So you have visitors arriving on your site and they are ticking over making purchases, but how else can you turn these visitors into income? Here's some ideas.
1) Display external advertising. Depending on your site, it may be suitable to carry some advertising. Maybe Google Adsense or banner adds.
2) Sell add on products. Look at what they have in their shopping basket and see what other people who have chosen those items have bought with them.
3) Sell special offer. Add small ticket price items that they might be interested in. Display them around the basket areas of the site.
4) Offer free postage. Take a look at your customers' average basket order value and offer free postage for a small amount above that. Then watch and see if the average order value increases.
5) Offer special offer items for basket amounts. Again, look at average basket order values and offer free or discounted goods when the basket total is a little more than average.
6) Add monthly 'trinkets'. Have a special low-cost item made and each month make one of these available for above average order baskets.
7) Ask your customers to join your mailing list.
All are very simple ideas, aimed at increasing sales and bringing in more cash in other ways. I'll talk more about each of these ideas over the next week or so...
Showing posts with label Website Marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Website Marketing. Show all posts
Tuesday, 19 August 2008
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
Popunders - Waste of time???
Well, I'm very disappointed in the popunders campaign I tested. Very disappointed.
I had hoped for a little success, but near enough nothing. Not even my money back, which at the cost of the traffic, is very surprising. I suppose it's my old answer - if it was that easy, these guys wouldn't be selling the traffic they would be putting up their own affiliate pages and earning the commissions themselves.
I didn't think at first that all of the adverts had been used. Looking at Google, the special page I'd created had only been shown 2,106 times (in a campaign of 5,000) popunders. And some of those were me viewing the page. So I was surprised to logon to the provider's stats and see that all 5,000 had been delived in about 2½ days.
So far, no sign of any commissions earned and hardly a click generated. 1 click through the Google adsense scheme got me back about 2% of my outlay. Not worth bothering with.
And looking at the huge variation in the number of displays of each advert, from 1962 to 2119 displays across adverts from one network, most screens are being closed before they even open.
There were around 10 clicks to the advertisers - so there's still a remote chance of commission. But I'm not keeping up any hope!
I had hoped for a little success, but near enough nothing. Not even my money back, which at the cost of the traffic, is very surprising. I suppose it's my old answer - if it was that easy, these guys wouldn't be selling the traffic they would be putting up their own affiliate pages and earning the commissions themselves.
I didn't think at first that all of the adverts had been used. Looking at Google, the special page I'd created had only been shown 2,106 times (in a campaign of 5,000) popunders. And some of those were me viewing the page. So I was surprised to logon to the provider's stats and see that all 5,000 had been delived in about 2½ days.
So far, no sign of any commissions earned and hardly a click generated. 1 click through the Google adsense scheme got me back about 2% of my outlay. Not worth bothering with.
And looking at the huge variation in the number of displays of each advert, from 1962 to 2119 displays across adverts from one network, most screens are being closed before they even open.
There were around 10 clicks to the advertisers - so there's still a remote chance of commission. But I'm not keeping up any hope!
Saturday, 28 June 2008
Adwords Content Network
I've already touched on whether I think that Google's Adwords is a good idea, but then I was referring to the search network (e.g. Google itself & other partner search engines).
So what about the Content Network - the millions of small and large websites that display Adsense adverts?
I think if you are careful then this network can be great. It's possible to hit your potential customers right where you want them - whilst they are browsing relevant websites. These websites can have (in total) huge volumes of displays of your adverts so there is a lot of brand exposure for you.
It is said that the site owners can click on their own adverts to make more commissions. Yes, some people try this. But Google have loads of ways to detect this activity and anything that looks suspicious is not charged for. Too much suspicious activity will result in the account being closed. It's not in Google's interest to have any fraud at all.
It can also be a lot cheaper and if you are getting low click through rates it doesn't affect the charges for the search network.
Yes, there can be problems. I've found in my own experience there is a lot more evidence of more general browsing than people hungry to shop. But it's still getting people onto your site and your name known. As long as your product is right, they might come back next time.
So what about the Content Network - the millions of small and large websites that display Adsense adverts?
I think if you are careful then this network can be great. It's possible to hit your potential customers right where you want them - whilst they are browsing relevant websites. These websites can have (in total) huge volumes of displays of your adverts so there is a lot of brand exposure for you.
It is said that the site owners can click on their own adverts to make more commissions. Yes, some people try this. But Google have loads of ways to detect this activity and anything that looks suspicious is not charged for. Too much suspicious activity will result in the account being closed. It's not in Google's interest to have any fraud at all.
It can also be a lot cheaper and if you are getting low click through rates it doesn't affect the charges for the search network.
Yes, there can be problems. I've found in my own experience there is a lot more evidence of more general browsing than people hungry to shop. But it's still getting people onto your site and your name known. As long as your product is right, they might come back next time.
Thursday, 19 June 2008
Build traffic with a competition...
OK, so I said that yesterday was the last of the ideas, I was wrong. Here's something else that I was suggesting to a customer. I'll describe it as I described it to my customer for his promotional items website.
Basically, what I suggested is that he run a promotional items competition. He invites his existing customers to send in ideas as to how they have used his products. This could be descriptions, images, videos etc. It doesn't matter - it's whatever he wants to use. It could even just be the most unusual place to give out his products, the most unusual model to build etc. It doesn't matter - all that matters is that there is a competition (and simple prize) that interests his customers.
And the competition doesn't need to be restricted to just his customers, as long as the entrants are using the right products. More about this in a minute...
So he gets the customers posting their entries. Each of these forms a separate webpage (more content...). But he's the important part - customers and their customers vote for the winners. This is vital! That way, customers who have signed up and entered the competition then tell their contacts about the cocmpetition so that they get votes. These people visit the site and vote.
