often a mixture of what is happening in a person's life and
what is happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary/guide site,
although there are as many unique types of blogs as there are
people.
•
A frequently updated website of personal ideas, thoughts,
musings, news, information, or discussions of what one has eaten
for breakfast.
•
A web log is like a journal you write in at home, except it’s hosted
on the Internet, and everyone can read it. Journalists from national
publications have blogs at their websites. It gives them the chance
to rant and rave, comment, voice their opinions, and write about
stuff they can’t publish in their regular publications. Blogs are
more casually written than magazines or newspapers.
Blog Growth
The blogosphere (as
of August 2008):
133 million blog records have
been indexed since 2002
7.4 million blogs posted in last
120 days
1.5 million blog posts in last 7
days
900,000 blog posts in 24
hours
The Blogoshpere
• Bloggers are:
– A heterogeneous group – personal,
professional and corporate bloggers all
have different goals
– Savvy & sophisticated - On average,
bloggers use five different techniques to
drive traffic to their blog. They’re using an
average of seven publishing tools on their
blog and four distinct metrics for
measuring success
– More affluent and educated than the
general population
• Blogs are profitable
– Majority of bloggers have advertising on
their blogs
– Mean annual revenue is $6,000 & annual
investment is $1,800
– Annual revenue of blogs with 100,000 or
more unique visitors per month is in
excess of $75,000
Source: http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-theblogosphere/
Global Snapshot of Bloggers
See: http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/
Blogging Topics
Impact of Blogging on
Professional Life
What is a blog post?
•
A weblog post has three basic attributes: title, link and description.
•
Templates make it easy to start a blog site. Editing, posting and generation of the
(weblog) website is largely automated.
•
The simple addition of a calendar (whether text or graphical) joined to the nowfamiliar hyperlink offers 'more than the sum' of those two simple parts for helping
readers orient themselves.
•
Examples:
– http://technorati.com/weblog/
– http://www.thenewpr.com/wiki/pmwiki.php/Resources/CorporateBlogsList
– http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/
– http://www.marketingpower.blogs.com/
– http://www.quintcareers.com/career_blog/
– http://www.scenicnursery.com/
– http://busymom.net/
–
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/default.aspx
– http://www.blogcatalog.com/
– http://dir.blogflux.com/
•
Top 100 Blogs - http://technorati.com/pop/blogs/
5 Ways Blogging Can Help Your
Business
• Expose a new or little-known product or idea
• Improve your search engine rankings
• Position yourself as an expert in an industry or
field
• Influence public opinion
• Engage in a forum openly with your customers
Sites to Help Set Up Blogs
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http://www.blogger.com/start
http://www.livejournal.com
http://www.typepad.com/
http://www.xanga.com
http://blogdrive.com
http://www.greatestjournal.com
http://www.diaryland.com
http://www.ebloggy.com/
• http://weblogawards.org/
• http://2009.bloggies.com/
Paid Advertising Pay-per-sale Advertising
(Affiliates Programs or Associates
Programs)
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/affiliate/index.asp?PID=18787&cds2Pid=18788
http://www.affiliateprimer.com/affiliate-primer-contents.html
http://www.cj.com/
Commission Junction