By David Gikandi, CEO, SearchPositioning.com
January 26th, 2000

See Also   How to Build a Web Store for FREE   How to choose mailing list management software   How to Grow Your Web Business   How to Accept Credit Cards without a Merchant Account   How To Develop Online Products That Sell   How to Change Your Web Hosting Service (ISP)   How to Deal with Disgruntled Customers   How to Get Top Search Engine Positioning   How to Beat Credit Card Fraud   How to Design an Affiliate Program   How to Accept Credit Card Payments   How to Choose a Shopping Cart

[This is the second part of a three part article. The first part can be read here].

Now let us look at the methods that build success. Basically it works this way: apply the above tools to each of these methods frequently, daily where possible. It's that simple, but remember the key point here - frequently, all the methods, daily where possible.

Incoming links

88.3% of people find new sites through links on other sites. The smart way to approach this is to start a good affiliate program that pays a commission to people linking to your site for sales, leads or clicks. I highly recommend that you get any of these three affiliate program management companies to run yours: LinkShare, Be Free or Commission Junction These are the leading ones, with Link Share being the biggest and most well known and Commission Junction being the most affordable but significantly smaller.

The advantage of going with Link Share, for example, is that your total affiliate program will be run by them including check writing and reporting. You will get immediate exposure to over 1 million affiliates who use them, many of them immediately starting to promote you, and people will believe in your affiliate program because of the reputation Link Share carries. So with your affiliate program in place you can now contact the Webmasters and site owners of heavily trafficked sites in your industry - resource sites, sites selling complimentary products, directories, newsletters, clients, even competitors - you would be surprised at what you can get! Offer them a special affiliate commission package (with Link Share you can customize your commission rates). Give them banners and promotional text. Maybe even offer a small discount to their clients - that will help them promote your products.

Make a contact list of as many sites as you can daily and contact them and follow them up until you get the deal done. Start with a few hundred. All they would have to do is recommend your products or site to their customer base by placing your links, banners and reviews on their site and newsletter or mailing list. It is a very easy job for them, but one that will earn them a guaranteed commission of 10 - 20% through an affiliate program that they can trust. Considering that some sites have mailing or customer lists in the tens or hundreds of thousands, plus online visitors, this will work very well. Again, use your tools here to the maximum effect.

Search engine and directory positions

84.8% of people find new sites through links on other sites, but in terms of sheer numbers, this is the leading provider of traffic to most sites. Note that it says 'position'. A listing on a search engine or directory doesn't count for much, unless it is positioned well in the eyes of search engine users. Otherwise a search engine listing just gets lost among the millions of other pages on the engines. Only the top 10 to 30 links returned for any given search count - the rest is almost always ignored.

Positioning is the easiest and most affordable yet most evasive and misunderstood method you can use. There is a lot to learn about this, especially if you want to do it manually. But lately there a few good software packages you can use to avoid the hassle and get positioned well quickly and safely. Two popular packages include PositionWeaver and WebPosition.

For most sites, the search engine traffic makes or breaks their success and it is very important to know how to work well with them. Using software tools, you should be spending some time every day tracking, improving and managing your positions.

Friends

64.7% of people find new Web sites through friends. On your site, make it easy for people to recommend your site, product, page, special offer, or article to their friends. Add some scripts that make it a one-step process at any page for the visitor to enter their friends email addresses and send a quick but effective recommendation. Make a nice letter that will go out with the recommendation.

If you want advanced features in your recommendation feature, use a customized CGI script. To get many more recommendations, offer the person making the recommendation a chance to win something for his or her effort. You can use Recommend-It or find a script at CGI Resources. This is probably the only method that doesn't require your daily or frequent review and attention.

Printed Media

62.6% of people find new sites commonly through the print media - advertising, press clips, articles, whatever. Identify magazines, newsletters and journals around the world that could have an appropriate audience. Then give them your articles, reports, blurbs, etc. build a database of journalists that you contribute these items to. Send out press releases to publications and writers. Use a press release firm for best effect. Again, this is a method you should be doing something about very frequently. If you have the budget, you can also do display and classified ads where appropriate.

Even more marketing methods that build success...