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
webpage.
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.
