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HOW TO ESTABLISH INBOUND LINKS TO YOUR WEBSITE

Less Effective One-Way Link Strategies

Yet there’s perennial interest in alternative linking strategies. They range from bad to OK, but none offer as much potential as the five major ways of getting links.

• Link farms never seem to die. The latest variations try to pass themselves off as viral marketing, but are really a sort of endless pyramid scheme: you link to me, so I link to someone else, who links to someone else, and on and on down the line. Link farms can get you delisted from search engine indexes, so don’t even try them.
• Affiliates can provide you with one-way inbound links if you use affiliate software that links directly to your site rather than through a redirect. But many, many affiliates are now placing all their affiliate links in redirects of their own invention, to help protect their commissions from pirates who will simply apply to the program themselves to get a discount.
• Posting to web forums and blogs regularly will get you one-way inbound links, but they’ll only have search-engine value a small percentage of the time. Many blogs and bulletin boards use search-engine-unfriendly dynamic file formats, automatically encase links in script, or use robot instructions to prevent spiders from following links.

Here are five major ways of getting large numbers of one-way inbound links. None is a good strategy all on its own. You must implement all five strategies to achieve any real results.

1. Waiting for Inbound Links

If you have good content you will eventually get one-way inbound links naturally, without asking. Organic, freely given links are an essential part of any SEO strategy. But you cannot rely on them, for two reasons:

• Unfortunately, ‘eventually’ can be a very long time.
• Worse, there is a vicious cycle: you can’t get search engine traffic, or other non-paid traffic, without inbound links; yet without inbound links or search engine traffic, how is anyone going to find you to give you inbound links?

2. Triangulating for Inbound Links

Search engines will have a tough time dampening reciprocal links if the reciprocation is not direct. To get links to one website you offer in exchange a link from another website you also control. This would seem to be a mostly foolproof way of defeating the link-dampening ambitions of Google. If you have more than one website, you probably are already employing this linking method. There are only a few drawbacks:

• You need to have more than one website in the same general category of interest or the links won’t be relevant.
• The work required to set up this kind of arrangement and verify compliance is not insignificant. The process cannot be automated to the same extent as direct one-to-one reciprocal linking.
• As with traditional reciprocal links, a very big drawback is that the links are mostly on ‘Resources’ pages that are just lists of links. There’s only a small chance of getting significant traffic from these links. Plus, any ‘Resource’ page may well eventually become an easy target for link dampening, if that hasn’t happened already.

3. Submitting to Directories

They are the legendary fairy lands of SEO: Page Rank-passing, no-fee-charging, and actually well-run directories of relevant links. Yes, they really do exist. An SEO acquaintance tells me he knows 200 good ones just off the top of his head. Plus, there are other kinds of directories: directories of affiliate programs, of websites using a certain content management system, of websites whose owners are members of this or that group, of websites accepting PayPal, etc. etc. Ah, a link in a Page Rank-passing link directory: it’s a good deal if you can get it. But let’s say you do get links from all 200 such directories and a hundred more from the little niche directories–now what?

4. Paying for Inbound Links

Buying and selling text links on high-Page Rank web pages has become big business. Buying good traffic-generating ‘clean’ links is a great alternative to pay-per-click advertising, which confers no SEO benefit. But, there are a number of pitfalls of relying primarily on paid links for SEO:

• The cost of the hundreds of links required for substantial search engine traffic can become prohibitive.
• As soon as you stop paying, you lose your link–you are essentially renting rather than owning, with no ‘link equity’ building up.
• Google is actively trying to dampen the impact of paid links on rankings, as revealed in various patent filings. A website can try to mask the fact that the links are paid, but how well it does that is out of your control.
• Given Google’s mission to dampen paid links’ effectiveness, paid link buyers have an interest in verifying that a potential paid link partner is ‘passing Page Rank.’ But identifying appropriate Page Rank-passing paid link partners is quite a task in itself.
• Google also has a stated mission of dampening the value of any ‘artificial’ links. Having most of your links on Page Rank 3 or higher web pages would seem to be a dead give-away that your links are ‘artificial,’ since the vast majority of web pages (note: not necessarily websites, but their pages) are Page Rank 1 or lower. Meanwhile, buying Page Rank 0 or 1 links would have so little impact on a site’s Page Rank that it would not be worth the expense.

5. Distributing Content

All of the above four inbound-link-generating methods really do work. But it is the fifth method of getting one-way inbound links that is the most promising. By distributing content in the form of articles.

The idea is simple: you give other websites content to put on their sites in exchange for a link to your site, usually in an ‘author’s resource box,’ an ‘about the author’ paragraph at the end of the article. The beauty of distributing content for links is that the links generally generate more traffic than links on a ‘resources’ page. Plus, your article will pre-sell readers on the value of your site. The downside, of course, is that it’s no small amount of work to create original content and then distribute it to hundreds of website owners. But nothing good ever came easy. And on the internet, one-way inbound links are a very good thing.

Submitting to Directories

Comprehensive Guide

Preface

For a guide to be comprehensive, it cannot but be lengthy. For the hardened veterans of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) struggles, there may be only a few surprises here, but as it is my intention to make this guide accessible to relative newcomers to this complex and rapidly evolving subject, I hope that the thoroughness of the exposition will be appreciated. The article is divided into three main parts:

1. Overview and Introduction

2. Directories as traffic source

3. Directories as Link Partners

1. Overview and Introduction

a. Directories then and now

It now seems to be lost in the mist of time, but way back in 1995 (and for several good years since) the first site most users turned to when trying to find anything on the net was a directory - Yahoo! Supported by such popularity, Yahoo grew from strength to strength and became the 'definitive' guide to the web. A site that wasn't listed there was as good as non-existent. The phenomenal success of Yahoo provided a blue print for many sites. Hundreds, if not thousands, of directory sites were created, copying the basic formula: Human editors that scout the Internet, find sites and categorize them.

