Directory submission
Directories are not an effective method to build quality incoming links but they will build volume and are a good way to get the ball rolling. Most will have a low Page Rank and pass very little link juice on, but when added all together, it could be enough to get you up to PR1. Rather than try to submit to each one manually it is quicker and just as effective to use a bulk submission service. A quick search for “directory submission” will bring you back a list of potential suppliers. If you know of directories that deal specifically with your niche, make sure you manually submit your site to these as well to build relevant incoming links.
Twitter
Make it easy for your visitors to retweet your website/ articles with a retweet button. Also set up your own account to push news items, blog articles, and special offers to engage with your site’s users on a one to one level. Twitter exclusive offers or resources are a good way to build your follower base quickly.
Social bookmarking
Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicious, Reddit, Sphinn, Design Bump… there are dozens and dozens of social bookmarking sites, some broad others targeting specific niches, and they have the potential to be major traffic drivers for your website. Submit your site yourself and provide visitors with the ability to submit directly from your website as well.
YouTube channel/ videos
A marketing tactic long used by savvy affiliates, this is starting to enter the main stream for small budget websites looking for free traffic. Create a short video about your target subject using your keywords in the channel description, title, video name etc. Make sure your URL is used in your description and is visible in the video. Your video will then be shown in searches on YouTube and viewers can then follow through to your website.
Community
For every possible subject imaginable there is a community online supporting it. Sign up with related forums and engage fellow members to raise awareness of your website amongst your target audience. This will drive traffic and help generate incoming links from related websites. Leaving comments on related blogs is another tactic that helps to achieve the same end goal. In both cases use your domain name in your signature and become genuinely involved with valid comments, don’t just leave comments that simply state your URL and special offers you have on, it will have the opposite desired effect.
Google universal search
Google is much more than just web search, and for many keywords they will show results from blogs, images, video and product searches on the web search results page. These are often ignored by webmasters when it’s comes to SEO and can be a back door method to getting on to the first page. As with 99% of all SEO, it is all about your use of keywords, here are some quick tips (these are by no means exhaustive).
- Images: Alt tag, file name, anchor text
- Video: Channel’s title and description, video title and description
- Product (sign up here): Product title, product type, description, URL destination, image file name.
- Blog: Specify it is a blog in the page title, link from home page, update weekly
- News: Submit a news sitemap, keyword in news title, opening paragraph, outbound links, regular news items
Purchase Email list
Despite the current rush towards social media, Email is still a cheap and effective method for marketing your services. As long as it is well designed, timed and targeted, an Email campaign will provide a positive ROI. Suppliers such as http://marketingfile.com/ will provide you with clean lists at around 20p per record. Services such as www.mailchimp.com will help you build your newsletter and send it out with full tracking services.
Write articles for peer sites
Very labour intensive and you will need to pick a subject that they feel deserves to be covered, but if you have the time, idea and writing skills, submitting an article to your industry’s leading news/ blog sites has many positive effects (e.g. raise your profile, incoming link and referral traffic). For example if I had a web design service or blog I would approach sites within the smashing network to write an article.
Buy low cost advertising
Purchasing advertising directly from appropriate websites can be cheaper and is often much more effective in driving converting traffic and developing your brand. Contact sites your own visitors are likely to visit for their media packs and advertising costs, for example, if you sell vitamins, websites that write about well being and healthy eating would be ideal targets.
If you are looking for a quick intake of visitors without having to wait for your SEO efforts to kick in, if you have the budget, Search Engine Pay per Click (SEPPC) is a good option. Each industry is very different and the costs involved vary a lot so you will need to research the CPC involved and whether you can afford it.
Another option available through Google is to advertise on their content network using text ads are banners. This is traditionally a lot cheaper than the search network but if poorly thought out and/ or left unchecked it can burn through a lot of money quickly. Go here to read more about advertising on their search network and content network.
Tags: marketing
Directory links will as good as be ignored!!!
Purchased email lists are against all SPAM guidelines, and you will struggle to find a reputable Email Marketing supplier that will permit you to use a purchased list. And lets be honest do you want to one of those brands that people hate for being seen as a spammer?
Neil
Directory links will as good as be ignored!!!
I don’t agree, I have had success from personal sites (and had friends do the same) doing this. Like I said, they don’t pass much but if you get the volume you can go from PR0 to PR1. However, I doubt their is much benefit if you are looking to move from PR1 to PR2 and so on.
Purchased email lists are against all SPAM guidelines, and you will struggle to find a reputable Email Marketing supplier that will permit you to use a purchased list.
Again, I don’t agree. Buying a strong well targeted list to Email is very easy and there are a lot of reputable companies that do this.
Matt
Thanks for yet another marketing article Matthew. I do pay attention as marketing isn’t a strong point of mine. Do you think it”l be ok if I just give you my Google & Microsoft account logins and leave you to crack on?
Seriously though, just to share a bit of info with your resellers, if they go for directory listings then don’t overlook Yell.com, thompsonslocal.com and city-listings.co.uk. You can have a free listing on their sites and get a link from there straight to your own site.
Also don’t overlook the power of this very blog. Participate making sure to add your url.
Keep up the great work!
Eddie
Eddie
Thats a good point on Yell and Thompson Local, I overlooked local searches in this article. I’d also add optimising for Google’s local search as well.
Matt
Quotes from Constant Contact email marketing:
Question: I purchased a list of names. Is it okay to email the contacts?
Answer: No. Permission is not transferable. The individuals on the list do not know your company and have not given you permission to email them.
Quote from MailChimp:
Q: “I bought a list of emails from this guy on the Internet, and…”
A: Stop right there. Don’t use MailChimp. Don’t use anything. Throw away the list. Turn off the computer. Snip the power cord, so this doesn’t happen again. Now go punch yourself in the gut.
