For
any business to thrive online, one thing is paramount-traffic.
Traffic basically refers to any prospective customer that you intend to
reach. The fact that there exists over one billion web pages today, you
should be concerned about how your website looks like and if the webpage
can be found.
The question is... how do you draw customers’ attention to your
website for your business to be successful?
The traffic to your website is the backbone to your business.
If your website can be found in most search engines, broadcasting websites
and social networking websites, then it means that it is accessible to
your prospective customers and if used wisely then it can assure you a
huge chunk of the market.
Promoting your site to attract traffic is therefore a necessity. Various
ways to promote and/or market a site exist but a mixture of methods is
preferable.
You can use Social Media Optimization (SMO) to promote Your site.
Via SMO, you maximise your online presence to be more available through
online communities and community web sites searches.
Your podcasts, video clips, RSS feeds and blog entries should be entered
in such a way that they are visible and searchable to millions of customers
connected on social networks for instance YouTube, Del.icious, Reddit,
Technorati, Facebook and many others.
If you, for
instance, post a video clip to your blog, you will expect that the video
is widely distributed.
First, it is important that you add a line of links to similar social
network sites. The following is a good example of links at the end of
a blog entry.
Add to: YouTube | blinklist | del.cio.us | digg | yahoo! | furl
These allow
customers to very quickly include your blog entry to the sites they belong
to. Similarly, your blog entry could be included to other community sites
or social networks.
For as long as the post has been included by one person to their site,
it becomes available to basically all the members of the community through
the sites search function.
Most sites are diverse and can give you any kind of information you need.
Some, however, are more focussed. An example of the more focussed sites
is YouTube which primarily deals with short videos.
Together with other social network sites, it is designed in such a way
that lets the sites’ members to vote for, rank, share and distribute
the videos clips they prefer.
Each website
is important commercially. Some sites are inaccessible and have pages
that can only be accessed using passwords. Such sites are abhorred
by search engines. Others are more accessible, hence gaining
popularity among search engines as those that can be depended upon to
assist customers in marketing their businesses.
According to internet research firm Hitwise, social networking sites are
powerful tools in directing traffic to retail websites. This can be observed
from the 6 percent increase in traffic to the retail sites this year compared
to 2.9 percent last year.
An effective web promotion entails three major steps...
1.
Promotion budget - a must have.
Various methods can be adopted in online advertising that can be very
effective yet affordable to the business. Free online advertising packages
exist that can be used effectively. Try not to spend any money on any
service or product that can be availed for free.
Your funds should be used for other purposes such as improving the look
of your website, using the funds for web-based applications and/or other
internet marketing expenses.
2.
Make use of website promotion strategies where applicable
Any website
promotional or marketable strategy available should be made use of. It
is always imperative to make your market aware of the existence of your
website by promoting it to them.
In anything
you do, ask yourself "will this drive more traffic to my website?"
Any website promotional activity should be measured. It is especially
important if you can be able to track visitors on multiple levels and
not just one. It is good for you to know the person coming to your site,
their origin, how much time they spent on the site and whether they bought
your product or not.
3.
Be diverse in promotion
In promoting
a website, diversity is paramount. You can post written articles to your
website or submit them to other websites. The articles should be educational
and creative in order to arouse prospective customers’ curiosity
and interest.
Maximising your site for many search engines could be a plus for you as
well as creating blog posts with words and/or phrases commonly keyed in
search engines when looking for something.
A network should gradually be built using social networking sites that
are frequented by many internet users.
WAYS OF MARKETING IN THE DIFFERENT TYPES
SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES
Social networking
entails creating and confirming online social networks for communities
of people interested in the same activities or interested in finding out
what others are doing or interested in and which commands the use of software.
Usually, most social network services are web based and give a collection
of several ways for those involved to socialize. For instance, chatting,
sending messages, email forwards, video, voice chats, file sharing and
distributing, blogging etc.
When frequent
personal entries such as those entered in a journal or diary are made
on a website; that is referred to as blogging. A blog usually acts as
an online author’s personal diary or journal that sometimes contain
hyperlinks, images and video or audio files or other WebPages. New social
networks are created every day and according to the people in this industry,
there have been between 300 and 400 new social networking or dating sites
in the last two years.
(However,
maybe just 4 or 5 of the newly created social networks will be around
in the coming 4 or 5 years) There exist about 8 wide categories of social
networks viz. Social Bookmarking Sites, News Sharing Site, Social Networking
Sites, Business Networking Sites, Collaborative Directories sites, Content
Voting Sites and
Video Sharing Sites.
A) How to promote your business on Social networking Sites
Some social
networking sites experience immense activity like no other in the social
media marketplace.