The situation now cannot be more different. Search Engines, and not Directories, rule the web. Although some of the better known are still thriving (like dmoz.org), many have closed (like goto.com). The rest are valiantly trying to find their place in the virtual world and fight for visitors and recognition. The decline of Directories led some commentators to maintain that they are, at best, complimentary to Search Engines. Other would go as far as claiming that they are just relics of the past, better left alone and ignored. On that background, it is with some amazement that one hears every so often of yet another directory being launched. It seems that the enormity of the challenge to categorize millions upon millions of sites has an irresistible attraction for some people... From the site owner and webmaster perspective, we need to be absolutely clear about the benefits we can derive from being listed in a Directory.

b. Why submit to a Directory?

There are two major reasons for submitting to Directories:

• Targeted traffic
• Link popularity

Clearly, the same benefits can be derived from a link from just about any site - not just from a directory. However, there are some significant differences between the two link sources:

• Directories have only one 'purpose in life': to provide links to other sites.
• Directories are an established source of 'authority' in regard to various subject matters. Being listed in them serves as testimony to the site's 'worth'.
• It is much easier and simpler to be listed in directories than in subject specific sites (not forgetting the fact that there may be a conflict of interest issue!).

Perhaps we should first review the concept of 'Directory', understand the exact difference from Search Engine and get to know the various types of directories - and what advantages each one has.

c. What is a Directory?

Many users don't know the difference between a Directory and a Search Engine, and (quite frankly) they actually don't care. This is not surprising, as most sites that started as a Directory, incorporate Search Engine results (like Yahoo) and most Search Engines also use data from directories (like Google). To the uninitiated, it all looks the same. However, for web masters and site owners understanding the distinction between the two is vital.

In my opinion, the only difference nowadays is what I call 'the building block': Search Engines use a web page as their building block, while directories use the web site. To illustrate, if the web was a library, then Directories would be a catalogue of books, while the Search Engines would be the index of the books.

Much like catalogues, there are many ways to organize or categorize web sites. Although many sites have adopted the Yahoo method, others have pioneered different approaches.

d. Types of Directories

2. Directories as traffic source

a. What is 'targeted traffic'?

As mentioned in the preface, Directories are no longer a primary source of traffic. They are, however, an excellent source of targeted traffic.

Even with the advancement of Search Engine technology, the keyword based search method, common to all search engines, is still far from perfect. That is - many search results do not actually match the user's requirements. Thus, although Search Engines are bound to be higher in the web site logs when counting 'referrals', many of those visitors will NOT become 'customers', as they had a different requirement when they conducted the search. In the SEO terminology, the ratio between customers and visitors is known as the 'conversion rate'. Ideally, a site would aspire to have a conversion rate of 1.0 (every visitor becomes a customer), but this is obviously never achieved.

Thus, it is not enough to simply 'count' the number of visitors. One must also look at the 'conversion rate'. For example, if one source of traffic sends 1000 visitors/day with a conversion rate of 1% and another sends only 100 visitors/day with a conversion rate of 20% - the latter provides TWICE as many 'customers' as the former. We can say that the second source provides better 'targeted traffic'.

As classification is the critical activity and purpose of every Directory, a lot of effort and thought is directed to the creation, maintenance and updates of the category 'tree'. The purpose, obviously, is to provide an intuitive and precise category structure. Are you in any doubt as to the nature of sites found in this DMOZ category?

Top: Games: Role playing: World Building: Created Worlds: Science Fiction

Or the following Gimpsy category?

I want to > Play > games > role playing > Sci-Fi

It is therefore safe to assume that users who trail through either Directory structure will have a very clear idea of what to expect from sites found there. Such matching of content with user expectation guarantees that the conversion rate of visitors from Directories will be significantly better than standard Search Engines. In summary: Even though Directories provide a far lower level of traffic compared to Search Engines, the quality of that traffic is superior. If 'conversion rate' is a meaningful concept for your site, you would be wise to consider Directories as traffic source.

b. How to tell which directories are better traffic generators?

i. Don't take their word for it

Traditionally, Directories do not publish traffic generated by them. What little data is published suffers from two main problems:

• It is NOT independently verified.
• It relates only to traffic the directory has received - not traffic it has generated

While the first point is self-explanatory, the second needs further clarification. To illustrate, one often hears Directories declaring that they has so and so many thousands or millions of searches. Even if it is true, which we cannot verify, what does it mean in terms of clicks? If the search results are particularly bad, only a small fraction of the searches will result in a click to a listed site. If not PPC based, there is little incentive for the Directory to develop the elaborate and time consuming programs and database structures that will allow it to correctly record all outgoing traffic. Thus, even if they were willing to publish such data - they may simply not have it available! In short, the Directories themselves cannot be relied on for relevant and independently verified information.

ii. Alexa ranking

Site owners and webmasters have therefore no alternative but to resort to second hand inference. The widely cited 'Alexa index' is the most notable attempt to measure 'traffic level'. Alexa 'knows' about user's activity only if the user has downloaded and installed the Alexa toolbar. The 'self selecting' nature of the user population sample, which uses the toolbar, led many people to argue that the results are biased. Although Alexa registered many millions of downloads of its toolbar, there is no way of knowing how many of them are being used. It is also fairly easy to show that some of the sites that rank very high cannot possibly be truly that popular... (See list of top 100 sites here).

