1.Beginning a promotional campaign
2.Web site promotion mistakes
3. Winning website awards
4. The one thrue secret of Email Marketing 1.BEGINNING A PROMOTIONAL CAMPAIGN www.promotionworld.com I'll begin with the assumption that you are novice at site promotion. There are few steps that you have to follow if you start to think about your site new image. You should start your web site promotion with listing your site at the most popular web site directories. That will be good not only for the site popularity, but also for your entire web presentation, providing your aim is to promote your product, idea or image. It is wise to make sure that your site is present in all of the major directories before doing whatever else. The web page design is the most important step in realizing your ideas in the Internet space. You can find useful information about how to organize your web space using easy devices on the pages of www.webknowhow.net. This site contents many categories that you can find important for developing your web masters skills. The best choice in your web promotional progress is to follow the best examples of the site promotion in the web. You can take a look at the Aplus.Net's experience. With the sudden growth of the web, Aplus.Net outlined itself as a web host with customer orientation. Aplus.Net is a division of Abacus America, Inc., which was founded in 1992. It boasts more than 250,000 web hosting and Internet customers who can also access products and services offered by other divisions under the Abacus America, Inc. umbrella. The launch of a Web Panel, Product and Facilities quick tours is the latest hit the mark. Because of the sheer size of the market, new developments occur almost daily. But it is advanced find to start building tradition with implementing tools for customer facilitation. Experts say there are many advantages Aplus.Net can offer. Dedicated hosting offers several key advantages, with the main one of these being that the user has sole access to the server. The very Web Panel itself is a new step to the market position of the Top 5 Host Winner company for 2002.The web panel allows you to control every aspect of your web hosting plan. Info Boxes provide you with a quick plan summary. The tools are clearly explained in the frame of elegant and appropriate design. When take an experience ideas from the web you have to pay attention about the specifics of your products. The design must follow the main ad idea. Structure your web site to sell and lead your visitors to the sale. Don't forget to write content that will be gobbled up by the search engines. And in conclusion I can say: learn the basics of marketing on the Web and leave your competition in the dust. We'll help you. Just read the newsletter issues. It's easy, isn't it? ============== 2.WEB SITE PROMOTION MISTAKES Lauri Harpf www.apromotionguide.com In my other articles, I generally try to point out different web site promotion tricks and techniques that work, or talk about different obstacles and how to overcome them. This article is a bit of an exception. It doesn't explain what to do - instead, it is about the things you should avoid doing. I've made many of the mistakes described here myself back when I was starting out, and I know that a lot of people who are new to web site promotion make these mistakes every day. Believe me, it's better to read about common errors and learn to avoid them than to do them yourself. I learned the hard way... Search engine mistakes Search engines are a key part of promotion and because they are so important, there are a lot of untruthful rumours, misconceptions and outdated secrets circulating about them. Perhaps the most common one is the good old "invisible text" technique. It is pretty simple: Add some text to your page that is in the same color as the background. Include keywords to this text - the search engine sees it because search engines don't "see" background colors, but your visitors will never know it's there. This method used to work in the stone age of search engines and you can still see some pages out there that use it. In time, search engines have gotten pretty efficient in dealing with this sort of manipulation. Getting caught while doing this can result in having your rankings dropped as a penalty, or even having your site completely banned from the engine in question. Try to avoid the "invisible text" technique if possible. If you really have to use it for one reason or another, do it with CSS. But don't come crying to me if (when) you get burned... A similar trick is to add extremely small text, stuffed with repetitions of the keywords you're trying to target, to your page. The purpose is similar to the "invisible text" technique, to hide the keyword content from the visitors while allowing search engine spiders to see it. Of course small text isn't entirely invisible, but coupled with a suitable picture in the background, it might be almost unnoticeable. This "small text technique" is another old trick which is very risky nowadays. Using this technique is hardly worth the risk and the design problems that come with it. Let's move on to another serious mistake commonly made by webmasters just starting out with search engine promotion. They might have heard from somewhere that certain keywords, for example those related to the adult industry or different celebrities, are really popular and get searched thousands and thousands of times each day. So even while their site is for example about 19th century firearms and has nothing to do with those things, they decide to add tens of unrelated adult words to their META tags and in the worst case, even into the actual text of their page. When doing this, they are wishing that because the keywords are so popular, their site will be seen by many and they will get a lot of visitors. This is not a good search engine promotion method, as it will only bring them visitors that are looking for something else than what the site is about. Once the visitors realize that the site is not what they are looking for, they'll leave in a heartbeat. Believe me and only optimize your site for keywords that are relevant to your