You can incentivise the voting to encourage more votes by offering a prize for those voting as well. So to be able to award thee prize, and to make sure that people are only voting once, you capture email addresses.
So, what do you get from this exercise, rather than just a bill from your web designer for the work!
For a start, customers are returning to your site so they have you in mind. It's an excuse for you to email them and remind them you exist.
Second, the customers are telling people about you, so they are spreading the word about your site. There's a chance that your customers' contacts could then become your new customers.
Third, you get to capture a mailing list of your customers' contacts and can email them competition updates - and remind them you exist.
Fourth, some of your customers will be keen on the competition and link to your voting pages from their websites - one way links.
So, keep the voting rolling and maybe reset the counters every month or so. That way, your customers keep the votes rolling in and the benefits continue.
Basically, what I suggested is that he run a promotional items competition. He invites his existing customers to send in ideas as to how they have used his products. This could be descriptions, images, videos etc. It doesn't matter - it's whatever he wants to use. It could even just be the most unusual place to give out his products, the most unusual model to build etc. It doesn't matter - all that matters is that there is a competition (and simple prize) that interests his customers.
And the competition doesn't need to be restricted to just his customers, as long as the entrants are using the right products. More about this in a minute...
So he gets the customers posting their entries. Each of these forms a separate webpage (more content...). But he's the important part - customers and their customers vote for the winners. This is vital! That way, customers who have signed up and entered the competition then tell their contacts about the cocmpetition so that they get votes. These people visit the site and vote.
You can incentivise the voting to encourage more votes by offering a prize for those voting as well. So to be able to award thee prize, and to make sure that people are only voting once, you capture email addresses.
So, what do you get from this exercise, rather than just a bill from your web designer for the work!
For a start, customers are returning to your site so they have you in mind. It's an excuse for you to email them and remind them you exist.
Second, the customers are telling people about you, so they are spreading the word about your site. There's a chance that your customers' contacts could then become your new customers.
Third, you get to capture a mailing list of your customers' contacts and can email them competition updates - and remind them you exist.
Fourth, some of your customers will be keen on the competition and link to your voting pages from their websites - one way links.
So, keep the voting rolling and maybe reset the counters every month or so. That way, your customers keep the votes rolling in and the benefits continue.
Wednesday, 18 June 2008
Word of Mouth
The last of the ideas for marketing your website is very simple, but works. It's one I use time and time again, it just takes a bit of getting used to to do it well.
What's the simplest idea of all, that's free and takes no time - simply tell everyone you know or talk to about your website and business. There's a chance that they, or someone they might know, might need your services.
It works. My very first customer came this way and I'm currently working on a neighbour's site. And a few months back I was giving another neighbour my phone number for a new homewatch scheme - so the easiest way was to just give her my business card. It had all the contact details I needed on it. The other morning she was driving past me when she stopped and asked for a quote.
I've also had close friends send their friends to me for work and, of course, on the line odf referrals is the fact that if I do a good job then my customers will be telling their friends who built their website. If it works for me, then why not everyone? Even if you are selling clothing, books or whatever, if your target audience is the people that you mix with then let them know about what you do.
What's the simplest idea of all, that's free and takes no time - simply tell everyone you know or talk to about your website and business. There's a chance that they, or someone they might know, might need your services.
It works. My very first customer came this way and I'm currently working on a neighbour's site. And a few months back I was giving another neighbour my phone number for a new homewatch scheme - so the easiest way was to just give her my business card. It had all the contact details I needed on it. The other morning she was driving past me when she stopped and asked for a quote.
I've also had close friends send their friends to me for work and, of course, on the line odf referrals is the fact that if I do a good job then my customers will be telling their friends who built their website. If it works for me, then why not everyone? Even if you are selling clothing, books or whatever, if your target audience is the people that you mix with then let them know about what you do.
Tuesday, 17 June 2008
Using Email Signatures
Have you ever noticed that some free email services add adverts to the bottom of the emails? The reason why is that these adverts pay for them to run the service.
If it works for them, why not for you? Now OK, for them you are distributing their adverts to people you know that might not know about their services. On the other hand, most of your emails are being sent to people you know. But what if not everyone knows what you do, or that you are trying to earn an extra income on the side by promoting an affiliate scheme or whatever website you are trying to promote?
By adding a signature to the bottom of your email you are showing everyone who receives your email your message and maybe some of them will look at the website. This is at it's best when people then forward your email. Every sent a joke to a colleague? More to the point, have you ever received jokes and see that people haven't deleted the original email?
If you look down that list and see what's at the bottom, others might later do the same. And that could be your advert.
And it's not just this sort of distribution that works. Quite often you may be emailing people you don't know - trying to make bookings and so on. Well they also might see your advert - it's always worth a go when the advertising is free.
The same can happen when you use an email address from within your domain. The recipient might just notice that URL, and if it's something that interests them then bingo - they might turn into a visitor.
I'm not promising overnight riches from email signatures, but they are totally free so well worth giving a go.
If it works for them, why not for you? Now OK, for them you are distributing their adverts to people you know that might not know about their services. On the other hand, most of your emails are being sent to people you know. But what if not everyone knows what you do, or that you are trying to earn an extra income on the side by promoting an affiliate scheme or whatever website you are trying to promote?
By adding a signature to the bottom of your email you are showing everyone who receives your email your message and maybe some of them will look at the website. This is at it's best when people then forward your email. Every sent a joke to a colleague? More to the point, have you ever received jokes and see that people haven't deleted the original email?
If you look down that list and see what's at the bottom, others might later do the same. And that could be your advert.