It is worth noting that Alexa provides historical data too, of up to 2 years back. You may wish to consult that information, as it can be a real eye opener. For example, you may discover that a low ranking site is simply very new - and the last month shows a remarkable increase in traffic. On the other hand, you may also find sites that while still ranking high have lost market share in the last few months, and may be on the decline slope. As an illustration, see the DMOZ graph.

It is common knowledge that it takes very little effort to pull a site into the 100,000 and better ranking range. It is also acknowledged that it is practically impossible to artificially boost a site's ranking below the 1000 mark. To make it easy, we'll divide the Alexa rank to 'bands'. Please remember that a 'high rank' is represented by lower numbers, and vice versa!

Please note - those bands are artificial. It is imperative not to be 'mesmerized' by the Alexa ranking and to attach too much significance to what may be, in reality, just a reflection of 'sampling error'. To overcome this 'myopic' view of the Alexa ranking, you are highly advised to use 25% as the margins of error. In other words, a site with an Alexa rank of 10,000 is indistinguishable from sites ranking from 7,500 to 12,500 and a site which ranks 5,000 is effectively equivalent to a site anywhere in the 3,750 to 6,250 rank range.

iii. Secondary Reference

There is another way to gauge potential for traffic, which we will call here 'secondary reference'. A 'secondary reference' is when a user looks up a term in a Search Engine, say Google, and finds an entry of a Directory page indexed under that term. Should the user click on that entry and visit the Directory, he/she would be faced with several sites listed there, and if appropriate, the user may well click on the Directory listed site and visit it. In other words, the user did not go to the Directory in the first place, but was 'directed' to it from a search engine. There is no simple way to determine the likelihood of 'secondary reference' traffic from a Directory. But the following factors are bound to play a role:

In contrast with the simplicity offered by the Alexa ranking, 'secondary reference' cannot be easily quantified, and must therefore remain mostly intuitive and indicative.

iv. Site's rank

The final element you should consider relates to the site's position (or rank) in its category. Most people are aware that the position of a site in the Search Engine results pages is critical. That is - if your site is not found in the first 2-3 pages (say 30 sites), you will not get any traffic from that search phrase. Few people are aware that the same logic also applies to Directories. For example, Gimpsy claims that nearly 70% of all the click-throughs were generated by the first 10 sites in each category (see their FAQ). Indeed, there is no reason to believe that users will visit page after page of the same category, unless they are looking for something really unique.

Thus, you are more likely to get traffic from a Directory if your site is among the first in its category. If a Directory gives you no control over your position, you are at the mercy of their sorting method. Whenever you are given some freedom, (in return for payment, reciprocal promotion or other arrangement) it may be well worth your time to investigate, and if appropriate, take further action.

3. Directories as Link Partners

a. The magic of Link Popularity

While traditional Directories are edited by humans, Search Engines are pure computational sites. The billions of pages now held in the Search Engines database render human intervention impractical. From the gathering of web pages using 'robots' or 'crawlers', through their indexing of that information and finally the ranking of those pages in the search results - is all done by software and computation.

The first two stages (assembling and indexing) are relatively simple, but the third (ranking) presents a much higher challenge. How would the Search Engine determine which one of the many million pages that contain a particular word or phrase should be shown first? Get it right - and people will be using it time and again. Get it wrong - you will be dropped like a hot potato.

The one engine that seemed to consistently 'get it right' was Google. Its secret was the addition of one ingredient that was not used by any other Search Engine before - links. According to Google, a link is considered a 'vote of confidence' from one page to another. The more links - the more votes. Moreover, links from 'important' pages are valued higher than votes from 'non important' pages. What's an 'important' page? Well, a page that has a lot of other pages voting for it, in other words - is heavily linked to. Google's founders coined the term PageRank to describe the numerical value of the page's Link Popularity. As soon as Google introduced Link Popularity in its ranking algorithm, users found the results to be amazingly accurate. Other Search Engines were quick to follow suit. It would be safe to assume that Link Popularity now plays a significant role in the ranking algorithm of all the major Search Engines.

The challenge for site owners and web masters is to increase Link Popularity, which in turn increases the likelihood of pages from their sites appearing high in the search results. One of the best ways to start a link campaign is to get links from Directories. If you put the right amount of effort (and money) into it, you can see your Link Popularity increase significantly in a short space of time. The question is: How to judge the relative merits of Directories? Which ones are worth paying for? What elements do you need to look for to help you make an educated decision?

b. Link types

The first and most important consideration is the link type. There are two types of links: Simple Link and a Redirected Link. You cannot discover the difference by clicking on them - the results are absolutely identical, but from the perspective of a link campaign - the difference is fundamental. As far as Link Popularity is concerned, the Redirected Link is absolutely worthless. Here is why:

A Simple Link is a link that contains the target URL of the site and directly points to it, as in this link: http://www.target-site.com On the other hand, a Redirected Link points to a URL inside the current site, usually to a script file, and the address of the target site is passed to the script as a parameter, like this: http://www.this-site.com/jump.php?www.target-site.com You can check the type of links used by a Directory by observing the 'Status bar' while hovering your mouse over the links.

