 |
I-BIZ TIPS - Monthly E-Mail Newsletter
*Providing Tips on Making the Internet Work for your Business*
A Free Service of Tech Direct, Inc. – Ruth Rainey, Editor
Number 3
You are receiving this online publication as a result of your
subscription request completed at <http://www.techdirect.com/IBIZ>
or e-mail message sent to <mailto:sub-IBIZ@techdirect.com>.
UNSUBSCRIBE from this FREE monthly publication for business users
by sending e-mail to <mailto:unsub-IBIZ@techdirect.com> with your
full name and e-mail address in the BODY of your message.
TOPICS
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Topic 1: The Top Ten Places to Submit Your Web Site
Here is my list of the top 10 places to list your Webs site and the
approximate length of time it takes from submittal until your
listing is available. These engines are important not just because
of their name recognition but because they appear on the search
pages of major sites such as Netscape, etc. Approximately 90% of
the people who find your site through search engines will use one of
these engines.
Excite recently purchased HotBot and WebCrawler which may lead to a
consolidation of these engines. The OpenText directory has not been
updated for several months as they renovate their system.
Submittals, however, are still being accepted.
Unlike the other resources, Yahoo! is a directory. You are limited
to 2 categories so choose wisely. Commercial sites must be submitted
to Business & Economy under Companies or Products and Services.
Additionally, each entry is reviewed by a human who determines the
category that you belong in, perhaps not the one you requested. If
there is a regional directory for your locale, submitting to it will
speed up the time it takes to get listed.
AltaVista - 2 days
<http://www.altavista.digital.com>
Excite - 2 weeks
<http://www.excite.com>
HotBot - 2 weeks
<http://www.hotbot.com>
InfoSeek - 1 day
<http://www.infoseek.com>
Lycos - 2-6 weeks
<http://www.lycos.com>
Magellan - in the midst of editorial transition
Magellan contains reviews for sites in various categories.
Currently they are accepting submissions but are not adding new
reviews or updating current reviews. This is most likely due
to their acquisition by Excite.
<http://www.mckinley.com/magellan>
OpenText - Accepting entries but listings have not been updated
<http://www.opentext.com>
WebCrawler - 2 weeks
<http://www.webcrawler.com>
Yahoo! - 6-8 weeks
<http://www.yahoo.com>
Yahoo! - Regional Directory - within 1 week
<http://www.yahoo.com>
Regional directories are listed at the bottom of the main page.
Submit to the regional directory that applies to you, if available.
Currently Yahoo! has U.S. regional directories for: Atlanta,
Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Los Angeles, Miami,
Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York, S.F. Bay, Seattle, and
Washington D.C.
International directories are available for Canada, France,
Germany, Japan and the U.K. and Ireland.
- - - - - - - - - -
Topic 2: Search Engine Tips
Tip 1: Never promote your site until it is finsihed.
Since it takes several weeks for your site to show up in the search
engine listings it is tempting to submit your site to the engines
before it is finished. Don't do it!
While your listing may not show up for several weeks, the search
engine sends out a robot or spider to index your pages immediately
upon submittal. Whatever is on your pages when you submit will be
used to index your pages.
Tip 2: Why submit to more than the top 10 engines?
We previously stated that 90% of the traffic that visits your site
as a result of search engines will be through the top 10 engines.
So why would you want to submit to 50, 100, or even 200 other
engines, directories, yellow pages, etc.?
Your placement in many search engine can be affected by how many
sites link to yours. By obtaining listings in as many resources as
possible you not only increase your chances of being found by people
through these resources, you also increase the number of links to
your site.
Here is an easy way to see who is linking to your site. Go to
AltaVista at: <http://www.altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=q>
In the text box, type: link:domain name, e.g., link:yahoo.com
AltaVista will search it's database and return a list of sites that
have linked to your site.
This tip can be especially useful if you change your URL and want to
inform Web sites who link to yours.
Tip 3: Editing Search Engine Listings
It is easier to make a submittal than to change a listing once it
has been made. Be sure to check and double check your email address
and URL as well as your spelling.
What do you do when your site has moved, you have been categorized
incorrectly or there are misspellings in your title or description?
A general rule of thumb is if the engine does not have a special
link for edits or changes, resubmit with the correct information.
