Internet Promotional Strategies

1. Internet Promotional Strategies An Overview & Alternatives

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 3. The Law of Trust Trust is the essential lubricant of Web business; without trust, business grinds to a halt.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. E-Mail marketing Search engine marketing Linking strategies Viral strategies Public relations Traditional media Networking Weblogs (Blogs) Paid advertising Affiliate Marketing Ten Major Types of Online Promotion

8. 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

9. 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.

10. 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 ControlYou 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 ControlThere 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!

11. 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/link-popularity/

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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 ofsearch 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.

15. 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'soutgoing 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.

16. 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?

17. 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.

18. 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/

20. 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/How-to-get-reciprocal-links

21. 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!!!

22. 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

26. Public Relations • There are free PR services and paid resources available • 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) • 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

28. Online PR • The six tools of a strategic online communications strategy are: • 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. • 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. • 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. • 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. • 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. • 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

29. 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

30. 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

31. 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.

32. 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

33. 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-the-blogosphere/

34. Global Snapshot of Bloggers See: http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/ Blogging Topics Impact of Blogging on Professional Life

35. 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 now-familiar 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/

36. 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 Source:http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/resources/marketing/online_marketing/5_ways_blogging_can_help_your_business.mspx

37. Sites to Help Set Up Blogs • 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/

38. Paid Advertising - Pay-per-sale Advertising (Affiliates Programs or Associates Programs) http://www.cj.com/ Commission Junction http://www.barnesandnoble.com/affiliate/index.asp?PID=18787&cds2Pid=18788 http://www.affiliateprimer.com/affiliate-primer-contents.html