When a Search Engine visits a Directory that uses Redirected Links, it does not get from it the 'vote of confidence' for the linked sites - as they do not show up as links at all! If anything, such links only 'strengthen' the internal script page, as there may be thousands of links pointing to it. Your site, if listed in such a Directory, will not see any of it.

c. Page visibility

This is another obvious and logical consideration. To gain Link Popularity, the Search Engine must 'know' that you are listed in the Directory. In other words, the Search Engine must capture the pages of the Directory and index them. Only then can it add the link from the Directory to your site - to your link popularity. This measurement is also known sometimes as 'Search Engine Saturation'. You can check the Search Engine Saturation of any site by using the appropriate search command in the Search Engines themselves, or you can take advantage of one of the freely provided tools such as Market Leap.

When examining the results, do not just look for the highest total figure. As mentioned above, Link Popularity is now used by most (if not all) Search Engines. Find out if the Directory has good 'presence' in all the Search Engines. You will soon discover that some Search Engines are notoriously difficult to get indexed by, while others are relatively easy. A good 'spread' of Page Visibility among several Search Engines increases the chances of your site being picked up and indexed by them too. Thus, not only will you gain in Link Popularity, but also your site will be present in their index!

d. PageRank and Back Links

Not all links are created equal - some are more important than other. If you have the Google toolbar installed, it will give you a rough estimate on the page's 'importance', or PageRank (PR), on a scale of 0 to 10. A Directory with a high PR is more important than a Directory with a low PR. A Directory with many sites linking to it (back links) is more important than a Directory with just a few. Here, too, you can query the Search Engines themselves to find out or you can use the Market Leap tools ) to get all the information easily and in a nicely presented format.

The devil, as always, is in the details, so it pays to pay attention to them. Invariably, the Home Page of the directory will have the highest PR, but very few (if any) sites will be listed there. You should try to examine the PR of the specific Category in which your site will be listed to get an idea of the 'strength' of vote you are likely to receive from it. For example, although DMOZ has an exceptionally high PR of 9 on its home page, the deep category of Top: Business: Consumer Goods and Services: Sporting Goods: Fitness Equipment: Pilates Method is just PR 4. There is nothing wrong with a PR of 4, quite to the contrary, but it is not exceptional.

Last but not least, be wary of Directories that show a 'grey bar' in Google's toolbar. This could mean that the site is very new, and Google has simply not visited it yet, but it could also mean that the site was banned from Google, and a link from it may be more harmful than helpful. As in real life, you may be judged by the company you keep - and not just by who you are...

e. And in return...

While some Directories provide a totally free, no-strings-attached, submission option, many Directories expect or require something in return. In most cases - it's simply money, ranging from a few dollars to several hundred. Few require an annual subscription to keep your site listed, but most are satisfied with a one-off payment. After all, your site will not be reviewed annually...

In addition to (or instead of) payment, some Directories insist on getting a link from you before they agree to list your site. Others may require you to agree to get periodic emails that include promotion material for various products. Still others suggest that your site will only be listed if you join them and become an editor. There are many variations and some Directories offer several options to Site Owners.

How can you make a good decision when faced with so many options and considerations? The answer lies, perhaps, in limiting your options and dealing with just a few directories. First, you must establish your goals for this link campaign. Is it traffic, Link popularity or both? Then, compare the sites that meet your requirements and rank them according to how closely they match. You may wish to consult freely available comparison tables, such as the one provided by Strongest Links. Finally, introduce the payment or condition imposed by the Directory. If you did it properly, the answer will simply unfold naturally. You are likely to discover that some Directories provide excellent value for money, others may be good value and some may be poor or very poor. The final arbiter on this question is you.

f. Final words

Few points worth remembering:

Best of luck in your Directory Submission campaign! MC Gimpsy.com

MC is the CEO of Gimpsy (http://www.gimpsy.com), a unique directory that classifies interactive sites according to the online activity provided by them. Submitting a site to Gimpsy entitles the user to a special extended free trial of the Strongest Links (http://www.strongestlinks.com) facilities. If you wish to include this article on your website or e-zine, it must be used in its entirety, including the credit text and this copyright notice.

Autoresponder

Be In Front of Your Best Prospects Over and Over Again

Studies show over and over again that it takes, on average, at least five or more contacts with most of your potential customers before they finally decide to buy.

They get busy and forget. Or they haven't really absorbed what your offer can do for them. Or they simply don't trust you enough to open their wallets, because they don't yet know you well enough.

What if you could send a powerful, proven sales agent out to those prospects on the schedule you set-let's say the day you make the contact, then three days later, then two days after that. The first few contacts, you're playing "getting to know you": providing useful information and action steps to move those prospects forward on their own journey. And then you give them a week to absorb your message-so when that sales agent shows up again on the thirteenth day, it feels like greeting a long-lost friend.

And that's when your trusted agent begins selling, along with the usual dose of helpful information. Because that prospect not only knows you but has begun to trust you, the sale is much easier.

Meanwhile, you're off running your business, whistling a happy tune as you get those extra sales you don't have to work for. You don't have to make sales calls. You don't have to get your hands dirty. You don't even have to enter each new prospect into your database; even that is automatic. All you have to do is collect that money.

What if you could do all this without paying any salary, commissions, or almost any overhead-not even any postage? Do you think this might help your bottom line?

This is what a "sequential autoresponder" can do for your business. That's a fancy name for a system that automatically sends a series of emails that you set up once and then walk away to let it work its magic all by itself. You load your messages, designed to build one upon the other...the prospect opts in to get your free information...and without any other work on your part, that prospect receives a series of personally addressed mailings on the schedule you've set-until the series is complete or until that prospect unsubscribes.