And it's not just this sort of distribution that works. Quite often you may be emailing people you don't know - trying to make bookings and so on. Well they also might see your advert - it's always worth a go when the advertising is free.
The same can happen when you use an email address from within your domain. The recipient might just notice that URL, and if it's something that interests them then bingo - they might turn into a visitor.
I'm not promising overnight riches from email signatures, but they are totally free so well worth giving a go.
Monday, 16 June 2008
Articles for website marketing
Many sites, large and small, use articles to promote themsleves. Articles work in two directions at once.
First, reader see what you have written, see you as an expert and visit your site.
Second, with some article publications, the article is published on a website and in return the page links back to your site. So you have a source of one way links.
Either way is goog for business. The former is best whilst the article is new and being distributed in e-zines, but like the second, SEO, aspect as long as the article is displayed on websites with the links live then there is the chance of benefits.
But what sort of articles should you be writing? Articles should be honest, whilst not directly selling your product. You should be writing impartial advice and using the information imparted to convince your reader that you know what you are talking about and tempting them to read more about what you have to say by visiting your site.
Articles should be unique and have something in the title that makes them stand out - why should a publisher publish your article rather than someone else's? Getting your article picked up by publishers is vital - else you are wasting your time.
First, reader see what you have written, see you as an expert and visit your site.
Second, with some article publications, the article is published on a website and in return the page links back to your site. So you have a source of one way links.
Either way is goog for business. The former is best whilst the article is new and being distributed in e-zines, but like the second, SEO, aspect as long as the article is displayed on websites with the links live then there is the chance of benefits.
But what sort of articles should you be writing? Articles should be honest, whilst not directly selling your product. You should be writing impartial advice and using the information imparted to convince your reader that you know what you are talking about and tempting them to read more about what you have to say by visiting your site.
Articles should be unique and have something in the title that makes them stand out - why should a publisher publish your article rather than someone else's? Getting your article picked up by publishers is vital - else you are wasting your time.
Sunday, 15 June 2008
Fliers to market your website
Fliers can be an efficient way of marketing a website, or any business for that matter. You only need to look at your post and the free newspapers to see how many people rely on them for your business.
You need to put together a good looking and well presented convincing flier. Spell out what you offer quickly and plainly. Spell out the advantages of your services against the next guy's and make sure the leaflet looks the part.
Leaflets that drop through my door on badly cut cheap white paper, with less then perfect printing find their way to the bin even quicker then the better quality leaflets. And those with bad spellings and apostophes in the wrong places get the speediest trip of all!
So make sure leaflets are well written and spell out why a customer should use your services. They can then be rapidly distributed around your target audience. If your audience is householders or general public, then dropping the leaflets on a door to door basis is ideal. If you are looking for commuters, then car parks could be what you need. But if you are dealing with businesses, then leaflet dropping around the relevant businesses is the only option.
Targetting small businesses can be trickier - especially if they are so small that they are typically ran through private homes - are there are a lot of those around here. With them, you are best getting a list of businesses and their addresses to drop the leaflets to. But be aware that not all directories like you making marketing lists from their data.
You need to put together a good looking and well presented convincing flier. Spell out what you offer quickly and plainly. Spell out the advantages of your services against the next guy's and make sure the leaflet looks the part.
Leaflets that drop through my door on badly cut cheap white paper, with less then perfect printing find their way to the bin even quicker then the better quality leaflets. And those with bad spellings and apostophes in the wrong places get the speediest trip of all!
So make sure leaflets are well written and spell out why a customer should use your services. They can then be rapidly distributed around your target audience. If your audience is householders or general public, then dropping the leaflets on a door to door basis is ideal. If you are looking for commuters, then car parks could be what you need. But if you are dealing with businesses, then leaflet dropping around the relevant businesses is the only option.
Targetting small businesses can be trickier - especially if they are so small that they are typically ran through private homes - are there are a lot of those around here. With them, you are best getting a list of businesses and their addresses to drop the leaflets to. But be aware that not all directories like you making marketing lists from their data.
Saturday, 14 June 2008
Free Directories CAN Drive New Business
Getting your site listed in free directories, including top sites lists, can drive in new business to your site. Now it depends on what you are selling and how many sales you are after, but this can give your business a boost.
Particularly if your market is dealing with a topic where people browse around a lot, then getting listed in free directories and top site lists can be to your advantage. Whilst promoting a dating site a few years ago I listed it in a few of these such sites. I monitored it and noticed that most traffic came from a couple of very good "top sites" lists.
Now I was never going to retire on the income from this affiliate scheme - I gave up actively promoting the services in favour of other schemes because I found the conversion rate to be very low. (It was one of my early ventures when I was looking for any idea to work on!) But it did get plenty of taffic sent to the provider and even though I don't work on this any more and haven't done so for years, I'm still getting people joining up through my links from the top sites list!
For the small amount of effort in joining relevant lists and maybe uploading banners or links to your own site, you can possibly gain yourself a steady stream of visitors for a long time. It's free to sign up - so any sales you make are a wonderful profit.
Particularly if your market is dealing with a topic where people browse around a lot, then getting listed in free directories and top site lists can be to your advantage. Whilst promoting a dating site a few years ago I listed it in a few of these such sites. I monitored it and noticed that most traffic came from a couple of very good "top sites" lists.
Now I was never going to retire on the income from this affiliate scheme - I gave up actively promoting the services in favour of other schemes because I found the conversion rate to be very low. (It was one of my early ventures when I was looking for any idea to work on!) But it did get plenty of taffic sent to the provider and even though I don't work on this any more and haven't done so for years, I'm still getting people joining up through my links from the top sites list!
For the small amount of effort in joining relevant lists and maybe uploading banners or links to your own site, you can possibly gain yourself a steady stream of visitors for a long time. It's free to sign up - so any sales you make are a wonderful profit.
