by Scott T. Smith
The Web is an advertising medium that has to be 'worked'. No matter how much time, effort and expense you have invested to create your site, it will only become a high traffic destination through continuous effort.
One of the best methods to generate traffic to your site is to offer free content - but simply posting it on your Web pages is not enough. The online world needs to be alerted that your content exists, and that's the problem for most Web site owners. They simply don't know how to go about this announcement process - or they give up too early and their traffic-generating campaign fails.
But let's assume that failure is NOT an option, and break this challenge down into the three specific components we all require for success.
1. Persistence
Persistence is key. The truth of the matter is that once you have invested time and money in your Web site - not to mention blood, sweat and tears - you have only just begun.
In 1930's Hollywood, they followed what they called the "Rule of Seven". This meant that they would hit a potential audience member seven times over the head with a sales pitch - before they could count on that person buying a movie ticket and entering the theatre. In this day and age, it's even harder to attract attention amidst the huge volume of sales pitches online.
Does this mean you have to spend an ever-increasing amount of Internet advertising dollars? Not necessarily, because of the nature of the electronic medium itself. For now much of the announcement process is free. Until you have carefully identified where your potential customers are meeting online, advertising with banners or sponsorships will be a major waste of your money.
The real cost involved in persistent marketing online is your time, which for many of us is more important than spending money. But the fact of the matter is that the more time you spend online, the more visible you will be. So what's the answer to this dilemma?
2. Tools To Automate Your Marketing Process
You need to know about and use the tools that can automate your online marketing process. With the advent of automatic site submission tools, the era of laboriously hand-posting one by one to free classified sites, small search engines and directories is over.
(Note: the major search engines will serve you best ONLY if you take the time to hand-register your site with each of them. These include: ALTA VISTA, AOL NETFIND, EXCITE, HOTBOT, INFOSEEK, LYCOS, NORTHERN LIGHTS, WEBCRAWLER and the directory YAHOO.)
With automatic submission tools, you can commit to Re- registering your site pages on a regular basis and save lots of time in the process. In fact, the process becomes practically instantaneous.
Here are three excellent tools to put your announcement process on autopilot, all of which are available on this MarketSTART Web page: http://www.infowriter.com/resource.html.
- "Charge Up Your Web Site - Submit To 650+ Search Engines Free"
This is a very quick (and free) way to get the word out about your site, taking less than five minutes to implement. You have a choice to submit to all 650+ search engines, or choose only the 'free links' sites (of which there are 100's). We recommend you stick to the the free links sites, so as not to 'turn off' the major search engines. You can revisit this process every two to four weeks (or even more often, though this can get you bumped off certain sites), and submit your pages under various categories.
- "The Site Success Station"
This is a fee-based Web service giving you fast access to 300+ search engines, business directories and free-for-all links pages. The subscription fee is $50 for one year, which is quite reasonable for the amount of time it will save. A benefit of this service (which is worth the cost) is the ability to pick and choose the specific sites you wish to reach. Having this kind of control can be a real benefit, enabling you test-market different offerings and headlines to determine which ones work best for your needs.
- "InterNETACTIVE"
This is a free software tool available for download, enabling you to access 1000's of marketing sites directly from your computer. Although this is the most labor-intensive of the three options listed here, it gives you a very broad reach into the online world. It's well worth downloading and exploring - and can even serve you as another free giveaway for your site.
Combine submission tools with a committed and ongoing effort to re-register your site pages on a regular basis, like clockwork. The marketing process never sleeps - but now you can put this aspect of your online marketing process on autopilot.
3. Content To Give Away
This is the third crucial element of working the Web to generate leads and customers, and centers around the word "free". To save you time and effort, MarketSTART has prepared several specific reports for you to give away freely. With the use of the tools listed above, this process now becomes easy. The text-only reports are each available by autoresponder, and include:
- "The Smart Web Site - Navigating The Field Of Seven Red Flags" (send any email message to smart@infowriter.com)
- "Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)" (send any email message to usp@infowriter.com)
- "How To Write Powerful Marketing Copy That Explodes Your Response" (send any email message to copy@infowriter.com)
These reports can position you as a helpful online resource for your customers - publicize them, and they will drive traffic to your site. Feel free to change the headers to fit your marketing needs, though we do ask that you leave the sig file intact at the end of each report.
Post them as separate pages on your Web site (which you can then register with the search engines), or on an autoresponder for email delivery. In either case, your goal should be to generate an email address, contact name and any additional information that will help build your relationship with new leads.
Submit the title of each report to the classified and free-for-all links pages on a bi-weekly or monthly basis. Use them to your advantage whenever and wherever you can - as tools to build your growing online community.
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