Oh yes, and did we mention how easy it is to set up those mailings? A few clicks and you have a fully formatted, fully trackable email message ready to go. You can monitor how many emails are opened, how any readers click through, what geographic regions bring the best response, and more.

You can use this system all sorts of creative and profitable ways. A few examples:

Deliver a series of staggered sales letters, each showing a different benefit of your product or service.

Create a home-study course that you can either give away to establish your expertise or create revenue by selling for far more than the price of a book or special report.

Send your regular daily, weekly, or monthly newsletter.

Start a reminder service to keep your sales people aware of their customers' important birthdays, anniversaries, etc.

4. Top 10 Smart Ways To Use Follow-Up

Many people think that auto-responders are only for following up with a prospective customer who has yet to buy. While that is a classic use of an auto-responder, I want to share with you other creative ways to put your business on auto-pilot with the use of Auto-responders. My Top 10 Ways to use Auto-Response Plus.

• ⇒ 10.Use *product specific* auto-responders to sell more products. A customer who just bought an e-book on web design is a perfect prospect for web hosting. Capitalize on that by sending a follow-up message offering a provider you recommend.
• ⇒ 9.Distribute *articles* by auto-responder. Send short messages to ezine publishers and know which ones are interested by who responds and asks for your article!
• ⇒ 8.Provide *pricing* by auto-responder. Tired of your competition shopping your site? Want to know who your serious prospects are so you can follow-up and make the sale? Providing pricing via auto-responder is safe, secure and effective.
• ⇒ 7.Answer common enquiries automatically via Auto-Response Plus. Since Auto-Response Plus can send both HTML and plain text messages, you can even copy your existing FAQ page into an auto-responder just for people who want to know more. It's hard to get people to stay on your site long enough to get their queries answered. Overcome that problem with a powerful Auto-Response Plus auto-responder.
• ⇒ 6.Conduct *surveys* via auto-responder. With Auto-Response Plus you can schedule a broadcast to your entire list with ease. Set up a customer satisfaction survey existing customers and learn what customers love about your products, as well as how to make improvements. Survey customers from time to time to discover what they need, and be sure that *you* are the one who can meet those needs.
• ⇒ 5.Send out a list of *recommended resources* after customers buy. Similar to a product specific auto-responder, this resource sheet is something a customer can print out when they need to know the best resources in any particular area. Fill this with your links!
• ⇒ 4.Ask for *feedback* after you make a sale. Nothing sells like positive customer experience on your website and in your follow-up system. You will gather more great comments than you can use as you ask customers how they like your product just a few days after ordering. Best of all, this process will be completely automated using Auto-Response Plus.
• ⇒ 3.Create a *training course* for your product or service and deliver it via auto-responder. Your customers will marvel at your customer service as you follow up with them automatically, answering common queries and offering tips and tricks for them to get the most from their purchase. And remember that happy customers tell others!
• ⇒ 2.Create an *affiliate army* for your product or service. After your customer owns your product or service for a week or so, send them a message asking them to become an affiliate. Marketers agree that running your own affiliate program is one of the key secrets to success on the Internet. And it's easy to do! Imagine having hundreds of reps, none of which get paid until they sell! A simple invitation properly timed can do the trick.

And The Number One Smart Way In Which To Use An Auto-responder ...

• ⇒ 1.Use a *sequence* of auto-responders to always keep selling. This is an advanced technique that you *must* employ to have true auto-responder success. Let's say that someone signs up to get more information about your product or service. Then they buy after the second follow up message. With a regular auto-responder you would have to stop sending them the "selling" series or risk their anger as they continue to get selling messages even after they purchased. Not any more! Now you can *automatically* switch them from one auto-responder to another (i.e. from your 'selling' auto-responder to your 'customer' auto-responder) based on criteria that you choose.

Local Search Engine Articles

Large and Small Advertisers

Large and small businesses alike are utilizing local search advertising as a cost-effective way to reach prospects in specific geographic areas. For example:

Four Targeting Methods

Whether you're a large or small advertiser, you should consider these four ad-targeting methods:

1. Geo-targeted Search Campaigns

Google, Microsoft, and now Yahoo all offer geo-targeted search ad options. Advertisers are able to specify who they want to see their ads, based on the searcher's geographic location.

Google, Microsoft, and now Yahoo all offer geo-targeted search ad options. Advertisers are able to specify who they want to see their ads, based on the searcher's geographic location.

Google offers the most robust IP-targeting options at this time. Advertisers can target ads by country, state, town or city. They can also create a region based on a specified distance from an address or on a custom area drawn on a map.

2. Local Keyword Campaigns

This is the original method of running a local search ad campaign, used long before IP targeting was available. This approach relies on people specifying the location as part of their query. For example, a search for "Richmond Restaurants" or "Bath antique dealer." The advertiser's keyword phrase must also specify a location. It's the match between the location-specific query and the location-specific keyword that triggers the ad serving. So regardless of where the searcher resides, if she's searching for "Birmingham Chemists " and this keyword is in your campaign (based on the match options you've selected), your ad is eligible to be shown.

3. Ads on Local Search Engines

More and more people are going to local search engines to conduct local queries. Google, Yahoo, and MSN are examples of major consumer search engines that now offer separate local search options. Searchers are prompted to enter what they're looking for and where.