Thursday, 12 June 2008
Using Blogs To Promote Your Website
Like using forums, using blogs to promote your website can be extremely rewarding, but should be done carefully to stay above board and not upset the owners.
There are two ways to use blogs to promote a site. First, using your own blog to promote your own product and second, visiting other people's blogs.
So, using your own blog - how's that done? Well, it can be as simple as running a blog for whatever purposes and the blatantly going "See my Mortgage Rates website." - see, just done it there for myself! If the blog / post is well page ranked, then it's a one way link into your website... Plus, if it is applicable to your audience, then there's a good chance of traffic following the link.
The next step is to tun a blog specifically for your product or services, either independently or on your own website. It can be a general blog designed just to create lots of content and therefore the chance of numbers of people finding it, or it can be specifically to mention and discuss various aspects of your products and services.
You can also post comments on your blog about posts on other people's blogs and link to them. Sounds crazy - probably is - but if the blog has got features such as trackback installed then they are likely to link back to your post. This might have the rel="nofollow" instruction of the link, if so it doesn't help for SEO. But even if it does, if you found the post then so will others. And they will be interested to see what you had to say when you linked to the blog, so an amount of traffic can start to appear.
Posting comments onto other people's blogs is the same idea as the trackbacks. These can frequently be covered up by the rel="nofollow" instruction, but visitors will see the comments and some may follow if your comment is interesting. If it's just blatent self publicity, then it's likely not to be followed and possibly even deleted.
Work with these people, not against them. Do unto you as you would have others do to you and everyone will be happy and your website traffic will increase.
There are two ways to use blogs to promote a site. First, using your own blog to promote your own product and second, visiting other people's blogs.
So, using your own blog - how's that done? Well, it can be as simple as running a blog for whatever purposes and the blatantly going "See my Mortgage Rates website." - see, just done it there for myself! If the blog / post is well page ranked, then it's a one way link into your website... Plus, if it is applicable to your audience, then there's a good chance of traffic following the link.
The next step is to tun a blog specifically for your product or services, either independently or on your own website. It can be a general blog designed just to create lots of content and therefore the chance of numbers of people finding it, or it can be specifically to mention and discuss various aspects of your products and services.
You can also post comments on your blog about posts on other people's blogs and link to them. Sounds crazy - probably is - but if the blog has got features such as trackback installed then they are likely to link back to your post. This might have the rel="nofollow" instruction of the link, if so it doesn't help for SEO. But even if it does, if you found the post then so will others. And they will be interested to see what you had to say when you linked to the blog, so an amount of traffic can start to appear.
Posting comments onto other people's blogs is the same idea as the trackbacks. These can frequently be covered up by the rel="nofollow" instruction, but visitors will see the comments and some may follow if your comment is interesting. If it's just blatent self publicity, then it's likely not to be followed and possibly even deleted.
Work with these people, not against them. Do unto you as you would have others do to you and everyone will be happy and your website traffic will increase.
Wednesday, 11 June 2008
Using Forums to Market Your Website
Using internet forums can be a good way to market your site - but be aware of rules and regulations, else you might upset someone and be reported as spamming!
Carefully, and properly, used forums can drive genuine visitors to your website, for free. All it takes is a bit of time and effort on your behalf. Furthermore, the same techniques can also sometimes count as one way link building - possibly a great benefit!
Why only "possibly"? Well, for a start, many forums have been so blighted by spammers in the past that they now take action against people posting links. Some are quite harsh - removing all links and hiding them. Some only allow links to be posted by long standing member whilst others hide the links from search engines using the rel="nofollow" instruction, which was developed by Google especially for this sort of work.
Add to this that search engine programmers know that it is far too easy to get a one way link from a forum and have coded the weighting behind forum posts links to be far inferior to normal links, and you might start to wonder if you are wasting your time.
But you are not! About 18 months ago I was reading a running forum about a well known UK half marathon and many people were struggling to find accommodation for it. I posted a link to a page of mine on which there was an affiliate link to a hotel provider. Straight away I saw a few commissions appear and even now, when I am no longer promoting this scheme and even they entire site I was using for it has closed, I am still getting odd commissions for bookings on race weekend.
Such is the power of blogging that by one quick post I generated traffic to send to an affiliate scheme, that repaid my time handsomely. I could take this further and be more proactive in the forum and post recommendations to more of my own pages for running equipment affiliates, but it's a matter of getting the time to set that up.
But with careful posting it is easy, and allowed, to post replies including links to your websites. Quite often you will get warnings and bans if you take it too far - creating threads just to publicise your products, but if the reply you post is honest, helpful and happens to include a link to a supplier, which may be you, then no-one should complain.
Keep above the line and you can work this well. Look at it more as driving genuine traffic than search engine optimisation and you will be satisfied.
Carefully, and properly, used forums can drive genuine visitors to your website, for free. All it takes is a bit of time and effort on your behalf. Furthermore, the same techniques can also sometimes count as one way link building - possibly a great benefit!
Why only "possibly"? Well, for a start, many forums have been so blighted by spammers in the past that they now take action against people posting links. Some are quite harsh - removing all links and hiding them. Some only allow links to be posted by long standing member whilst others hide the links from search engines using the rel="nofollow" instruction, which was developed by Google especially for this sort of work.
Add to this that search engine programmers know that it is far too easy to get a one way link from a forum and have coded the weighting behind forum posts links to be far inferior to normal links, and you might start to wonder if you are wasting your time.
But you are not! About 18 months ago I was reading a running forum about a well known UK half marathon and many people were struggling to find accommodation for it. I posted a link to a page of mine on which there was an affiliate link to a hotel provider. Straight away I saw a few commissions appear and even now, when I am no longer promoting this scheme and even they entire site I was using for it has closed, I am still getting odd commissions for bookings on race weekend.
