|
|
How to use eBay auctions to drive traffic to your site
Copyright 2005 Peter Tarrida del Marmol
Many eBay auction sellers rely only on eBay for generating 100%
of their online income. Many of these people are running a
successful auction business; however, they could do even better.
They are...
Powerful...Yet Simple... Persuasion Techniques to Improve Website Marketing
Web Marketing Series
The art of getting skeptical prospects to believe the claims you
make in your web site promotions, to agree with what you're
saying, is one of the most difficult challenges facing
advertisers and copywriters. And...
Sell Your Product or Service While You Sleep: Submit Short Articles to Multiple Web Sites
Sell Your Product or Service While You Sleep: Submit Short Articles to Multiple Web Sites Judy Cullins c. 2003 All Rights Reserved. Have you wasted valuable time and money on promotion that doesn't work? Have your announcements and releases been ...
SEO - Why Site Width Matters
Many search engine optimization efforts are focused on pushing the home page of a site. This is a fundamental mistake that can result in the site missing out on a lot of traffic.
Go Wide, Young Man
In nearly every case, a site should be...
Why A Website is Very Important to Your Business
Why A Website is Very Important to Your Business
A website offers many benefits for your business.
Benefit #1:
Allows you to showcase your unique personality and add your special touch to a program.
Let's say you're promoting a SUPER DUPER...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Take Back Control Of Your Site
Many of you may be aware of a move by organizations to refocus their efforts into B2B strategies and are pulling back from their B2C strategies. This is largely because it is perceived to be safer, is more lucrative in the short-term, and more easily justified to the bean counters.
I can assure you that true B2C is not dead. It just means that those who stay will be ahead of the game when the sheep wander back.
It is important to point out, though, the differences between B2C and B2B are not that great. It is just the technology and the environment of those you are targeting that is different... after all, people in the business sector are still consumers.
Firstly, what is a business to consumer online business? It is providing an online service to your end-user. Ideally, it shouldn’t mirror what the offline business is doing but, importantly, it should leverage and support the business’s offline activities.
The successful online business does not work in isolation from the offline business. It reinforces branding, drives sales, but is not solely revenue driven. A true B2C business will have online and offline elements.
Firstly, develop a strategy. Within that strategy it is critical to determine what the organization’s expectations are up front.
Is the online business primarily a…
• Revenue generator • Marketing tool for an offline business or a... • Brand builder to use as leverage for offline revenue generation
Once you are ready to build your online business, there are basic elements to consider ensuring it stays relevant, current and working for you.
The successful online business includes…
• Relevant and current information. People will not keep coming back if there isn’t something new or useful to them.
• Attractive look and feel. It is no different to the offline world. People expect to read attractive magazines and enter well-designed outlets.
• Simple user editing capabilities. Have simple user editing capabilities. This allows you to make simple content changes to the site without having to pay a web developer to do it.
• Low ongoing maintenance costs. Have low ongoing maintenance costs. Often the cost of developing the business is eventually exceeded by maintenance costs.
• Adaptability. Allow for further content development and editing. This is critical to ensure the online business is always dynamic, allowing for changes in your business and industry.
• Consideration for your audiences technical infrastructure. Consider your audience’s technical infrastructure. There is no point having mind-blowing graphics and content if it takes your visitors 15 minutes to download. They will lose interest and go elsewhere. The whole point of going online is the convenience and speed factor.
• Getting the .com. Think globally and get the .com if you can. The Internet makes the world very small. It offers a virtual level playing field, which means anyone can do business on the web, regardless of size... however, ‘.com’ gives the impression of ‘beyond Australia’.
You’ve built your online business, and need to generate traffic. But, you don’t have a huge budget.
What do you do?
Public Relations If done well, Public relations can assist with the branding process, build credibility and drive traffic to your site. It is a very cost effective way of raising the profile and credibility of your online business.