4. Ads on Search Result Maps

One of the main reasons people conduct a local search is to find a business, get driving directions, or view results on a map. Advertisers are starting to take advantage of this trend by placing their ads alongside the maps delivered. Currently, the best example is Google's local business ad, a text ad is displayed on the Google Map when people conduct a local search.

You can create similar map ads from within an existing Ad Words account as long as your business is already included in Google's local index. Conduct a search on Google Maps to see if your business is listed in the results. If not, you must sign up for a Local Business Center account, wait for Google to send your account details by mail (to verify you have a local business address), then sign in to your account and submit your local business. Once your business is in Google's index, you simply choose "Add a Local Business Ad" from within your Ad Words campaign interface. You'll be asked to select your business and the ad that you want to appear on Google's mapped results.

4. Ads on Search Result Maps

As you can see, there's more than one way to reach the local searcher. All four methods - IP-targeted ads, campaigns with local keywords, campaigns on local search engines, plus ads on maps - are all equally effective methods of reaching local customers online.

Increase Your Sales by Optimizing for Your Local Market.

It simply requires attaching local or regional qualifiers onto a search keyword or phrase such as your post code, city, town, or county. People often wish to find a nearby product, service, or business. For example, a person may want to hire a builder. Preferably to hire someone locally. Therefore, he can localize his search by using one of the following terms:

Quite clearly, some products and services are more likely to be sought locally. However, with millions of localized searches every month, you may not realize just how many people use the internet to find local suppliers. If you are part of the service industry, being local is often essential. Therefore, it's important that you design your Web pages with local searches in mind, even if you also sell nationally or even globally.

Going Local Is Both Easy & Profitable?

Simply add local keywords such as address, city, telephone number or postal code to all of your keyword-rich Web pages. Add this information to the header or footer of all of your Web pages. And don’t bury the information on your contact page. Businesses that must have a local outlet such as dry cleaners, gardening services, retailers, restaurants, often fail to reach their local market by limiting information of their local presence to their contact page?

To find a match, the search engine will give preference to pages that include ALL of the words of a search phrase [ your local address] on the same page. Therefore, if your contact data appears on one page and your best site content and keywords are on another, you are not likely show up for a localized search. If you wish to extend your local reach you can add other keywords such as regional indicators or nearby towns and cities. Here's an example of a footer you could add to each of your Web pages if you owned a building company:

Beautiful Homes
100 Forest Road, Aylesbury, Bucks. HPXX9XX. Tel: 01296-XXXXXX.
Building Beautiful Homes in Buckinghamshire, Berkshire & Hertfordshire.

Notice that one has included the address, town, county, post code and phone. In addition, keywords were added to take in adjacent counties Berkshire & Hertfordshire, which local people may be searching upon as well. Regional words such as "southern," "northern," and so forth are also good ideas, particularly for businesses in or near large cities.

Easy To Achieve Top 10 SE Ranking.

The great thing about going local is how easy it is to achieve top 10 rankings on the major search engines. Very few of your competitors have Web pages optimized for local searches. Therefore, whatever your business, you should insert your local keywords onto every applicable page of your site. After your page has had time to be re-indexed, be sure to check your newly localized search engine rankings. If your page was already optimized for your favorite keyword or phrase, you'll likely have shot to the top of the search results without much effort.

COMPETITION ARTICLES

PPS PRESS RELEASE

Online promotions firm PPS aims to expand its product lineup with products that should appeal to small- and medium sized Web marketers -- who might want to run a contest to collect opt-in e-mail addresses or consumer information, but don't want to expend the effort or costs associated with running it themselves. Marketers can purchase turnkey online competitions from PPS, and have running it on their site -- in less than a day, the company said. Prizes offered through the service include new cars, vacations, and cash prizes. "It provides a low-cost, very simple, fast way to get a promotion online," said PPS chief executive Marcus Cullen. "It's kind of like assembling a greeting card from one of those greetings card sites. You choose the color scheme, and the offer. Our technology ... sets it up for you. So you can have a competition on your site within 24 hours."

One of the reasons fees are low for the service -- which a spokesman said would cost less than £1,000 -- is that it ties into a pooled drawing, in which several sites share the cost of a prize payout. "Marketers ... want to collect opt-in user information ... but running a contest can be a big pain in the neck, time-consuming, and expensive," Cullen added. "Here, it's pre-designed and legal -- no headaches. And pooling allows them to offer a really big prize, without having to pay for the prize themselves." For instance, a marketer could advertise a chance to win in banner ads -- in e-mail messages or on the company's Web site. Clicking on the offers would then take users to the competition, where users register their opt-in information.

When a customer registers PPS sends an e-mail to confirm his entry. The e-mail also contains an opportunity for the marketer to insert its logo, a marketing message, or a special offer. After each weekly drawing, each entrant receives an e-mail of that week's winners, and the marketer can use that e-mail to urge customers to return to the Web site and enter the competition again, or to insert further marketing messages or offers. What makes PPS different is that it minimizes the setup time and effort needed to get a program like this going. PPS manages the entire contest -- including the registration technology, the drawings, and the award payment itself.

Participating marketers, of course, cede direct control over the specifics of their competitions, but according to PPS, the product's ease-of-installation overshadows any lack of customization -- especially for the smaller marketer with a limited budget. "The beauty is that participating companies don't have to administer the competition," Cullen said. "This gives us an opportunity to tap into the global small business market, which is a tremendous opportunity," he added. "We're leveling the playing field. Just because promotions work for the big guys doesn't mean it can't work for small business customers." The news is especially interesting in light of other marketing firms' attempts to target smaller Web marketers with specific products of their own.