Such is the power of blogging that by one quick post I generated traffic to send to an affiliate scheme, that repaid my time handsomely. I could take this further and be more proactive in the forum and post recommendations to more of my own pages for running equipment affiliates, but it's a matter of getting the time to set that up.
But with careful posting it is easy, and allowed, to post replies including links to your websites. Quite often you will get warnings and bans if you take it too far - creating threads just to publicise your products, but if the reply you post is honest, helpful and happens to include a link to a supplier, which may be you, then no-one should complain.
Keep above the line and you can work this well. Look at it more as driving genuine traffic than search engine optimisation and you will be satisfied.
Friday, 6 June 2008
The wrong way to link exchange
I had an email overnight from a customer asking me what I thought of an email he'd received advertising a website www.nettrafficsystems.com. They are a bit cagey about how exactly they work, but they claim to have a network of their own sites and for the fantastic price of only £245 per month, you can get 10,000 links from them. They even offer a free trial for 30 days.
I had to advise him that there wasn't enough information for me to be able to say the service was worth it. It might be great - I've never experienced them and couldn't find any write ups, but their own home page was page rank zero and the site has an Alexa ranking of over 2,000,000, which didn't bode well. They claim this is intentional - they don't want to be found by search engines. So why don't they block the site using the robots.txt file - and what harm would it be, given that they don't list customers or links sites?
My problems with this and similar schemes are many. First, they don't say how quickly you get those links. If it's all on day 1 then search engine are going to detect a massive spike in link building - all from a set of sites that they have previously witnessed this take place fro,
Second, for 'privacy' they don't tell you any of the sites they are using. Your links could be going anywhere. Are they PR4 sites or grey barred pages?
Next, there's no indication of how the links are portrayed on the pages. Are they mid paragraph, list or menu bar?
And lastly, the day you stop paying your links are all removed - there's no long term return for your investment. They claim to offer 'permanent links', but only for as long as you are a paid customer.
What about that trial? Well you only need to read the FAQs to see that at one point these guys say that it can take months for the effect of link building to show - "Ranking changes can happen daily but they are usually due to changes from as far back as 2-3 months." - that's when they are telling you why you should be a long term customer and I agree with this statement. Later on though, the claim is "You can expect to see some promising results already within the first month.". Personally, the only results I would expect to see that quickly would be getting new pages listed.
OK, I'm nit picking here. I suppose it's the surprise of the cost of the service has shocked me! But they are not alone - there are loads of other services like this out there - I've even thought of writing something along these lines, but addressing loads of the problems I mentioned - adding links incrementally etc.
To me, the best way is always proper link building. Get out there and exchange links with sites that are good, honest, hard-working sites. I'm not saying that the sites used by www.nettrafficsystems.com aren't just that - but there's no evidence either way. For the same price my customer could have one of us here spending a day per week link building for him. OK, maybe not 10,000 links on day one(!!), but a year down the line those links we have built would still be in place if he decided to cut back on his marketing budget.
If you have a large marketing budget and can afford to pay the £245 for 6 months and not cry if you don't see the huge improvements then it is probably worth a trial. But, if like my customer every penny is tight, then almost £1500 is a huge gamble.
Don't get sucked into these systems thinking they will always work. They might do - but the reason why I thought of writing one wasn't just to earn more cash, it was to increase my own sites' ratings. That way I'd have earned more affiliate incomes through them. If these systems are so good, why aren't the owners just using it on their own sites like I would have done?
I had to advise him that there wasn't enough information for me to be able to say the service was worth it. It might be great - I've never experienced them and couldn't find any write ups, but their own home page was page rank zero and the site has an Alexa ranking of over 2,000,000, which didn't bode well. They claim this is intentional - they don't want to be found by search engines. So why don't they block the site using the robots.txt file - and what harm would it be, given that they don't list customers or links sites?
My problems with this and similar schemes are many. First, they don't say how quickly you get those links. If it's all on day 1 then search engine are going to detect a massive spike in link building - all from a set of sites that they have previously witnessed this take place fro,
Second, for 'privacy' they don't tell you any of the sites they are using. Your links could be going anywhere. Are they PR4 sites or grey barred pages?
Next, there's no indication of how the links are portrayed on the pages. Are they mid paragraph, list or menu bar?
And lastly, the day you stop paying your links are all removed - there's no long term return for your investment. They claim to offer 'permanent links', but only for as long as you are a paid customer.
What about that trial? Well you only need to read the FAQs to see that at one point these guys say that it can take months for the effect of link building to show - "Ranking changes can happen daily but they are usually due to changes from as far back as 2-3 months." - that's when they are telling you why you should be a long term customer and I agree with this statement. Later on though, the claim is "You can expect to see some promising results already within the first month.". Personally, the only results I would expect to see that quickly would be getting new pages listed.
OK, I'm nit picking here. I suppose it's the surprise of the cost of the service has shocked me! But they are not alone - there are loads of other services like this out there - I've even thought of writing something along these lines, but addressing loads of the problems I mentioned - adding links incrementally etc.
To me, the best way is always proper link building. Get out there and exchange links with sites that are good, honest, hard-working sites. I'm not saying that the sites used by www.nettrafficsystems.com aren't just that - but there's no evidence either way. For the same price my customer could have one of us here spending a day per week link building for him. OK, maybe not 10,000 links on day one(!!), but a year down the line those links we have built would still be in place if he decided to cut back on his marketing budget.
If you have a large marketing budget and can afford to pay the £245 for 6 months and not cry if you don't see the huge improvements then it is probably worth a trial. But, if like my customer every penny is tight, then almost £1500 is a huge gamble.