You can get various services from these sites from personal blogs to music,
classifieds among many others.Because as sites such as MySpace and Facebook
are popular, many corporations would like to add their own specific networks
to cover their brands, products and companies.
Many brands
and products and especially movies are coming up with their own MySpace
pages so as to enable them tap in the highly potential market of engaged
community site members.
These sites allow the creation of a hugely diverse and engaging web presence
which can be done with photographs, interesting articles and bookmarks.
This means that you can package the web into one of its own kind with
a marketing potential. If the site has already been created, it is then
wise to begin linking to the site from major areas of the internet so
that the search engines will access it easily.
Good examples of these sites include; Live Journal, MySpace, TagWorld,
Facebook, Yahoo 360, Disney XD, Toyota Prius, MSN Groups,.
1.
MySpace:
This community allows you to meet and interact with your friends’
friends thus enabling the easy sharing of information such as photos,
journals and interests with the growing network of friends.
Any internet user with an email address can have a My Space profile. This
community is popular with high school students and any one wishing to
advertise to a younger audience.
Of late, public libraries have started creating MySpace profiles to be
able to reach this young audience as well. Creating a MySpace profile
entails completing a form where some details are a must to give e.g. date
of birth while others are optional.
If you give information on the optional sections then this will be displayed.
Similarly none will be displayed where no content is given in the optional
sections. Among the information provided is favourite movies, your profession
or place of work, place where you schooled as well as sexual orientation.
Optional
features such as blog entries, photos and video clips may be added on
a complete profile.
You can customize the features of your site or you can download free MySpace
layouts from other sites. These profiles are not cut for promoting of
a business because they tend to attract a lot of spamming.
An artist has the option of creating a specialized profile but regular
profiles are recommended for non-artists. MySpace's profile options, such
as "Who I'd like to meet" and "Heroes" always remain
on the profile page if no content is added to them.
You be considered lucky if you're are added as a friend due to people’s
interest in your products or services. It is utterly annoying if on the
other hand you go around adding random people as friends as well inviting
them to events or functions.
Always make
use of whatever is available in a wise way. For instance, MySpace’s
HTML code allowances can be manipulated to suit your needs. Your page
can be coloured in the same way as your website or company standard but
avoid the custom layouts and loud picture backgrounds.
Make use of different sites to promote your business and adopting all
of MySpace’s networking potential for promotion could make you look
like a spammer or idiot.
Creating a MySpace profile is quite simple and most people do it solely
for the purpose of making money. Some businesses e.g. mortgaging don’t
fit on the MySpace profile and it is always good to find out before you
engage yourself.
2.
Facebook:
Unlike MySpace, Facebook targets registered users with a valid-education
oriented email address. With Facebook, restricts users from accessing
profiles outside their network (the network typically being the user's
affiliated educational institution.) Like MySpace, users can limit those
who can access their profile by adjusting the privacy settings. This site
is popular with college students, especially those who not only want to
stay in touch with old friends but also those who want to meet and interact
with new people. Groups are created through common interests.
Like MySpace,
Facebook profile creation requires that information such as sex, date
of birth, email address and telephone number be provided. Personal details
such as political affiliations, activities, interests, favourite music,
movies, TV shows, books, among others can be provided but these can be
adjusted in the privacy settings to limit accessibility. Similarly, completing
this part of the form is optional. By having a courses section, Facebook
enables educational faculties to be involved as students give the courses
taken by entering the course number. In a Facebook’s profile, a
photo- current photo, childhood photo, dog, cat, a friend’s photo
or even a hero or mentor, is a must to post. Facebook users can also create
photo albums.
In Facebook,
profiles could also include parts like friends, the wall and groups. Users
can similarly ask a “friend” linking with another profile
by notifying them who then can accept or deny the requests. Group friends
are created by networks—first within an individual's local network
and then within other networks, typically by college, school or town.
The groups cut across many interests ranging from campus clubs activities
to more general ones and can either be accessible or restricted. Distributing
information via groups can be quite easy and members can even plan an
event or a regular meeting through these groups.
3. Virb
Virb is usually referred to as the designer’s MySpace and offers
sophiscated and easy-to-customize profile design. In Virb, details on
several features, e.g. music and video are very much refined. Similarly,
the advertisements look good. If you hate blinking pictures and large
signs that muddle the formatting and colourful backgrounds, then Virb
is definitely the place for you.
4.
my9rules
This is a blogging community which considers quality design as top priority.
To prove this, their social network is well organised and presentable.
The similarity of the profiles on my9rules gives the site a consistent
look but it also makes the whole experience slightly boring and monotonous.
5.
Pownce
If you want anything from web-based IM to a forum, go to Pownce. As such,
it could rightly be called a social network.