COMPETITIONS ARE BIG ON THE INTERNET

While recently researching these statistics, I came across a study recently released identifying the top online activities among Internet users. Coming in at number five on the list, with a 59 percent share of Internet users' time, was an activity some may find surprising. According to the stats, participating in online competitions has become a very popular pastime for consumers, particularly women, for whom this activity ranked No.1 overall. One could speculate the increasing consumer interest in this form of promotion is indicative of an increased number of contests being launched online. They've become an attractive method of marketing among. Why the overwhelming interest? The benefits of running contests online are clear. First, they make amassing targeted consumer information a breeze. They create a positive consumer association with your brand by offering tangible rewards for the data volunteered. They can be incredibly effective at growing customer mailing lists, and they can help increase product sales. In addition to offering a grand prize, smart retailers provide entrants with product coupons and discounts to encourage repeat business and attract new customers to their stores.

Online contests are also a unique way to inform consumers of new products and services and generate interest in them. When a beauty company has a new face cream to launch, developing a contest to showcase it -- and providing entrants with a chance to be among the first to try it -- is a preferred method for generating excitement and getting the word on the street. By the same token, contests are one of the best available methods for measuring how "viral" an advertiser's customer base really is. By including a viral component in a contest (usually a refer-a-friend option), advertisers can determine the social makeup of their audience and ascertain whether other viral marketing techniques would prove useful in bolstering their brands. When contest planning is complete and promoting it becomes the mandate of the day, it's time to focus on media buying. The safest approach is to advertise with publishers that have driven qualified traffic for you in the past and those that can deliver your specialized audience. Avoid the temptation to try mass-market and generalized ad network placements -- these will attract contest groupies and pollute your database with unqualified registrations.

Above all, make use of the free venues available to you by adding a promotional button to your client's site and email newsletter. Having loyal consumers spread the word about your contest is one of the best ways to give it validity in the eyes of potential customers. A contest with legitimacy is a contest earmarked for success.

HOW TO SPONSOR AN ONLINE COMPETITION

With the overwhelming number of new Web sites being added to the Internet on a daily basis, how do you distinguish yours from the rest? More and more companies are using competitions as a way to attract people to their Web sites. Holding a legitimate competition is an excellent way to attract attention to your company and its products. It's also a way to reward customer loyalty to your established client base. Major companies such as Kellogg’s, Proctor & Gamble, Clairol, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, M&M Mars, Taco Bell, Johnson & Johnson, Better Homes & Gardens, Visa, and Disney have used competitions successfully for decades to attract new customers and to reward their loyal customers.

Typically, competitions have been used with more traditional printed media methods, but with the explosion of the Internet, many more companies now use competitions to promote their online sites. Whether you choose to establish your competition online, through more traditional print methods, or a combination of both, there are things you need to consider before you begin. This article focuses on those things you need to consider before creating and promoting an online competition.

Planning Your Promotion

As with any good marketing promotion, you need to plan the event carefully. To have a successful promotion, you need to:

• Consider your goals
• Target your audience
• Determine the structure
• Promote your event

Considering Your Goals

First, consider your goals for having a competition. That's easy - you want to generate traffic to your Web site, correct?
If one of your goals is to get feedback for a new product, instead of sponsoring a competition, you might want to consider offering a small gift or sample to those who would try your product in return for giving you feedback. If one of your goals is to get feedback about your Web site, then you can build questions into a competition’s entry form that will accomplish that. If you want to expose consumers to a new product, offering a sample as a prize is an excellent way to generate interest. If one of your goals is to increase your hit counter to maximize advertising potential for your Web site, then sponsoring a competition will accomplish that, too.

Targeting Your Audience

You should match the offer of your promotion to the goals you are trying to achieve and the audience you are trying to attract. If you are trying to attract a general audience, then you can give away a general prize such as cash, gift certificates, or general merchandise such as, a TV, stereo, bikes, and so forth. Do you sell a product? Do you perform a service? Offer a sample of your product or a trial period of your service as a prize. The people who enter your competition will be targeted more towards your product or service. You will most definitely attract fewer entrants, but those people will be more likely to purchase your product or service in the future.

Take some time to really think about what you offer as a prize. You don’t have to give away large prizes to get a good response, but don’t skimp on the prizes, either. There are hundreds of sites giving away T-shirts, mouse pads, coffee mugs, and free Web pages. Your promotion will get lost in the myriad of other sites giving away similar prizes. Once you decide the prize offerings for your competition, you can begin to form the structure of your promotion.

Targeting Your Audience

There are different types of promotions that you can sponsor. The type you choose depends on how you would like your promotion to be handled. Competitions are those promotions in which the sponsors do not require any purchase or monetary exchange to enter. Any legal competition must provide a way for people to enter without purchasing anything. This is typically when sponsors require entrants to mail their names, addresses, and phone numbers on a 3x5 piece of paper or index card. Online, you can provide an e-mail address to which entrants can send their entries or you can have them fill in an online entry form.

Contests are promotions in which for legal reasons the sponsor requires the entrant to submit more than just their name and address, such as a recipe, photo, jingle, answers to questions, and other creative information. No matter which type of promotion you choose to sponsor, every promotion needs to include certain information. You should include the following information at your Web site regarding your promotion:

• Information about the company holding the competition. Who are you? This should be covered at your main Web site, but you would be surprised at the number of sites that sponsor an online competition and forgot to link back to their main site.
• A full description of the prizes that you are offering. Make sure that the entrants know exactly what is included in your offering. If you are giving away a cruise as a prize, is the airfare included? Transportation?
• A contact name if entrants have any questions about your competition.
• A set of the official rules. The official rules need to address the items that further make up the structure of your promotion.
• You also need to consider how you are going to set up your method of entry.