Don't get sucked into these systems thinking they will always work. They might do - but the reason why I thought of writing one wasn't just to earn more cash, it was to increase my own sites' ratings. That way I'd have earned more affiliate incomes through them. If these systems are so good, why aren't the owners just using it on their own sites like I would have done?
Thursday, 1 May 2008
Are all links directories equal?
Are all links directories equal? Is it worth getting links on every links directory going or are some worth more than others?
Well, hopefully fairly obviously, some links directory pages are worth more than others. Depending on the tool used there are a lot of variations.
Some people still insist on throwing out links pages with hundreds of links with just the link text, no content. Given that the popularity given to each linked to page is spread between the linked pages, the more links the less popularity you are gaining.
Also, if the page is just links and no text, then this must raise suspicions with search engines. There are also some written in HTML and others with filenames such as links.asp?page=123&theme=456&skip=789 etc. With too many parameters you will loose the search engines. I see no difference between PHP, HTML and ASP pages, in fact some of the links pages that I've seen the best results from getting listed in have been ASP with a single parameter.
So what am I saying? Is it best to review the page and decide whether to exchange? It can be. If you are working on getting a new site listed then you may still be at the point of anything is better than nothing. But later you might be choosy.
Importantly, if you are deciding which tool to use then look and see how good it's links pages are. If it gives bad pages then less people might want to swap with you and the same as the popularity vote out counts for less, it may also count against your site having a poor links software.
Well, hopefully fairly obviously, some links directory pages are worth more than others. Depending on the tool used there are a lot of variations.
Some people still insist on throwing out links pages with hundreds of links with just the link text, no content. Given that the popularity given to each linked to page is spread between the linked pages, the more links the less popularity you are gaining.
Also, if the page is just links and no text, then this must raise suspicions with search engines. There are also some written in HTML and others with filenames such as links.asp?page=123&theme=456&skip=789 etc. With too many parameters you will loose the search engines. I see no difference between PHP, HTML and ASP pages, in fact some of the links pages that I've seen the best results from getting listed in have been ASP with a single parameter.
So what am I saying? Is it best to review the page and decide whether to exchange? It can be. If you are working on getting a new site listed then you may still be at the point of anything is better than nothing. But later you might be choosy.
Importantly, if you are deciding which tool to use then look and see how good it's links pages are. If it gives bad pages then less people might want to swap with you and the same as the popularity vote out counts for less, it may also count against your site having a poor links software.
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
Are links pages much good?
Well, if a natural link is from a content page to a content page, using different link texts then what do we do to get more links?
In reality, a link building program will go for links on pages of mass links and not look at all natural. There are ways around this, but they take far more effort and are less likely to actually get links. For the extra effort and less guarantee of people responding, it is usually seen to be the 'done thing' to join in with link exchanges.
Now as long as these aren't free-for-all, then the search engines will still put a bit of weight into what they find, just not as much as weight as natural links.
Avoid running a free-for-all links exchange at all costs - don't allow whatever scheme you use to accept every request. It's always best to check the requests and only accept the best. How the search engines detect the difference I don't know. But I suppose if there are a lot of spammy link swaps in your directory then they will harm you.
Do directories work? Well, they aren't usually one-way but they do help a little. The time that the links directory on CompareMortgageRates.co.uk jammed and wasn't showing any links (and I wondered why people were saying they couldn't find their links on the pages when I could see them on the database) the page rank of the site did increase.
So links from directories do help, just not as much as 'natural links'. But it's probably proportionally far easier to get directory links than natural links...
In reality, a link building program will go for links on pages of mass links and not look at all natural. There are ways around this, but they take far more effort and are less likely to actually get links. For the extra effort and less guarantee of people responding, it is usually seen to be the 'done thing' to join in with link exchanges.
Now as long as these aren't free-for-all, then the search engines will still put a bit of weight into what they find, just not as much as weight as natural links.
Avoid running a free-for-all links exchange at all costs - don't allow whatever scheme you use to accept every request. It's always best to check the requests and only accept the best. How the search engines detect the difference I don't know. But I suppose if there are a lot of spammy link swaps in your directory then they will harm you.
Do directories work? Well, they aren't usually one-way but they do help a little. The time that the links directory on CompareMortgageRates.co.uk jammed and wasn't showing any links (and I wondered why people were saying they couldn't find their links on the pages when I could see them on the database) the page rank of the site did increase.
So links from directories do help, just not as much as 'natural links'. But it's probably proportionally far easier to get directory links than natural links...
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
What's a ntural link?
Right, so a link in is a vote for a site, but what else did my example show us?
Well, for a start, 'natural link building' is not necessarily always on topic. Just because it's a hobby blog linking to a first aid site doesn't mean it's any less - it's actually natural. Especially if the recipients see the nice things he's written about them on his blog and then link back to the page saying about his recovery.
Second, link building isn't always from a content page to the home page. The rider wouldn't link to the home page - he links to the page showing the content that is relevant to him.
But the anchor text is is usually relevant to the linked-to site. His link text would probably be 'pictures of my accident' - relevant to a site about first aid. Also, it would be unusual for everyone linking to a content page to use the same text. His friends might link to it as 'Fred's accident pictures' etc.
Lastly, and this is important, if he's writing a blog then the post page is probably only going to have that link and maybe one or two other links on the content page. It's not a page of 50 to 100 links - just the one or two links.
So, assuming that search engines are doing their best to find 'natural links' rather than built links, what would they look like? Well, they would be on pages of only a couple of external links maximum, they would possibly point directly to a content page rather than a home page (but not always) and they would use different link anchor texts.
It's not necessarily true that the links would be one way - it could easily be reciprocated and definately not always within the same topics - off-topic linking is just as relevant as on-topic, maybe more?
