|
|
 |
Does Your Site Have Link Value?
Link Value is the perceived value another site will derive from linking to you. The more value they see, the more likely they will be to link. At its basic level, the most immediate value most sites see is a reciprocal link. "You link to me and I'll link to you." But such exchanges rarely bring significant business benefit to either party. Much more productive are one-way links, "I'll link to you because I think your site is useful and attractive to my audience." Such links do not come easily and involve hard work and effort. But they can bring enormous returns in increased traffic, qualified prospects and sales revenue. To persuade other sites to give you a one-way link you need to maximize your link value. The more value they see the more likely they are to link. To create value and compelling reasons for other sites to link to you, you've got to consider link value from three perspectives: * The value you offer the linking website. Perhaps you offer complementary products or services: perhaps the information you publish may help them close a sale or perhaps they want to be seen as a knowledgeable source. * The value that you offer their audience - the people that will follow the link to arrive at your website. They will be interested in what you have to offer and will already have expectations based on the link they followed. Will you be able to fulfill those expectations? * The value that the additional traffic brings to your business. There's no point in generating incoming links and traffic if you can't convert the people who arrive at your site. Sites that offer great link value Let's look at a few examples that deliver value from all three of these perspectives: IKEA, publishes an interactive office planner at http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/rooms_ideas/office/download1.html. This planner is a useful resource for http://www.gilgordon.com who provide resources for tele-workers and people who work in virtual offices: the audience gets an excellent free tool with which to plan their office space: IKEA benefits from the sales of the furniture, users of the software will undoubtedly be tempted to buy. FutureNowInc, are online conversion rate specialists. They offer free content in terms of reports and articles, but the most attractive for me is the free WeWe calculator, http://www.futurenowinc.com/wewe.htm. The essence of Bryan Eisenberg's message is that if you are to increase your conversion rates, you must talk in your customer's language and address their problems, not about yourself using self-centered 'we are' speak. The WeWE calculator allows you to do just that - enter your name and URL and you'll get a free report by return. Many online marketing sites link to FutureNowInc.com, their audiences get a free analysis and FutureNowInc.com gather prospects. The Online Visual Thesaurus, from Plumb Design, http://www.visualthesaurus.com is a really cool no-cost tool. Just enter a word in the search box and the visual thesaurus will create an interactive map of the word and it's associations. The tool is an interactive feature that advertising, marketing, writing and academic sites would be happy to link to: the audience gets immediate help with their writing and Plumb Design benefit from sales of the full-featured CD-ROM or download at $29.95. So how do you add link value to your site? Here are four steps you can take to improve the link value of your site: * The value you offer the linking website. Perhaps you offer complementary products or services: perhaps the information you publish may help them close a sale or perhaps they want to be seen as a knowledgeable source. * Many websites underestimate the value of content they already have: this can often be re-purposed to increase your link value. Review the content that you already have both online and offline. Can you collate or re-package this into special reports or guides. A paint manufacturer for example could draw all its information on 'External Decorating' into a single guide. Such repackaging makes the best use of existing material and won't cost a lot to do. The secret is to make reports address a specific customer need. * Create a range of fresh material that addresses customer needs in the form of articles, hints and tips, special reports. This material should be carefully aligned with your target audiences - you should have link worthy material for each of your important target markets. * Create attention-grabbing, interactive functions or microsites on the lines of the examples we gave earlier. To carry these off effectively takes a reasonable investment in time and money but the long-term rewards in increased profile and increased traffic to your site will be well worth it. By understanding and building the link value of your site, you'll find that the success rates of your linking requests will increase and that other sites will link to you without being asked. That will really bring value to your business. Ken McGaffin is author of The Linking Matters Report and publishes a regular newsletter on linking strategy. He provides training and consultancy in link building and online marketing.