6.
Shelfari
Lovers of books will find this an interesting community and they can browse
by user, by interest groups or by the books. It is neat and easily accessible
- you can even view the front covers of books.
7.
HumbleVoice
Designers, artists and musicians can use this stunning community. Here,
page real estate is generously used, with most pictures on the site being
very large, and the whole content is packaged up in neat little boxes.
Howevere the font used can be small and difficult to read.
B)
How to Market on Business Networking Sites
On these
sites, business people are networked e.g upper level management/ executives,
sales people and all those looking to create industry connections. A personal
profile needs to be created, there is interactivity in the forums, and
Question & Answer sections. The interactive sections contain valuable
references for networking.
1.
LinkedIn:
Job seekers as well as employers seeking to recruit can benefit from this
site. Jobs are posted and shared, and questions are asked which are then
answered by industry professionals. LinkedIn's worthiness usually depends
on the substance of its seven million users. Getting a good list of businesses,
contacts and locations can be achieved by hitting “People Search”
then entering a shared last name. The site is better for its lack of spam
and silly entries. To market your business on LinkedIn, recommendations
from other people with LinkedIn profiles are needed, and it's worth acknowledging
in your profile that you were recommended.
If
you are well recommended, you can search through professionals and be
listed. You can get information of fellow graduates, from people with
specific skills, and people in specific areas. This site is popular and
international. This site is a good place to look for business or find
a buyer interested in your products or services.
2.
Collective2
Collective2 enables users to design track records that can be confirmed,
and then to sell their services to others. These can be discretionary
based or automated systems. In both cases, Collective2 gives you an opportunity
to plug the signals directly to a broker so you are not inconvenienced
in any way - except to pick a system and monitor it. Depending on the
type, a system can be quite expensive. Others only charge you if a profitable
month exists.
3.
Covestor
Possibly the most exclusive and ambitious social investing website. To
be a member, you must have a $10,000 equity account, a “demonstrated
investment experience” and be willing to share their trading with
others. Covestor obtains data needed from the members brokerage account.
However, once your track record is unstained, others can cash on in your
investment decisions.
4.
InvestorFace
InvestorFace is free and allows you to find, review and compare notes
on investment ideas. There are different groups for sectors and within
them individual stock picks. The picks have a ‘vote’ button
so you can find out which has been given the most nods. Generally, the
site seems to be pretty much like a regular forum or message board.
5.
PredictWallstreet
At this site, people can make predictions, keep track of them and compare
their predictions with the predictions of others. The user interface is
similar to the newly introduced market-watch sentiment buttons. It enables
you to call up a symbol and either predict it will go up or down. You
also get see what others have predicted
6. SocialPicks
In the SocialPicks community, ideas are shared and views exchanged among
investors. Its features are similar to BullPoo which allows for members’
performance to be tracked and ranked. This is an incentive to members
who would want to stay around longer so as to achieve a higher ranking,
and highlights the quality of their opinions to other members.
7.
Stockalicious
Simple and explicit is what describes this site. In this site, a portfolio
is created in which stocks are picked, traded and the information shared
with the world. Whether your performance is good or bad, Stockalicious
keeps track of it. This site is straightforward, clean and easy to use.
Strangely, their forum is the one committed to ‘neural networks’.
8.
StockFriend
As with almost all of the other social networking investment sites, StockFriend
is a public beta. Among the features offered are picking stocks, securing
and keeping a profile and seeing other’s stocks picks. Members of
this site can be treated to stock picking contests, just like it can be
done on other sites. Membership is either individual or group membership.
9.
The UpDown.
This is the newest website to this scene and was first coined by a group
of Harvard students. On UpDown, money can be earned by doing better than
the S&P 500 through stock picks, obtaining votes for analysis and
finally, a commission for getting others to join the site. To join this
site you either have to be invited by a member or given a notification.
Where the money comes from or how much you expect is not specified.
C) Marketing on Social (Collaborative) Bookmarking Sites
When you
register with the collaborative Bookmarking service, the service selects
and arranges the sites you choose to bookmark and lets you share them
with others. High Quality concept-specific directories are then created.
From this, you can choose the web pages for bookmarking. Apart from saving
your bookmarks in almost all of these services, you can add tags, comments,
and also descriptions to your entries. You can choose to edit the titles
of the links and give them a different name from the page title. Most
of these services promote what is popular hence phrases such as “recently
bookmarked” or “most popular bookmarks” along with popular
tags are a common occurrence on the sites.