The following engines provide an easier way to make changes:
Yahoo! <http://www.yahoo.com/docs/writeus/deadlink.html>
This form is for submitting your own site information for dead
links, links that return an error message, a site that has moved,
categorized incorrectly or misspellings in the title or description.
Be prepared to provide: Title, Category, URL, New URL, Description.
InfoSeek <http://www.infoseek.com/AddUrl?pg=DCaddurl.html> Add or
update your site listing. To report a dead link, click on the
Report Dead
URL button.
Alta Vista <http://www.altavista.digital.com/av/content/addurl.htm>
This link adds a URL as well as deletes a dead URL.
WebCrawler
<http://webcrawler.com/WebCrawler/Help/GetListed/DeleteURLS.html>
Use this URL to delete dead URLs.
- - - - - - - - - -
Topic 3: Opt-In Email Lists
Is it SPAM or an email marketing opportunity?
Spamming is the practice of sending unsolicited marketing messages
to e-mail addresses. The key word is unsolicited. If you request
the information it is not spam
An e-mail list is usually a newsletter or discussion group that
sends out periodic digests or individual posts. You must subscribe
to an e-mail list to receive the publication so there is no hint of
SPAM. I-BIZ TIPS is an e-mail list.
The new twist is an *opt-in* e-mail list. Lately, I have received
numerous SPAM messages regarding these services. Here is how one
email message describes their service:
<snip: Source to remain anonymous>
We are NOT talking SPAM here! <Name omitted> targeted e-mail
lists are generated in an OPT-IN manner. That means that every
one of the recipients has specifically requested mail relating to
a particular topic. They WANT your e-mail. Our mailing list
recipients trust us and know that they will receive only mail
messages in topics that they have expressed an interest in
(500 different categories, both business and consumer lists).
- Build Traffic To Your Site
- Provide a Direct Marketing Offer
- Announce a new Product or Service
- Build Brand Awareness
Topic 4: LinkExchange
The LinkExchange <http://www.linkexchange.com> is the oldest and
largest banner exchange company on the Internet with other 100,000
participants. Their audited information states that they have over
5 Million adviews per day (the number of times a banner ad is
displayed.) The LinkExchange rotates your banner ad among thousands
of sites for free in exchange for you hosting another site's free
banner ad on your site.
Here is how it works:
Every hit to your page gives you a half credit. When you register a
full credit (2 hits) your banner is scheduled to be shown on a
member's page.
The number of impressions you will receive on other sites under this
arrangement is entirely dependent on the level of traffic on your
site. If you have a high-traffic site, you will be rewarded with a
high level of ad placements on the other participating sites. If
your site is new or underpromoted, it's unlikely that you will get
enough impressions to make this a true advertising alternative.
If you have low traffic to your site you can still make the
LinkExchange work for you by purchasing additional credits through
either the friends or small business bonus program. The friends
bonus program provides additional credits for companies spending
less than $300. Make a contribution and for every $50 you
contribute, you will receive an additional 4000 ad exposures. If
you want to spend from $300 to $1,200, small business packages are
available that will provide additional exposures.
One benefit of being a member is real-time traffic statistics to
your site. Each member has an account and login to the
LinkExchange's Members area. LinkExchange tracks the number of hits
to your page, the number of times your banner is viewed and the
number of click-throughs on your banner. These are available on a
daily and cumulative basis.
If you are thinking about buying banner advertising on the Internet,
the LinkExchange is a good way to test your banners as you can
change your ad every two or three days until it's perfect.
The LinkExchange's newest service targets your banner to niche
audiences from a selection of 1,600 subject categories. It is too
early to tell the effect of this service. Sometime in August they
will also start accepting animated banners.
Is this FREE resource for everyone? While participation is free,
effective banner ads must be designed and tested. Fine-tuning a
banner ad for a high click-through rate is not as easy as it seems.
Some members, who are graphics designers, offer one free banner
designed as they have time. To participate successfully, however,
expect to create and test several banners per month.
I/PRO/DoubleClick (10/96) research has shown the following items can
influence banner effectiveness:
Animation
Simple animation can increase response rates by 25%.
Cryptic Messages
While a cryptic message typically increases click-through by
18%, they may not attract the right audience or reinforce
branding.