MORE RESOURCES:
Site-Promotion - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Track or Perish Who me? Track?Now I realize some turn a blind eye towards tracking results on their site. Either preferring to look the other way or perhaps asking Stevie Wonder to watch over it for them. How to Write Great Testimonials and Why it Can Increase Your Profits Incredibly! Everyone likes to read or get a referral about something they are considering buying. It helps overcome that fear of mistrust. Marketing Your Website Market my website? Why should I have to spend time and money marketing my website? It's supposed to be marketing my business!!!That's how so many business owners feel, they spend a bit of money on their website design and then sit, doing nothing, waiting in vain for it to start paying dividends and bringing in the customers.It's very simple really, nobody is going to come to your new site if they don't know about it - if they don't see mention of it, a link to it or aren't recommended it. Promote Your Website: Search Tools Many companies after spending a substantial amount of money on the development of their websites assume that once the website is published on the Internet, people will flock onto it and, therefore, do not take website promotion as seriously as the development part of it. Today, with millions of websites around, no matter how great your website is, if you don't promote it effectively, you will not get the visibility that your site deserves. Web Site Promotion: 10 High Powered, Magical Ways To Make Your Web Site Profitable Are you interested in empowering your website so it will become more profitable?Are you interested in making more of your visitors to buy from you?Are you interested in generating more sales, with little efforts?If yes, then pay close attention buddy.I have good news for you. Online Advertising: 10 Smart Ways To Increase The Perceived Value Of Your Product If you have a website promoting any product or service, you can generate more sales by increasing its perceived value.Here are a few smart ways to do that:1. 3 Steps To Increasing Your Web Traffic For Free You own a website and you want more traffic. More traffic will lead to more sales and more ad revenue. Three Cost Effective Ways to Get Bumper-to-Bumper Traffic Using Your Vehicle The following traffic generating ideas do not require costly set-up fees or minimum orders. Two of them can be printed in full color with no extra charge. The ON World of OFFline marketing Ok, now if you've started reading this article thinking that its going to be the same story about the business cards carrying your logo and company name, you are right. Hey, dont reach for that back button already. Ten Reasons Why People Dont Buy From You Here's ten simple yet POWERFUL ideas for you to reflect on. This will help you adjust your marketing strategies. DMOZ Editors - Does Absolute Power Corrupt Absolutely? DMOZ editors are supposed to be professionals in the category that they choose to edit and review. They are also supposed to have high standards when it comes to giving the general public quality websites with content that pertains to the category in which they are editing. 11 Awesome Ways To Attract More Orders 1. Create a free ebook directory on a specific topic at your web site. Get Ahead on the Web: How To Bring Visitors To Your Website - For Free! Search engine optimisation - it's the holy grail of website design, or, put another way, a buzzword which means "get listed on Google." Because lets face it; if your website doesn't show up on a Google search, you may as well not have one. The Best Way To Promote Your Website Everyone would like an increase in traffic to their website or an increase in their PR rating. There are many companies and websites offering promotion and optimisation services, however how much should you spend?I have found two ways; which have had a huge impact in the amount of visitors I have to my websites and of which has pushed up the PR ratings of my sites. 12 Ways To Promote Your Website Offline So you have your website and you've done everything right on the web - search engines, classified sites, newsgroups, bulletin boards, link sites, mailing lists, etc etc etc.And now you think you've exhausted the possibilities of marketing your website and you can sit back and wait for the visitors to roll in, right? WRONG!Here are 12 extra ways to promote your website without even turning your browser on:NUMBER ONE: Make sure that all of your staff know your website address. 7 Affiliate Success Steps How to get your business exposed for free!Everybody in the Internet marketing industry intends to do well, but the truth is that only about 10% of marketers actually succeed. So today you will learn about the tips that will point you in the right direction to make you big profits. Seecrets on Website Promotion: Results of Open Source Marketing Plan after 2 Months This author's open-source marketing plan, as announced on June 29, 2005, is mainly for small and medium-sized businesses. By keeping it simple, this author hoped it can be useful to businesses with a limited budget, can get "more bang for the buck". The Importance of Page Content The Importance of Page ContentThe content of a page is probably the most important consideration when building traffic to your web site. Other techniques do gain more traffic but page content and content of your web site in general is most important when producing a good quality site that will naturally build traffic. Website Promotion Have you ever wondered why some websites get a thousand hits a day while others don't? Well, the secret lies in something called 'website promotion'.When I mean 'website promotion' it does not require you to spend loads on money to ensure that your site stands out. Ten Unobvious Ideas To Pull Visitors to Your Real Estate Agent Web Site The number one key to getting business in the real estatehome sales market is to be people's first contact. TheNational Association of Realtor's last three surveys between1999 to 2003 said 66% of buyers stayed with the first realestate agent they contacted yet only 6% of this number camefrom web sites.
|
|
Home | Marketing eCourse | Online Marketing Kit | Web Hosting | Links | ClickBank Portal Advertising Information | Blogging & RSS | Branding Information | Copywriting | Traffic Building Email Marketing | Ezine Publishing | Site Promotion | PPC Advertising | E-Books |
| Copywrite © 2006 www.AdAdvantageSuccess.com All Rights Reserved. |