The approach here is to basically create a portfolio on each site and
then take time using them as if you were a prospective customer of your
own service. This means that you could search for the terms you have targeted
in your SEO campaigns and/or ask questions you think that the target market
would want to ask; you can then take advantage of the results. You can
select and bookmark other sites that are of use to your target customers
before featuring your own content. Examples include: De.licio.us, Spurl,
Diigo, Furl, TekTag, Bluedot, ma.gnolia.com, CloudyTags, Linklog
1.
Del.icio.us:
This is the web’s number one bookmarking site and was purchased
by Yahoo in 2005. This site makes use of the "network" feature
which is its most important tool. The users of this site can find other
people whose content they're interested in, and become privy to their
bookmarking activities. The site also allows tells you who have been added
by others as well as those who have added them. The biggest role played
by the network is to create a web of people who are linked to each other
by common interest and mutual respect. Just like in Digg, you can save
links to content thus giving it a boost in the ratings. The people whom
you add to your network will browse your content too, and most things
that you have bookmarked can be more accessible. Developing a community
of people who share your interests can be very beneficial, thus setting
this site apart from other similar sites.
2.
StumbleUpon:
This is a community that assists you to explore and find out great websites
that you can ultimately share with others. The minute you use Stumble,
high quality pages that match your preferences are delivered. These pages
have been solely recommended by your friends or one of the over one million
other web surfers with preferences like yours. When you rank the sites
you like, they are automatically shared with the people of the same interests
as you and this helps you find out what your friends have recommended.
A necessity in using StumbleUpon is to download an add-on to your toolbar
that allows you to give a thumbs up, thumbs down and then click “Stumble!”
You can then submit your website to StumbleUpon by hitting the thumbs-up
button while viewing your home page. You will have to give a title, a
brief review and some information about the content if you happen to be
the first to bookmark your site. If for instance, your site is about technology,
users whose interest is technology will be directed to you once they hit
the Stumble button. You have to be very careful about the tags you pick
because they hugely influence the traffic to your site; hence you may
want to include multiple tags. StumbleUpon has also got an automated system
which reads the text in a page and decides what it is all about. Sometimes
the system's inaccurate because the pages that contain mainly graphics
can be hard for the categoriser. This shouldn't be too much of a problem
though because your given the chance to indicate when the site has been
inaccurately categorised.
You can only
be noticed on StumbleUpon if users decide that they enjoy your page by
hitting the thumbs-up button, hence as much traffic will be directed to
your page as the number of people hitting the thumbs-up button in favour
of your page. Similarly, you can lose popularity on the StumbleUpon if
a user hits the thumbs-down button on your page. You can join StumbleUpon
groups and contact others but this is boring compared to the ability of
StumbleUpon to keep and present websites that people like. This service
is free. However, members can upgrade their account status to “Sponsor”
by an annual payment of 20 U.S. dollars. Sponsors enjoy fringe benefits
such as being able to create new groups and to keep messages in their
inboxes for a longer time.
3.
Yahoo! MyWeb:
Yahoo has a large amount of users, and this has made MyWeb bookmarking
popular. This service is just about sharing with family and friends, and
all you need to do is create a page with blogs, photos, favourite quotes
and links. Its not effective to market on this site unless you create
a community by using “invite a friend” feature on the site.Searching
for people is complicated by the nicknames used e in the typical Yahoo!Messenger
style. The most effective way is to be featured on the home page under
“Interesting pages”. You can join a community that relates
to your interest, although these communities are not found on Yahoo! 360.
For that, you will have to the find Y! Groups home page, from where you
are directed to the subdomain of whichever groups you prefer to join.
4.
Backflip:
Backflip was started in 1999 and is one of the oldest sites in bookmarking.
However, it went through difficult times and was finally purchased by
passionate employees who have maintained it up to now.
D)
How to Market on Content Voting Sites
Content Voting
sites allow users to vote or rank any content they deem to be beneficial
online. The result is that the popularity of that particular content is
enhanced and this increases the chances of it being viewed and getting
more votes. Not following the rules and etiquette of the content voting
system can get you be banned. The FAQs, provide the necessary information
about etiquette content voting.
For these
sites to work for you, you have to participate in the groups for some
time so as to select what articles perform well and those that don’t
in your chosen industry. Similarly, if you create a good profile by bookmarking
new and interesting content and entering useful comments on others people’s
bookmarks, this will increase your possibilities for thriving on these
sites. After coming up with a good profile, you can request other users
to go through your new content and decide whether it warrants a thumbs
up.
1.
Digg:
For many people to read your content, it depends on the status of the
person submitting it to the Digg. If you think that your content is dig-worthy,
you can create a comments form where users can register and participate.