site. Another thing to keep in mind is not to overdo it when you're optimizing your pages. Repeating your primary keyword 100 times at the top of the page will not get you the top spot on search engines, on the contrary it will hurt you and might even get you into trouble. Moderation is the key - use those keywords often, but not as every other word! Our final search engine mistake is using the META refresh tag. The details about this tag can be found in the "Meta tags" article. Read it, and leave this tag alone. General web site promotion mistakes Well, I don't know if this is actually a web site promotion mistake, it might be more like a general web site building tip. Anyhow, I think it's important, so here it comes: Do not rely on free web site hosts. They are great if your ISP doesn't offer you space and you want to create a modest homepage just to show you're on the Net, but if you're planning to build a more serious site, I'd say a domain name and a paid host is almost a must. Domains and hosting space are cheap nowadays and they are well worth the money spent on them. First of all, good paid hosts are faster and more reliable than free hosts. Second, a domain name gives your site some authority - it shows you're serious and your site is going to stay around for awhile. This is extremely important if you're trying to sell something, because you'll need to make your visitors feel comfortable to send their money to you. Another point to consider is that it's generally easier to get a site with a domain name into search engines and directories. It is a lot harder to do that if your site is hosted on a free host. It's not impossible, but web site promotion is a tough game, there's no reason to make it any harder. So spend a few bucks here if you can - you'll get them back later, with interest. There is one more subject to cover before we're finished. That is, wasting your money on bad submitting services. I've seen thousands of spams that scream "We'll submit your site to 15000 search engines and directories for the low price of $49.95". Don't be fooled by them. The majority of those 15000 places produce minimal traffic, as there are hardly even 150 significant global engines. I'd advise against paying for these services, unless you can test-drive them first for free and pay only if you are satisfied with the results. Note that the above does not mean you shouldn't pay for different web site promotion services. There are promotion tools that are worth the money and people who can do wonders for your site if you hire them. However, remember to investigate before you buy. Ask other people about their experiences with the service you're considering to purchase before buying it - you might save a lot of money. =========== 3.WINNING WEBSITE AWARDS www.apromotionguide.com Website awards are small, sometimes animated pictures that have a little bit of text and some cute graphics in them. They are a bit like trophies from sport events - one would easily believe that they have no actual purpose and are just designed to look good and to make the owner proud of himself. Is it that simple? Well, if it were you wouldn't have to read this article. Website awards actually have a function, but the way they work is not quite common knowledge. Even many webmasters who display awards on their sites don't have a clue on what is actually happening. Let's start by looking at this topic from the award winner's side. What does he actually get? Well, first of all he receives the graphic that the award distributor has made. Only on rare occasions it has any value; unless the site that gave it is extremely known and respected, the graphic alone will not raise the prestige of the winning page. Second, the winner usually receives a link from the site that gave the award. The value of this link depends on where it is placed and how much traffic the linking page gets. If it's a prominent link on a busy site, it's worth something. If it's a tiny link on a low-traffic site, it won't do the winner much good. Alright, we've pretty much covered what the winner gets. But does the person who gives out awards get anything, or is he left empty handed? Sometimes it is better to give than to receive, and I feel that this is one of the cases where the rule applies. If done right, giving out awards can be a good promotion method, as it has two major positive effects. First, it creates a link popularity boost as it is possible and even common to pass out cut 'n paste HTML-code along with the award itself. This code is then used to install the award to the winner's site and to link it back to the site that gave the award. Most award winners seem to comply with this linking procedure without giving it a second thought. This boost in link popularity helps the person that gave the award in appearing near the top in search engines, especially if he is wise enough to give the awards mostly to sites that deal with similar topics as his own site. The relevancy of the links is important due to search engine algorithms - read the link popularity article for more information. Distributing awards also creates some visitors through the awards visible on the winner's websites. Sure, not many people click on an award, but if you give out 1000 of them and every one gets clicked just twice a month, that's 2000 visitors/month for the site right there! Who's really winning? In conclusion, the person giving out awards usually benefits more from them than the one winning the award. If you're planning to apply for awards, prefer big sites that offer a prominent link on their site for winners. If you want, you might also try to win smaller awards just to gain some links. I wouldn't even think about placing the actual awards on my site; the real prize is the link that can be gained from the site that gives the award, not the award itself. On the other hand, if you're planning to hand out website awards, it might be a good idea. There are plenty of webmasters out there who haven't read this article and will gladly accept just about any award, place it on their site and link it to your site. The only thing you'll need is graphic skills to make the award picture and a