Joint Ventures This is more than just link swapping with other sites. The objective is to develop an integrated promotional campaign with a site bigger than you so that you receive a higher level of traffic. However, it is very difficult to negotiate with a business that doesn’t need you, and if you don’t have money to burn.
The alternative is to spot an emerging online business. We have struck gold on a couple of occasions where the sites we have negotiated joint ventures with now have traffic two to three times more than our business.
To spot an emerging business you need to do your research. And this can be done part of the way by monitoring sites like Hitwise which rates the performance of sites based on traffic.
Permission Marketing Direct e-mail is more than just forwarding emails to your customers. The onslaught of SPAM, which is sending unsolicited emails to people, means that
consumers are very sensitive to what is being forwarded to them. This has seen the emergence of Permission Marketing. More of this in the coming weeks.
Search Engines Register with search engines. The only cost involved here is your time. As outlined in previous editions of ‘Directions’, if you apply a generic branding strategy, you will see even greater returns from search engines.
Permission Marketing 100 years ago, the world was populated by small businesses. If you owned a cheese shop and received a new batch, you would notify the customers you believed would be interested. It was very much a one-on-one relationship.
Advertising today = Interruption Marketing The emergence of national and multi-national organizations, competitive forces and technology in the 50s and 60s saw the rise of advertising, and the end of the personal touch. Traditional advertising is often referred to as interruption marketing.
Permission Marketing = 1 on 1 and 2 way Permission marketing gives customers something in return for providing information about themselves. And as we all know, information is a powerful asset, as we try to re-establish the closeness we had 100 years ago with our customers.
Information for information The sorts of things an online business might offer in exchange for information includes:
• Information on new products and services based on a customer’s profile • Birthday and Christmas greetings • Newsletters • Invitations to special events • Discounts and special offers
Opt out clause The critical element of permission marketing is the customer always has the option of opting out.
What to look out for…?
Plan for success Firstly, plan for success. This may sound strange but you need to ensure your ISP and IT infrastructure are equipped to deal with large levels of traffic.
We used to use a small Internet Service Provider, but found that it was too slow and could not handle the level of traffic that our online businesses were generating.
It was taking forever for pages to download… which meant visitors gave up and moved on… which meant fewer pages were being viewed… which meant that the level of traffic rated lower.
At the end of the day, traffic is an evaluation criteria, and you don’t want external elements like your ISP affecting this.
We eventually moved our hosting boxes to a better ISP. Far more people were able to access our businesses, but our own IT infrastructure was unable to cope. Our servers were falling over every 8 hours. We are currently in the process of upgrading these servers.
Justifying the effort After building your online business and establishing your marketing program, you will be expected to analyze the performance of the business before moving onto the next stage. There are many products on the market that can help you with this.
The best strategy is a combination of analysis tools and online rating sites. The analysis tools allows you to measure the health and popularity of your business, which URL or web-address visitors use to try to get to your business, and which pages are the most successful. One of the best personal analysis tools is Web trends.
The online rating sites, like Hitwise, illustrate how you are performing compared to other online businesses, and alerts you to any PR activity in the marketplace because of the spike in traffic. The statistics shown in our weekly newsletter are from Hitwise and are a great measure for the ‘health’ of our incubator web sites.
Invest in Security The other thing to look out for is hackers. We had a mail bomb planted from an external source that sent out 40 emails per second with one of our online business’s name attached. This was disastrous because the content of the email was highly suspect. We were unable to shut down the bomb for 20 hours even with the assistance of the Federal Police and Telecommunications Ombudsman. There is a limit to what you can do, but it is important that every effort is put into security.