This should increase the number of people that register as well as prospective
regular visitors. It is not wise to have everyone in your office dig what
you have posted, as this could get you banned from the service. Similarly,
you get a ban if the site’s editors notice that you are using different
user names. In the event that you are dug and the servers can stand the
load, the traffic you gain will be worth the effort.
2.
Netscape:
This has evolved from being programmed by Netscape to being programmed
by the users. No story on Netscape has not been submitted and voted by
users. Every day, thousands of users submit really interesting stories
to this site making it a very fast moving news page. There are eight anchors
who control this user oriented site to remove spam, select stories that
are recommended for reading, and to do follow up journalism. Just like
Reddit, Netscape can send you more traffic than you might expect. A story
posted on Netscape can bring you quite a few referrals, however, more
often than not readers tend to shy away from adding their votes to stories.
When you are in a position to submit good enough stories and comments
on Netscape, you get a chance to get listed as a Top Netscape contributor.
Day to day events are more appealing to Netscape users than sport or entertainment.
Most often, financially or politically centred stories are the ones that
make the homepage. Netscape can benefit you in the same way as Digg but
to a smaller extent.
3.
Reddit:
This politically angled site has a very strong following. On Reddit, you
are allowed to save and comment on news stories that you or others post
to the site. Just like Netscape, Reddit sends you a lot of traffic. Reddit's
users seem older and smarter than Digg's users and they don't seem to
be biased towards a specific topic. There is diversity on the homepage
meaning that all topics can be voted for, including yours.
E)
Marketing on News Sharing Sites
On these
sites, you get private news hubs where information is compiled from blogs
or other content that the user decides they want to be kept updated on.
Users can simply share and distribute their chosen feeds with other users
with the same interest. On the Social news site, members of a community
can post their news articles and have these articles voted for by the
community. Members also get into discussions about the authenticity of
the submissions. You can also submit stories to other sites where they
may be relevant. Finding the kind of news you're interested in is usually
easy.
Each site
is unique when it comes to marketing. When creating a blog, always remember
to link to the pages of a relevant social media section. The links allow
easy access to your socialized content by the search engines. It is always
important to monitor the performance of each social site in terms of attracting
traffic or backlinks. You can do this by regularly checking the backlink
reports together with your own website analysis reports. If a particular
social site stands out as a performer, more backlinks should originate
from signatures, online blogs, group contacts etc. Some good examples
of these sites include: I-Am-Bored, Newsvine, Searchmob, Shoutwire, and
Bringr.
1.
Technorati:
This is a search engine which basically provides current contact from
millions of blogs across the globe, hence can be referred to as the grandfather
of the lot! For this site, you should first have a good idea what you
want to achieve, otherwise you will get frustrated. The site has a huge
database; you must therefore include the blogs you prefer as favourites.
On this site, you will find it very entertaining to search for keywords,
and you'll find that scores of MySpace and livejournal blogs who have
mentioned those keywords. Technorati is good in keeping tabs on your online
visibility, and it will make you aware of those linking to your blog.
This site also indexes popular videos and links you to YouTube videos
which enjoy quite a number of links. You can find some very cool features
like “Technorati Mini” window that can be displayed on your
desktop. This updates itself every minute, and makes you aware of what
is going on your preferred best blogs.
For effectiveness,
Technorati should be complemented by other marketing and/or promotion
tools. Try creating a free account at Technorati and set up a blog. Then
make sure that every one of your blog entries are tagged using classes
or labels depending on the blog software being used. Sometimes software
may not have tagging functionality. In this case, Technorati contains
a tagging help page that provides you with instructions to include custom
technorati tags to each blog entry. Make use of descriptive keywords to
tag your posts so as to attract traffic. This site could however limit
your potential for direct marketing and/or promotions, but you can find
out how much progress you are making by knowing where you are mentioned
and how the competition is fairing.
2.
Newsvine:
On this site, you can submit your own articles and have blogs hosted within
their system. The site is similar to Bloglines. On this site you can read
stories and news articles from renowned media organizations like the associated
press, ESPN and new scientist as well as individual contributors from
across the globe. When placing a story, freshness, popularity and reputation
have to be considered. Anybody can be a contributor, and you are rated
by the community. Newsvine can feature wired news from AP and ESPN as
well as stories that have been submitted and voted upon.
A Newsvine
homepage resembles a typical news site, but is more presentable and less
congested than sites that only do news reporting. Newsvine lets you write
your own article, but if your story is not appealing it cannot be voted
to the “top of the vine”. This site is mainly concerened with
day to day news events, aso a marketing pitch through Newsvine might not
be too successful. For an entry to be voted up the vine by the Newsvine
community, it has to be very newsworthy.
Writing your
content could earn you status of an influential, quality commentator.
