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In
my opinion one of the most powerful ways to market online is through linking
strategies. What you want to do is get other high traffic websites to link to
you. Their links to you will then generate traffic for your site.
Let's say that in your business niche there
are a few hundred websites out there generating a million visitors a year, there
are hundreds of websites that are generating 30,000 a year and another thousand
that are generating 10,000 a year. These are websites that are directly related
to your business. What if you can get these people linking to you and
recommending your services or products? You are taking their traffic and
funneling it right into your website.
Just take a look at the power of this.
If you get a link from their site it will probably stay there forever. While
your link is up, they are continually sending traffic to you... day after
day, week after week, year after year!
So the work you do now, in getting a
link from them, will pay off for days, weeks, months, and years.
The sooner you get the link from them, the
better it is for you as the traffic that comes in from their link can only grow
because as they grow, they will just send you more and more traffic your way
as time goes on. In other words, if your link is on their site and their visitor
count starts going up, more traffic is going to flow from their site to yours.
This is a great way to use other people to
generate traffic for you! However, it seems to be a very misunderstood and
unused way of marketing right now. People will say "Oh yeah, I asked a pile
of people to exchange links with me and it doesn't work." Well you have to
go about it in a unique way. You can't just email somebody and say "I want
to know if you want to trade links." That isn't going to work!
Let's get onto the basics on how to
properly do this. You will first have to identify who your target
audience is, who you want to reach, and where that target audience hangs
out. If they are visiting certain types of websites or forums, you have to
find out which ones. You then need to go to those websites and get some
personal information about them. Get the owner's first name, look for some
information you find interesting at the website. Find where a link to you
could fit in at their website. Once you've got that information, and only
once you have that, email them and mention all of this so that it is very
personalized.
You can say something along the lines of
"Hi John, I visited your website at [insert URL here] and I noticed that
your resource page has [insert personal comment here] and I wanted to mention
that we have a website that educates customers on [insert list of stuff here]
techniques and [insert list of information here] information and great articles
on [list articles here]. This would fit perfectly into your resource center and
I'm sure your visitors would just love that. And I wanted to let you know that
this could be a great asset for your visitors." Blah... blah... blah.
You haven't talked about what's in it for you,
you haven't talked about how great you are or your fantastic products. You just
show them how linking to you is going to be a benefit to their visitors. You
talk about "what's in it for them". Their visitors are going to
like them more because they have a greater list of resources, this makes them
look good and they become an even better resource for their visitors.
And, of course you get traffic from them which
makes this all worthwhile for you.
If they don't respond to this offer, email
them back and up the ante. Instead of just saying "hey, link to us",
now say, "lets exchange links because I think we are co-operative
businesses, not competitive. You link to me and I will link back to
you." And then make it very easy for them to link to you by giving
them the exact HTML code to put in the web page.
Don't just say "hey, lets exchange
links". That's too general.
Give them the specifics in order to make it really easy for them.
The idea here is that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. So if you make it
really easy for them to link to you they are probably going to do it. If
they have go through a series of emails and talking on the phone in order to
figure out how to link to you and how to get you the information you need, they
are going to think it's not worth the effort.
The key here is making it really easy for
them.
Tell them how this is a mutually beneficial way to do business.
That you can send them customers
because your market research has shown that
your customers want to buy or be involved in a
site like theirs and that in return their
visitors would probably want to hear from you because it is a related site and
it has great information. This is basically a
win-win situation for both of you.
Don't forget simple things like putting a
direct contact phone number at the bottom of your email and maybe even a mailing
address if you want them to sign a contract. They should be able to pick up the
phone and call you right away. Give them the hours in which you can be reached
and so on.
In my personal experience, I like to call the
people directly and talk to them... build rapport and get them to link to me.
Now that my companies are the size that they are, I actually have a full-time
employee who does just this throughout his ENTIRE DAY!
Your job is to make it really easy for them to
get involved with you. By laying it all out for them, all they have to do is
reply and say, "Yes, we'll put up your link in two days." There's no
emailing back and forth trying to figure out what you are going to say or how
are you going to word it and where it should go.
If you want to do business with the big boys,
if you want to deal with people who are getting lots of traffic, you have to
make it very simple for them because they will not listen to you unless you do.
Everyone else makes it hard, so be different and stand out from the crowd. Make
it easy for them and you will get the business.
Why not take a few hours to do some research, if you are unsure where to
start, call me, I am here to help your business prosper. I can assist you
with your Banner Exchange Efforts, so you can trade links and watch
the number of your web site visitors grow.
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