Quote from CampaignMonitor:
Q: What kind of email address ARE NOT OK to send to with Campaign Monitor?
A: You bought, loaned, rented or in any way acquired from a third party, no matter what they claim about quality or permission. You need to obtain permission yourself.
In reference to directories – you will never be punished for links to your site as this would be an easy way for a competitor to get you blacklisted. But the gain your might get can be slight to nil. Maybe you’ll get a PR1 from a bunch of directories, but you could get that from one decent link too! Which would you prefer.
Neil
I’ve got to admit I agree with you on this one.
Mail Chimps statements cracks me up!
Dearie me, looks like Heart trying to endorse spam.
I have to agree with Neil, even as I read that ‘tip’ the first word that popped up is spam. I always dislike receiving emails from anyone to which I never gave permission (by passing on my email address).
I did a quick search on purchasing email lists and the first few entries came up with ‘spamming’ ‘bad marketing’ and the like.
A definition of spam: “…in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it” spam.abuse.net
But this is what you really need to read, Matt: “We know pretty well what we’d like you to not do, and that’s to not send spam: don’t send e-mail to people who haven’t requested it.” AND “In other words, permission to send e-mail to a specific address is rarely transferable. If someone says they’re selling “opt-in” mailing lists, be very skeptical. Ask them to show you the standard permission form they use and the clause that grants them the right to transfer the information…” http://spam.abuse.net/marketerhelp/
Not only that, the effectiveness of this is highly questionnable, and 20p and record is VERY expensive to blindly send to email addresses that haven’t been verified.
Very disappointed.
hey dude
Great stuff! i got a lot of inspiration from this post
it is very interesting ….
i went through this page two times
am learning for social work
Thanks
Well I suppose thats me told
Great thread thank you Matthew.
Just a note on the links and how contradictive i am on this subject,
I have found that only a couple of well chosen prime links can be more effective, on a website design, than dozens of minor directory submissions – but youre right in the instant free coverage/exposure.
I experienced this with a website I made for a reputable classic british heritage car.
The website design was in no way Built for SEO, but yet was yeilding middle of the first page results on GooGle from just 2 choice prime links, which were luckily atained by the old fashion method of calling the required websites to link to/from.
And heres the contradictive part…
Having said all of the above….
Whenever I search something for myself personally on services i require etc,
GooGle throws up lots of directory listings and 9 times out of 10 its exactly what I want.
So in that respect I rate the directory submissions as almost essential as they are proven to be effective.
On the subject of emails….
I would have to say that I view unsolicited emails I receive as spam or untrustworthy, I give them as much attention as any popup (which is not alot).
The alternative to popups is to utilise the page curl effect from a js file.
Im currently ripping apart my website and re-building it page by page to SEO standards.
I may be some time………
Thanks again Matthew
Great article, though i dont agree on purchasing email lists.
I spoke to a few reputable email marketing companies about sending a list I have made up. They were not happy to send it because they can’t know if there are private emails in the list, ie, emails other than company contacts. What they explained is that you can mail a company email address with products and offers, byt not private emails. This is quite a contradiction with some posts above.
It’s true that when people are looking to launch online, they are so concerned with capturing the attention of the world that they forget how powerful local internet services, such as thomsonlocal can be – after all, they are community driven.
Bloggin is definately a very positive manner of advertising, especially if you are selling a product, as google likes the extra content that is different to that which everyone else is churning out. You should always try to be original, but don’t get too focused on SEO and forget about the service you are offering to your customers; it’s surprising the number of businesses that do.
Some great tips to get a website up and going. Directories can also be useful for building links to all of your web resource, ie those items that exist beyond your main website like your blog, twitter page, linked in profile etc.
I agree with all of these apart from one. Its already been said but never ever purchase a list. Most lists are gained using spam methods and you will only get caught up in it.
Other than that fantastic post and all other things mentioned do work. I use video alot for my campaigns.
Hey Mathew,
Great information on your article. I myself haven’t used email marketing or even Twitter like most. I’ve just kept it “old school” slowly building backlinks and using some web 2.0 properties like Squidoo and Hubpages. I’ve gotten great results thus far.
Take Care,
Joel
Email marketing is an little bit risky if you using tools, but if you doing it smart results could be very impressive. I am using this method since one year and could say it is very efficient.
Greg.
The social option for marketing is a popular choice for marketers on a budget and can bring great results. Always invest back in to your business so it growa.
That’s a pretty comprehensive list. Nothing comes to mind that doesn’t readily fall into one of those categories. Perhaps posting answers to Yahoo questions.
That’s a good list. I’ve found a hell of a lot of business since joining up to Twitter with my company, I never thought it’d happen from joining a social networking site, but it did. We also did the YouTube thing which we think has helped somewhat.
I also wrote a few articles and submitted them to ezine too and that has helped search engine rankings amazingly. You should add submitting articles to some top article sites to the list, it really helped.
And thanks for the link for email lists, that will come in handy
Sometimes it’s hard to tell what helps and what doesn’t, but either way the more the better. Not sure about Facebook fan pages…think they can be quite embarrassing when you only have a couple of fans :p
Hi,
that’s a damn good checklist!
any chance you could make it into a pdf for us all?
thanks,
pete
Pete,
Yes I’ll get that sorted and uploaded to the web hosting guides page
Matt
Thank you. I would really love it in a PDF too.
Good points, I only think that mailing lists are not really necessary. But great post, thnk you for sharing
That is a good post for any one who wants to launch new website. Thanks Matthew
Amazing posts. I know personally that it feels a bit sat when your site has been on for months and you are not even a PR1 yet