On this site, you can design a portfolio of your favourite web feeds and
articles which of course includes your own, and you can share them with
the community. You could also make a blog and include the teasers of your
articles that link to the main articles of your own website.
3.
Google Reader:
On Google Reader, you can market yourself by including a multitude of
feeds, classifying them and distributing them. Labels are created using
sought after key phrases, and then shared with the general public. If
you want to share labels, you can hit the ‘settings’ tab and
then hit the ‘tags’ area of Google Reader. High rated content
from sites can then be attached.
4.
Bloglines:
If you want to share your favourite content, you can subscribe to feeds,
groups, or websites. You can create a custom blog within your profile
using bloglines. This site allows you to create a portfolio of your most
liked web feeds and articles, including your own if the're rated as high
quality, and then share them with the community. Just like in Newsvine,
on this site you can create a custom blog and separately enter teasers
of your articles that connect to the main article on your own site.
F)
Marketing on Collaborative Directories
Usually online
volunteers compile the directories and recommend suitable sites and content.
Each site is unique and should be considered on their own when marketing
or running a promotion.
1.
Wikipedia:
Wikipedia's content is created by volunteers. This site was created in
2001 and since then, Wikipedia has emerged as the largest reference website
on the net. Wikipedia is written collaboratively by users across the globe
and it is a free site. You can always enter a link in Wikipedia’s
articles external links section if your site can contribute something
online. Online encyclopaedias have a weakness in that people could write
things which aren't necessarily accurate. Similarly, your posts on Wikipedia
could rate ahead of your own site for your specific keywords if your website
is not the strongest page on the net. You should therefore make sure that
you strike an honest and truthful balance. Many internet users are not
aware that Wikipedia can either be created or edited by anybody. Posting
an advertisement that is posing as an article is useless because it will
be deleted. When writing an article about a business, assume a perspective
of third party who will not benefit from the posting of the article on
the wikipedia. You should always aim to control what is said about you
on Wikipedia, because its links are quite influential.
If your company
name is listed on the Wikipedia index, you should make sure that the link
to your website is active and the content within the portfolio is right
and verified. You can sign up a company on Wikipedia even if it is not
online but create a profile for it while ensuring that you give an encyclopaedia
viewpoint. If your writing is 'promotional', it will be flagged as spam
and then deleted. Aim at creating a link to your website from Wikipedia
and a portfolio that explicitly states your offering and company history.
Links to outside websites can be included but sparingly.
2.
Open Directory Project:
This is a
website directory edited by people. You can find whether your website
is listed by checking http://www.dmoz.org/ by the name of your company.
If your site is listed, you should make sure that the listing is correct.
If it is not listed, then you can submit by getting the most appropriate
category and submitting your listing through the “suggest URL”
link at the top of the page. Alterations are made by the use of ‘updated
listing” link, and the reasons for the change must be stated. You
can submit blogs and newsletters to the ‘weblogs’ and ‘newsletters’
categories respectively. Having links from ODP is important for they are
direct and unrestricted.
3.
Prefound:
In this directory,
shared popular links are derived from various categories and you can generally
find interesting and relevant content. It is important to make friends
within the community with those who frequently contribute to categories
that relate to your industry. If your blog is considered to have enough
merit to be beneficial to others, then you can ask others to consider
your content for inclusion.
4.
Zimbio:
This directory
is made of fed content from outside and inside blogs and shared favourites.
When you want to set up your account, you willOnce set up, you to have
access to your most recent blogs which can then be classified into their
various ‘wikizines’-topic based pages in Zimbio. Apart from
using Zimbio to publish your work, you can get access to other interesting
content that could improve your site. Easy buttons labelled as “add
to Zimbio” let you increase the content of your profile. You create
an interesting portfolio at Zimbio by integrating both content from outside
and you own content.
G) Marketing on Video Sharing Sites
This site is a highly ranked method of social marketing and/or promotion,
and involves uploading videos. When uploading the videos, you should be
creative in terms of the video titles, descriptions and label fields so
as to hold the attention of viewers long enough to be able to find the
videos. A copy of all uploaded videos should be embedded within each of
your online blogs, and the type of video source to be embedded depends
on you. Mixing the video up and using You Tube on your main site could
be a great idea, or you could design a introduction to your video from
every one of your blogs, and then link them to the main blog where your
video has been embedded.
Millions
of video clips have been posted on the web by professionals and amateurs.
What a professional expects when posting a video clip on the web is to
direct more traffic to their site and hopefully make sales. Marketers
should find out the best way to utilize the video opportunity in marketing
their products. Good quality videos pass around the network very fast
and can be quickly shared through social networks. In order to maximise
distribution of video clips on the web, one should:
• Have short video clips of not more than 5 minutes because people
don’t have time to view long video clips.