set of linking instructions to pass out to the "lucky" winners. It might be wise to limit the sites that can apply for the award to the ones with a similar topic as your site so that you will gain a lot of relevant, not random, links that will help you in your search engine related promotion efforts. ============= 4. THE ONE THRUE SECRET OF Email MARKETING by Ann Handley and Nick Usborne www.marketingprofs.com The highly competent publisher of MarketingProfs, Allen Weiss, contacted us this week with a story idea. It seems that many of you want to read articles on email marketing. So, Allen wondered, could you pen something brilliant on the subject? “Absolutely!” we said. (We like to keep Allen happy.) In fact, in our combined years of experience, we’ve discovered quite a bit about what works, and what doesn’t, in the email marketing arena. More than that, we’ve also divined the true secret of marketing via electronic mail. Scootch up your chair and lean in close to your screen. Here’s the single great truth of email marketing: It’s the content that counts. Pay the most attention to what really matters: the words in your message, and the words on any web pages the email links your customers or readers to. Seems obvious, eh? But unfortunately what tends to happen is that companies get swept away in their efforts to produce a visually astounding email, or a highly personalized message that, for example, addresses the recipient by her first name. The words that matter most get the short end of the stick. As technology has advanced, there are certainly some amazing tools available to marketers. In theory, even small companies can make themselves appear larger with cleanly produced, customized, graphical, mass-market emails. The problem comes in when companies really don’t have the money to adequately clear the hurdles that come with producing a seamless, customized and beautifully designed email message. And sometimes, the hurdles can’t be cleared anyway. HTML and personalized mail requires special skills for formatting, programming and testing. A company needs to ensure that the message looks right in all possible email clients and browsers, and that the name they are using does not appear as, for example, “Dear Mr. Ann Handley” or “Dear Ms. Nick Usborne.” Those kinds of skills are not cheap. And even if money is no object in your company (ha!), you have to be sure your clients or customers have access to HTML email readers. Some organizations automatically remove HTML mail, often without letting the intended receiver know the mail has just been censored. The bottom line is this: The effort to produce a perfect email can take your eye off the ball that could truly hit you a home run. Yes, we’re talking about the message. With the limited marketing budgets of a post-bubble world, it makes more sense to apply those dollars elsewhere, like the copy and content your message will carry. Here’s an example of a company that excels with its email marketing copy and content: Our good friend Jared Spool at User Interface Engineering (www.uie.com) has been writing us lately, imploring us to attend his conference this October in Boston. Of course, he hasn’t been writing us alone--his staff of two part-time conference marketing people have been sending messages to some 30,000 clients on UIE’s list. What’s truly unique about UIE’s email marketing efforts is that the messages come across as both personal and informative. And, Jared tells us, they have also been highly effective in pulling attendees to the October seminar--90 percent of the sign-ups thus far have come from the email list. The messages are simple text emails. It’s the copy of the email messages that really sets UIE apart. Reading the copy of the email, you know Jared is trying to entice you to spend the bucks to attend Boston this fall. But more than that, you also get a sense of Jared’s quirky sense of humor; you learn about the patent his father holds; you hear about the latest industry research. And woven through it all, you glean the competency and value of UIE’s products and services. All this comes in the way of great content. UIE’s latest contains a fair amount of the sales copy--testimonials by past attendees, for example. But it’s extremely well-written and compelling. Here’s a snippet: What do Microsoft, Iceland Air, the Harvard Business School, the City of Tucson, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and the American University of Cairo all have in common? People from these very companies, hospitals, government agencies, and universities have all picked up on the benefits of attending User Interface 7 East. (You can get program details at http://www.uiconf.com) Why should you join them at User Interface 7 East? Rather than tell you what *we* think the benefits are, we've asked past conference attendees what they valued most about their experiences. The latest email message also gives a meaty list of sites that do community work. One previous to that gives us an in-depth interview with Peter Merholz, expert information architect and founder of Adaptive Path, about how they helped redesign three of PeopleSoft's sites. It’s a great chat, chock-full of information. And--guess what? Merholz is also speaking at the October conference. Jared explains the marketing campaign as intentionally content-driven. “Our audience is extremely hungry for our content, particularly since their livelihood now depends on it,” Jared said. Presentation of the email message--either with personalization or full-blown HTML--“is far second to useful information.” Isn’t that a message we all should hear? Nick Usborne speaks, writes, and consults on strategic copy issues for business online. For Web sites, emails and newsletters, he crafts messages for several high profile companies. The staff at MarketingProfs highly recommends his new book 'Net Words - Creating High-Impact Online Copy'. Ann Handley is co-founder and former editor of ClickZ.com. With almost 20 years experience as a business journalist, she continues to write and edit articles, newsletters and ebooks on the subject of online marketing and advertising. She can be reached at ann@handley.net