About the Author
Tim Giles is a Pre Marketing Consultant for Enedia (www.enedia.com). Enedia's client's include Ansearch (www.ansearch.com.au), an Australian search engine and directory.
|
|
|
|
|
AddMe, Search Engine Optimization Submission Free Site Promotion ... |
A leader since 1996, search engine submission, search engine optimization, free search engine submission, site submission, and website promotion. |
www.addme.com |
  |
Promotion World: Free search engine submission and web site promotion |
Promotion World is a site for free search engine promotion, full of tips and tricks to help webmasters promote their sites for free! |
www.promotionworld.com |
  |
Free website promotion tutorial - A Promotion Guide |
*Web site promotion mistakes. Other methods *Banner ads *Click exchange programs *Web page design *FFA pages *Increase traffic with return visitors ... |
www.apromotionguide.com |
  |
Traffic Packages: Website Optimization, Search Engine Submission ... |
1 2 3 Submit PRO - Website Traffic Packages - annual search engine submission services plus free site HTML code optimization! |
websitesubmit.hypermart.net |
  |
Search Engine Optimization, Website Submission and Free ... |
We offer search engine optimization and site promotion tips as well as tools and resources useful for better placement / positioning in search engines. ... |
www.addpro.com |
  |
Free Web Submission: Free Search Engine Submission and Site Promotion |
Free Web Submission is the source for free search engine submission. We provide webmasters and site owners with free manual and auto submission to the ... |
freewebsubmission.com |
  |
FastSubmit - The Web's free search engine submission & website ... |
web site promotion : website promotion : submit site : submit url : search engine submission search engine promotion : search engine marketing : search ... |
www.evrsoft.com |
  |
@Submit!- Free URL Registrations-Web Site Promotion/FREE Add URL ... |
FREE URL submissions to more than 6 major directories and search engines! New-Million Pixel Ads now available. FREE WebSite promotion tips and much more! |
www.uswebsites.com |
  |
Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing |
Offers submission services, tools and information related to web site marketing. Located in Naaldwijk, Holland. |
www.1-hit.com |
  |
Web Site Promotion Guide |
The Smart Webby Website Promotion Guide is a collection of articles, tips, guidelines and resources on how to promote your website and increase website ... |
www.smartwebby.com |
  |
Web Site Promotion Guide - Web Developer's Journal |
Tips on Web page design and development, HTML, graphics, scripting, favicon, development tools, Java, sql basics, building web sites, and much more for ... |
www.webdevelopersjournal.com |
  |
FirstFound UK - search engine consultants |
UK based search engine consultants offering optimisation, submission and monitoring services. Free reports offered showing how your web site is ranked by ... |
www.firstfound.co.uk |
  |
Site Promotion.ca - Website Marketing Resources, Tips and Services ... |
Sitepromotion. ... SitePromotion.ca · Search Engine Optimization · PayPerClick · Email Marketing · Offline Promotion · General Tips ... |
www.sitepromotion.ca |
  |
IBP: website promotion software, search engine submission software ... |
IBP is a suite of more than 15 professional website promotion software tools for search engine submission, search engine optimization, link popularity and ... |
www.axandra-web-site-promotion-software-tool.com |
  |
Web Site Promotion, Marketing and Link Popularity |
Offers web design plus optimization, submittal, monthly maintenance and link popularity services. |
www.1-sun-web-site-promotion.com |
  |
BigNoseBird.Com's Site Promotion Page |
How to try and promote your site on the web. ... PICK A PAGE AND, =========================, Home, =========================, Squawk: Recent News ... |
bignosebird.com |
  |
Politics and Technology: Site Promotion Checklist |
Site Promotion Checklist. Over at TechSoup, Leanne Bergey has a great checklist for launching a new website. Everything from the free and easy to more ... |
www.politicsandtechnology.com |
  |
Dotster : Other Products : Local Site Promotion |
Local Site Promotion is an affordable new solution that makes it possible for small and medium sized businesses, like you, to improve your visibility among ... |
www.dotster.com |
  |
Web marketing Australia |
Internet marketing strategies 4 Web marketing Australia, Web site promotion by organic search engine optimization 4 Web Marketing Australia, consultant, ... |
www.4webmarketing.biz |
  |
Ranks.nl SEO Consultancy and Web site Promotion Tools |
Priority search engine submissions and website promotion tools. |
www.ranks.nl |
  |
|