• The content should be entertaining and interesting, otherwise
they run the risk of not being shared among the social communities.
• Avoid commercial and promotional content; this should only come
in when the users click through to your site.
• Have as many video clips as you can because you never know which
one will be enjoyed and shared most across the social network.
• Try to maximise distribution of the video clips by using tags
and bookmark links that could assist people to find them.
• Make videos in which some of the customers appear in so that they
can share them with friends and family.
Video sharing
is probably the fastest growing area of social media and new and interesting
possibilities are emerging and being adopted. Some of the examples for
video sharing sites include YouTube, Jumpcut, Joost, Grouper, Revver,
Blip.TV, VideoEgg, Daily Motion.
1.
YouTube:
It is a very popular video sharing site and outperforms its competitors
by the traffic it attracts.
2.
Metacafe:
This is a site that gives a free editing package to its users with reasonable
payouts to those whose videos appear on the FrontPage. It enjoys a global
audience of 16 million visitors.
3.
Break:
Just like Metacafe, it pays the users whose videos appear on the front
page.
4.
Trig However, it is more presentable being dominated by blacks
and 20 shades of grey. This site is basically music-oriented.
5.
Purevolume
Just like Trig, this site is also music-oriented. The profiles are shared
between artists and listeners.
H)
Marketing on Photo Sharing Sites
In this era
of digital cameras, there are more pictures than an average amateur photographer
can accommodate. As a result, the photo sharing market place is jammed
with photos for the avid photographer to host the many pictures available.
Among the serious programs in photo sharing sites are Flickr and Photobucket.
Flickr is the most popular social photo sharing site but Photobucket is
the one that is mostly used. Photos can be shared and given lengthy descriptions.
This also allows your friends and group members to add comments to the
pictures when they are distributing them.
Just like
in video sharing, photo sharing involves the creative inception of a title,
the description of the photo and a label that best represents the image
you are sharing. If your profession is cars sales, you could post photos
of a car show you recently attended and say that the cars would soon be
in your showroom. It is therefore important to provide a link to your
own website so viewers can investigate when their interest is aroused.
When you show that you are interested in your industry and are actively
involved, it reassures your prospective customers. Some of the most common
examples of the photo sharing sites are Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, Webshots
Community, Kodak Gallery, ImageShack and SnapFish among many others.
1.
Flickr:
A very popular site, it is the leading site in this industry. In as much
as the site may have many beautiful photos, the sites-easy-on–the-eyes
aesthetics are well thought out and enjoyable to view. Flickr approaches
its photo sharing venture from a professional point of view and basically
caters for people who want to promote a business. It has a clean layout,
and allows sharing of all kinds of photos including personal photos. It
is therefore more sensible to market something on Flickr than on similar
sites such as Webshots. You can upload interestimg, relevant pictures
and then link to your website in the profile. When you have a good photo
gallery, try to direct traffic to it using a photo sharing site. Apart
from displaying your product, Flickr is a strong public relations tool.
You can include pictures that depict you in your professional capacity,
as you want to seen by the public.
2.
Webshots:
You need
a free software download to upload photos on this site. The site is very
popular.
3.
ShutterFly:
The site
has image editing tools and many features that are photo related.
4.
PBase:
This site
offers a good enough quality in functionality to a moderate user base,
and has been around since 1999.
5.
Threadless
This site
is one of the pioneers in successful harnessing of the power of a community
for commercial uses. This site allows web users to submit their own T-shirt
designs which are then voted for by the community, and the one that is
the favourite becomes part of Threadless’official catalogue.
TIPS
TO CONSIDER WHEN TRYING TO GENERATE WEBSITE TRAFFIC
1.
For Social News Sites
• Research
your topic thoroughly. The article should be easy to read and straightforward.
• The headlines should be tantalizing to the reader to make them
want to read the whole article.
• Your text should be written in a colourful way, in interesting
paragraphs. Make use of bullet point and creative titles to give more
strength to your topics and important points.
• Use of advertisements on your blogs could put users off. To avoid
this, make sure you install advertisement blocking add-ons.
• To make your news interesting, you could conduct your own research
and give your own point of view. This could make your blogs competitive.
• It is important to have press releases that have diverse keywords
and submit to places such as PRWeb, URLwire, BusinessWire, PR Newswire
and Market Wire to publicise your new site. This would boost the amount
of traffic to your site.
2.
Under social bookmarking sites
• Your
bookmark links and/or icons should be easy to use.
• Automate the process of including social bookmarks links to your
blog. This you can do by obtaining pluggins.
• Create a very appealing and impressive headline to arouse the
interest of your readers.