Well, for a start, 'natural link building' is not necessarily always on topic. Just because it's a hobby blog linking to a first aid site doesn't mean it's any less - it's actually natural. Especially if the recipients see the nice things he's written about them on his blog and then link back to the page saying about his recovery.
Second, link building isn't always from a content page to the home page. The rider wouldn't link to the home page - he links to the page showing the content that is relevant to him.
But the anchor text is is usually relevant to the linked-to site. His link text would probably be 'pictures of my accident' - relevant to a site about first aid. Also, it would be unusual for everyone linking to a content page to use the same text. His friends might link to it as 'Fred's accident pictures' etc.
Lastly, and this is important, if he's writing a blog then the post page is probably only going to have that link and maybe one or two other links on the content page. It's not a page of 50 to 100 links - just the one or two links.
So, assuming that search engines are doing their best to find 'natural links' rather than built links, what would they look like? Well, they would be on pages of only a couple of external links maximum, they would possibly point directly to a content page rather than a home page (but not always) and they would use different link anchor texts.
It's not necessarily true that the links would be one way - it could easily be reciprocated and definately not always within the same topics - off-topic linking is just as relevant as on-topic, maybe more?
Monday, 28 April 2008
Why link building?
Back to how to optimise your website in order to gain more website traffic. I've covered what you can do to your own pages, but what can you do aside from changes to your website - so called off page optimisation or basically link building?
Well there are various ways to get links in and I'll deal with these in due course. For now were looking just at link building campaigns. But why would you want to?
Take for example someone writing a blog about their hobby of motorcross riding. One weekend they are at an event and take a bad tumble and within seconds the local St John's Ambulance team are attending. They stop the rider from suffocating on his own tongue and save his life before passing him to the local hospital.
The guy recovers and is really thankful to the team that saved his life. Naturally, it's a major event and writes about it in his blog and recognises the efforts the St John's team put in. He finds the branch has a website, maybe with a page of pictures from the day of his accident and finds some pictures of his recovery. So he links to the page.
Now, the search engines sees him linking from his popular blog to this brand new page of pictures. They decide that if he's linking from his blog then the site and page he is linking to must be good. If he has decided it's a good page, then why not save themselves some effort and acknowledge that and also count it as good.
Therefore, links are like voting for the popularity of the site. Get the idea?
Well there are various ways to get links in and I'll deal with these in due course. For now were looking just at link building campaigns. But why would you want to?
Take for example someone writing a blog about their hobby of motorcross riding. One weekend they are at an event and take a bad tumble and within seconds the local St John's Ambulance team are attending. They stop the rider from suffocating on his own tongue and save his life before passing him to the local hospital.
The guy recovers and is really thankful to the team that saved his life. Naturally, it's a major event and writes about it in his blog and recognises the efforts the St John's team put in. He finds the branch has a website, maybe with a page of pictures from the day of his accident and finds some pictures of his recovery. So he links to the page.
Now, the search engines sees him linking from his popular blog to this brand new page of pictures. They decide that if he's linking from his blog then the site and page he is linking to must be good. If he has decided it's a good page, then why not save themselves some effort and acknowledge that and also count it as good.
Therefore, links are like voting for the popularity of the site. Get the idea?
Friday, 25 April 2008
Submitting Website To Search Engines
Do you think that submitting your site a lot to search engines is going to give your site a boost? Have you ever used the 'add url' form to submit a site to a search engine. Noticed how long it took to respond?
Have you ever seen webdesigners and the likes offering to submit your website to Google & hundreds of other search engines every month. Is it worth it?
Simple answer - Adding your url to a search engine is a waste of time. What's more, do it frequently and it can damage your search engine ranking.
Search engines find new sites themselves well enough if those sites are linked to from other established sites. This way the new sites can appear in a matter of days (but whether they remain listed is another matter...).
If you keep submitting your site via an add url page you are telling the search engine 'No-one links to me and I'm a struggling, unpopular site.' Does a car journey end any quicker when the child in the back keeps asking 'Are we nearly there yet?'
Do you get listed quicker / higher for saying 'I'm unpopular, please list me.'?
Don't do it, but then again I'm not encouraging link spamming. Contact a few site owners that have similar interests and see if they would be happy to link to you in return for you linking back. Get a few links sorted and then you'll get listed.
Have you ever seen webdesigners and the likes offering to submit your website to Google & hundreds of other search engines every month. Is it worth it?
Simple answer - Adding your url to a search engine is a waste of time. What's more, do it frequently and it can damage your search engine ranking.
Search engines find new sites themselves well enough if those sites are linked to from other established sites. This way the new sites can appear in a matter of days (but whether they remain listed is another matter...).
If you keep submitting your site via an add url page you are telling the search engine 'No-one links to me and I'm a struggling, unpopular site.' Does a car journey end any quicker when the child in the back keeps asking 'Are we nearly there yet?'
Do you get listed quicker / higher for saying 'I'm unpopular, please list me.'?
Don't do it, but then again I'm not encouraging link spamming. Contact a few site owners that have similar interests and see if they would be happy to link to you in return for you linking back. Get a few links sorted and then you'll get listed.
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
SEO Doesn't mean spamming
I've alredy mentioned that SEO should look at what search engines are trying to achieve, so what else should we consider?
Well writing good code for a start. Inaccessible sites are going to be difficult not only for those with accessibility problems but also for search engines. If your code uses hundreds of nested tables, like some 'website creation tools', then it will be very difficult for the search engines to follow.
So write neat code. Use plenty of CSS and put the CSS style sheets into stand-alone files that the search engines can ignore - this benefits you as the file sizes are smaller. Test what happens when you load a page with the style sheets missing - now you are seeing the site more like the search engines.