Posing a Question
Using a question (Looking for a bargain?) can raise click-
through by 16% over average.
Call to Action
Phrases such as *Click Here* tend to improve response by 15%.
Free Offers
Depending upon the audience, offers of free goods and services
can dramatically improve click-through.
Colors
Using bright colors contributes to greater response rates.
Sense of Urgency
Statements creating a psychological sense of urgency actually
seem to DECREASE average response rates.
Visit LinkExchange at http://www.linkexchange.com to find out more
about the LinkExchange.
- - - - - - - - - -
Topic 5: Internet Advertising Terminology
Banner advertising is different from traditional media advertising.
Before jumping into banner advertising, review the following basic
Web-advertising terminology.
Hits
A request made to a web server to download a file.
Raw hits
Number of files downloaded both graphic images and HTML pages.
To obtain an accurate hit count, subtract the images from the
number of html pages.
Unique Users
The total number of different users, or different computer
terminals which have visited a Web site.
Page impressions or page views
Number of times a page or a banner ad on that page is
requested.
Banner
An ad graphic, usually a GIF image, measured in pixels.
Exposures
The number of times a viewer sees the sponsor's banner ad.
Impression
One display of a banner to a single viewer.
Impression Totals
The total number of times a banner is displayed.
Ad Click
Number of times users click on an ad banner.
Ad Click Rate or Click-Through
The number of clicks on an ad as a percentage of the number of
times that ad was downloaded.
Banner Burnout
The point at which a banner stops delivering a good Return On
Investment.
CPM
Cost per thousand impressions or page views.
CPTM
Cost per targeted thousand impressions.
- - - - - - - - - -
Topic 6: Business-Related Sites, Articles & Surveys
THE BANNER POSITION THAT CAN INCREASE RESPONSE 228%
Sunil Gupta's grad students at U. Michigan tested different Web
banner ad positions. They found:
Moving the banner from the top of the page to the lower right
near the right scroll bar) increased response 228%
Moving the banner from the top to 1/3 down the page increased
response 77%
The sample sizes in the test are somewhat small, but the results
suggest this is something to try.
Webreference Study <http://www.webreference.com/dev/banners/>
---------------
What can you do about Spam? Jesse Burst’s AnchorDesk Ezine
has a series of articles that deal with Spam plus good information
on setting up filters in your email package to automatically delete
Spam.
Front-Line Report on the War on Spam
Do-It-Yourself Spam Zapper Kit
How to Play Hardball with Spammers
Five Easy Ways to Avoid Spam
Free Solution to Spam
Other Business-Related Sites of Interest
File Mine - downloads, browseable categories and reviews of all
the best shareware on the Web:
Microsoft.Com: Small Biz Ezine
Your Company: The Site for Small Business Owners
Pathfinder brings you a weekly site for the small business
owner.
Magellan's Real Time Search Words Update
12 randomly selected real-time searches that users like you are
performing. Page refreshes every 15 seconds
HOUSE KEEPING
To UN-Subscribe, <mailto:unsub-IBIZ@techdirect.com>
In the BODY of your message, type:
unsubscribe firstname lastname email address
To Subscribe, <mailto:sub-IBIZ@techdirect.com>
In the BODY of your message, type:
subscribe firstname lastname email address
Web Site: <http://www.techdirect.com/IBIZ>
Email comments: <mailto:owner-IBIZ@techdirect.com>
Archives: <http://www.techdirect.com/IBIZ/archives.html>
- - - About our Sponsor - - -
Tech Direct provides professional
Web Site Design, Web Site Marketing & Consulting,
On-Line Newsletters and Marketing Communications services
at an affordable cost.
Visit: <http://www.techdirect.com>
- - - - - - - - - -
Copyright 1997-99, Tech Direct Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This publication may be freely redistributed by e-mail in its
entirety. The reprinting of portions of this publication or any
other type of reprinting beyond forwarding issues to a friend is
strictly prohibited without permission from Tech Direct, Inc. and
shall be construed as a violation of applicable Copyright Laws.
<http://www.techdirect.com> Marietta, GA (USA)
- - - END I-BIZ TIPS Monthly Email Newsletter - - -
I-BIZ TIPS Archive
|