• Always be aware of the right time to submit so as to increase
your chances of making it to the front page and staying there.
• Make sure that you have submitted to the right category so that
your chances to get noticed are enhanced.
3.
In social networks and forums
• Identify
the area you are comfortable working in within the sub blogs that exist
in social networks and forums. These areas should be related to your group
and website.
• Involve yourself wholly and communicate regularly because making
new and friends helps.
• Avoid spamming or too much use of marketing messages and link.
• Submit to niche directories at the same time.
4. Anything
of value given away for free has the power to become increasingly popular
and ultimately receive the readers’ attention.
5. When dealing with a topic that is contraversial, do your homework and
get your facts right to protect your credibility. Find people who can
critique your blog or website and always think viral.
6. Links, addwords and reviews can be quite expensive but useful. You
can be creative and design simple web-based free software e.g. a mortgage
calculator, and request other sites for links to them.
7. Your description should be short, not more than 100-150 characters,
provocative and meaningful and should consist of verifiable facts.
8. Your first paragraph should be as catchy as possible to arouse and
hold users interest for them to continue reading.
9. You should be very careful about the content you post on a bookmarking
site to avoid being banned. Your content should be information-rich, and
keyword-rich for search engines. Keep on updating your content.
10. Simplify voting on your site by putting a bookmarking button at the
end of the article to allow users to post an article they like.
11. Always seek to build a top profile by posting links to catchy articles
on other sites. Avoid putting links to only one site. Submitting your
own content to a bookmarking site is unprofessional and is deemed as self
promotion.
12. Work together with other social bookmarks.
13. The submissions must be in English because most users are from English
speaking countries. If your submission is in a different language, you
could try and translate it.
14. Avoid submitting old news. If you have to, make sure that the ones
you submit are updated.
15. Your facts should ALWAYS be verified.
16. No spelling mistakes, please!
17. Choose your topic well. Topics become favourites depending on the
site e.g. Apple performs well on Diggs. Negative stories on Bush, Microsoft,
for instance, always have a way of making it to the front page.
18. Have a link to “Related articles/Popular articles” from
your site, so that users get to read more articles on the same topic.
19. Areas such as RSS feeds, newsletters subscriptions, affiliate marketing
traffic can really help. Anyone on your site who happens to like it will
subscribe to RSS feeds and/or newsletters, hence it is paramount that
you put them in visible places. You will be surprised at the number of
new subscriptions you get when you appear on the front page.
20. It is unwise to use automated submitters, since these have also been
used for stealing passwords. This would definitely cause earn you a ban.
21. When you respond to comments on your stories and similarly post comments
on others stories that you find interesting, you stand chances of making
new friends thus creating top profiles.
22. Always be prepared for an unexpected upsurge of traffic to your site.
23. Have a writing style that can stand out on its own, avoiding clutter
but emphasising keywords and phrases is important. If you for instance
sell cars, don’t use phrases like “Customer service to rely
on” but rather phrases such as “Discount car Dealership, Midlands
UK”. The latter is more likely to be keyed in by users in Google
than the former.
24. Inbound links are very important, because visitors on other sites
might see the link to your site and visit it, hence this increases the
popularity of your site. Having high quality links to your site helps
with the search engines.
25. Make a habit of updating your home page every month by including news
items. Remember to remove out of date news.
26. Try to get endorsements/testimonials.
27. 300-1000 word articles should genuinely interesting and useful to
your target market, and should direct readers to your website.
28. Use an affiliate programme.
29. Keyword research is very important. You can drive traffic to your
site when you find out what keywords or phrases that users actually type
into search engines.
30. Educate yourself in at least the basics of search engine optimisation
as summarised below:
• Make it easy for search engines to categorise your pages.
• Identify appropriate keywords to be used in the page content to
make it easier for the site to be found.
• Make use of key phrases in the names of your files for instance,
keyword1-keyword2.html.
• Be creative by using synonyms and word variations throughout the
page.
• Use the most used keywords when linking to your pages. This should
also apply to other people’s sites which link to you.
• Use text rather than graphical links for internal links.
• Use a logical navigation system to eneble people and search engines
to find what they're looking for.
• Obtain links from other sites to inside pages as well as your
main pages.
31. You can attract more traffic to your site by using your own podcasts
(a type of audio blog that is distributed by RSS and can be downloaded
to iPods or any computer or MP3 player). Subscription to your broadcasts
an be through RSS feeds, and the subscribers can automatically receive
them. Creating your own educative and useful podcasts, can help you to
reach new audiences. However, make sure your podcasts listed on podcast.net.
Your title should be appealing and catchy to people scanning the directories.
32. Finally, obtaining as many links from eBay and Adsense could be advantageous.
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