And although you should look at what techniques will help you rank higher, don't do too much. Writing a meaningful page that users will get information from will eventually attract the search engines. A page that suddenly appears and is well optimised, or even a site that does that, could be flagged as suspicious to the search engines and never rank well.
Think of the future. Sites that provide what search engines want whilst being optimised well have a far greater long term future than those that spam in some way to fight against what the search engines are doing.
Well writing good code for a start. Inaccessible sites are going to be difficult not only for those with accessibility problems but also for search engines. If your code uses hundreds of nested tables, like some 'website creation tools', then it will be very difficult for the search engines to follow.
So write neat code. Use plenty of CSS and put the CSS style sheets into stand-alone files that the search engines can ignore - this benefits you as the file sizes are smaller. Test what happens when you load a page with the style sheets missing - now you are seeing the site more like the search engines.
And although you should look at what techniques will help you rank higher, don't do too much. Writing a meaningful page that users will get information from will eventually attract the search engines. A page that suddenly appears and is well optimised, or even a site that does that, could be flagged as suspicious to the search engines and never rank well.
Think of the future. Sites that provide what search engines want whilst being optimised well have a far greater long term future than those that spam in some way to fight against what the search engines are doing.
Tuesday, 22 April 2008
The long term SEO view
If you can't rely on them, then why should you try to rank highly with search engines? Well for a start, if will probably give yougood amounts of traffic, if only in the short term. And if you are able to do these changes yourself - that's effectively free.
But I mentioned yesterday that search engines change over time. How's it best to cope there? Simply subscribe to blogs like this and dedicated SEO blogs. We'll tell you what, in our opinions, are working well. I've tried a few SEO experiments in the past within this blog and they continue to run.
The aim of SEO should be to work with, not against, search engines. People have tried all sorts of spamming techniques in the past and been caught out. If the website isn't banned, then the technique is at the very least ignored.
So instead look at what search engines are trying to achieve. They are wanting to give their visitors the best possible results. These will be pages that give them the answers they are looking for and maybe somewhere to dig further into as the same time. If I'm researching a new fish for my tank I like to find an overview of that fish. If that page is interesting and informative and links to other sites then I'm likely to follow those links.
If the result is a forum, then I take what I read with a pince of salt, especially when the results link to the poster's own websites. Then I frequently ignore the links.
And this is what Google is starting to do. A link on a well structured content page will carry much more weight than a link on a forum page. Why - because in the first page the link has (probably) been loaded by the site owner after they have found the page interesting. In the second case, it's the owner of the linked-to page that has put the link up, not because it is necessarily good, but because they want more traffic.
This shows just one way that search engines are trying to copy what we as visitors actually experience. By thinking through you can see what is really needed.
But I mentioned yesterday that search engines change over time. How's it best to cope there? Simply subscribe to blogs like this and dedicated SEO blogs. We'll tell you what, in our opinions, are working well. I've tried a few SEO experiments in the past within this blog and they continue to run.
The aim of SEO should be to work with, not against, search engines. People have tried all sorts of spamming techniques in the past and been caught out. If the website isn't banned, then the technique is at the very least ignored.
So instead look at what search engines are trying to achieve. They are wanting to give their visitors the best possible results. These will be pages that give them the answers they are looking for and maybe somewhere to dig further into as the same time. If I'm researching a new fish for my tank I like to find an overview of that fish. If that page is interesting and informative and links to other sites then I'm likely to follow those links.
If the result is a forum, then I take what I read with a pince of salt, especially when the results link to the poster's own websites. Then I frequently ignore the links.
And this is what Google is starting to do. A link on a well structured content page will carry much more weight than a link on a forum page. Why - because in the first page the link has (probably) been loaded by the site owner after they have found the page interesting. In the second case, it's the owner of the linked-to page that has put the link up, not because it is necessarily good, but because they want more traffic.
This shows just one way that search engines are trying to copy what we as visitors actually experience. By thinking through you can see what is really needed.
Monday, 21 April 2008
SEO - A word of warning
Whereas it is possible to get a site to the top, or near to the top of search engine listings, a business should never depend on that for its income. It's fine if it's an affiliate site like my mortgages website where it's an added bonus what I earn there, but I have a friend that I work with who depended a lot on his site being on the first page of Google for several major terms.
I know myself what a fall from grace feels like with a website, and although in the time since I've managed to get other sites ranking well, I've just been too busy to really work on that site and get it back.
So why can't you depend on search engines? Well, for a start, they are out of our control and are always trying to get better results. With tricks like improved duplicate content filters, it's getting harder for affiliates to rank near the top. That's just one area that suffers. But if your site is relying heavily on link exchanges and suddenly Google decides to ignore all 2-way links, what's going to happen to your site - it could take months to get it ranking well again, if ever.
If SEO is your business' lifeline then think again. Experiment with some of the other website marketing techniques to see what else works. It only needs your site to be down briefly when Googlebot comes to visit it and you could be dropped completely from the rankings.
I know myself what a fall from grace feels like with a website, and although in the time since I've managed to get other sites ranking well, I've just been too busy to really work on that site and get it back.
So why can't you depend on search engines? Well, for a start, they are out of our control and are always trying to get better results. With tricks like improved duplicate content filters, it's getting harder for affiliates to rank near the top. That's just one area that suffers. But if your site is relying heavily on link exchanges and suddenly Google decides to ignore all 2-way links, what's going to happen to your site - it could take months to get it ranking well again, if ever.
If SEO is your business' lifeline then think again. Experiment with some of the other website marketing techniques to see what else works. It only needs your site to be down briefly when Googlebot comes to visit it and you could be dropped completely from the rankings.
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