The Official Rules

Every legitimate competition MUST have a set of official rules. The official rules should state exactly how the competition is structured and any restrictions or limitations about your promotion. For example, how many times do you allow people to be able to enter your competition? Once per day or per month? Or throughout the life of the competition? Many sponsors who first held an online competition didn't specify how many times a person could enter, and realized after receiving tens or hundreds of entries a day from the same people, they should have considered that factor in the beginning.

Also, remember to think globally. Are you ready to ship the prize overseas if the winner lives in Germany? If you are giving away a cash prize, we always assume that it is in US dollars, but you are always safer to state that up front so as to avoid any confusion. The official rules should contain the complete structure of your promotion.

Make this information as accessible as possible. Sponsors generally will create a separate Web page for the official rules and post a link near the bottom of the online entry form or near the competitions' name. There are many sponsors who post their official rules on the Web. Do some research and see how they set them up. Good sites for this are www.disney.com, www.kraft.com, and www.blockbuster.com. These sites constantly have promotions.

Setting Up the Method of Entry

There are typically two ways you can have people enter an online competitions: by sending an e-mail message to a generic e-mail account or by submitting an online entry form. If you are going to collect any type of demographic information you receive from the entries, you'll want to set up an entry form and have the information ported into a database. If you choose to have entrants send you a mail message, be prepared to enter all of the information manually into a database if you plan on recording the information for use at a later date. This will depend on your Web site and whether you have the access or ability to generate forms, have access to the CGI bin, or have the resources to hire someone to do this for you.

Planning a good entry form for your competition will yield you better results for your goals. The information you request should be formulated from your goals. It's perfectly acceptable to ask questions about consumer preferences on your entry form, such as brand name awareness or shopping habits. Be aware, though, that if you ask for information that is too personal, such as income level, you may not get a large response. People are still very wary about giving out that sort of information—with good reason. Even if you represent a very well-known company, people aren’t going to divulge a lot of personal information.

Also, don't arbitrarily assume that because people enter your competition that it's acceptable to contact them with other product information. Provide a check box on your entry form so people can choose whether they want you to contact them with offers, notices, or special discounts in the future. Sending them unsolicited e-mail just because they entered your competition is akin to sending spam. Your second promotion will most likely be a lot less successful, because people will know that you are just collecting names to send them unwanted mail at a later date. Also, if you do plan on sending them mail in the future, let them know where you got their names. They most likely aren’t going to remember every competition they entered a month or two ago.

The whole promotion idea is to get people to visit your Web site. It’s perfectly acceptable to place your entry form at the bottom of a page so that you can provide some information about your product or service before it. You can also ask a question on the entry form that pertains to your product or service if you want. Make sure the answer is easily found on your other Web pages. There are a lot of different ways you can set up an online competition entry form, so think about the information you want to receive from your entrants.

The Appearance of Your Promotion: Legitimate or Scam

Entering competition has been a viable hobby for many years. The way you handle your promotion will show people whether or not your promotion is legitimate. Legitimacy is the key. People are tired of e-mail scams, Web sites that are nothing but ads, and get-rich-quick schemes. Many sites hold competitions just for the sole purpose of gathering names. For example, one site chose to give away a custom designed T-shirt every month as the grand prize. It also listed 100 second prizes per month consisting of a coupon worth £5 off of any purchase at their site. Guess who won second prize? Guess who won second prize every month that she entered? If you want to offer all of the people who visit your Web site £5 off of every purchase, then just do it. Create a nice graphic, or coupon, or order form with the discount posted right on it. Don't hide it or disguise it as a competition. The last thing your business can afford is a sense of ill will!

If you hold a competition just for the sole purpose of gathering names, you are quickly going make a lot of enemies on the Web. You might as well send bulk e-mail, because you'll get basically the same reaction. SCAM!

Promoting Your Competitions

competition will drive hoards of traffic to your site, and you'll reap huge lists of customers that you can contact after the promotion is over. It's a bit of an overstatement, but the promotion idea is a sound one. You announce a competition just like you would announce any new Web site. Announce it in newsgroups such as ‘[alt.consumers.competitions]’, online competition sites such as www.onlinesweeps.com, and submit your page to the major search engines and directories. There are hundreds of well-known sites that list online competitions. If you have access to AOL, then you can also post your information on the appropriate message boards. Press releases are also a great avenue for announcements. contest promotions make great press releases. Go to InfoSeek (www.infoseek.com) and enter the word competitions. Choose the News option (not the Web) and see what other companies are using for press release material. You can structure yours in the same manner.

Also, remember your target market? If you are offering fishing lures as a prize, go to the fishing or outdoors Web sites and discuss your prize on message boards or chat forums. Announcing a new competitions will create an initial surge of traffic, and depending on the prizes that you offer and the frequency of the drawings, you could enjoy this traffic for several months. If you decide to sponsor more competitions after your first one is done, remember that different prizes will attract more attention. If you offer the same prize again, people may think they have already entered it and will not visit your site again.

Summary

Your business can attract a lot of attention by sponsoring a competition, and the way you handle the promotion is going to make an impact. Remember, first impressions are very important!