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The advertising industry is on the verge of being shattered into a thousand fragments due to the knowledge explosion and the proliferation of new technologies. There are no more grand theories that hold sway over the entire industry. Michael Strangelove
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Most people find Web sites through the top search engines. Or do they?
Georgia Tech's GVU surveys indicate otherwise. They show that links from other Web pages are the most popular way people find new sites. Which means that you need lots of "other web pages" to link to your site as well.
But how to get those links?
In the "old days", it was usually enough to write a flattering, imploring eMail to a site operator and organize some sort of reciprocal link arrangement. No problem, old chap - part of the Internet Culture.
No more. Sending such a mail to a well-trafficked site will probably be ignored.
Why? Well, a site with a relatively high level of traffic (like this one, for example), attracts around fifty link requests a week. We could employ our intern, Monika, to do nothing more than download pages, change 'em, check 'em and bung 'em back up.
No way. Not at around thirty minutes a link.
The first thing to do is to find out who links to you. Use the "link:www.yourcompany.com" command in AltaVista or HotBot. You may be pleasantly surprised. Or bitterly disappointed...
Now do the same with a competing and equally (or more) successful company. You'll probably notice quite a difference.
Your mission - should you choose to accept it - is to persuade those sites that link to your competition to link to you instead.
Look at who they are. If a popular non-profit links to your competition, and you have your own server, they may be persuaded to swap links by the offer of free server space, for example.
Bear in mind that changing links takes time. If you offer a quid pro quo, your request is more likely to be taken seriously.
Alternatively, check out ClickTrade...
Discussions about the Internet often revolve around bandwidth, faster modem
speeds, the latest "killer app" and other, largely peripheral technologies.
Forget about 'em. The Internet is about relationships: individual to
individual, individual to organization, organization to organization.
Ask yourself why someone would visit your site. They probably want
information of one sort or another. And if they can't find it at your site,
they may mail you.
Your visitor will expect a prompt response, rendered in a friendly,
knowledgeable and welcoming manner. They will expect accurate information
- not a hard sell.
If the information your visitor requests is not immediately available, they
will expect an immediate response telling them that and a follow-up with
the requested information within twenty-four hours.
If this doesn't happen, your organization will be perceived as slow and
unresponsive. And it will doubtless be perceived the same in terms of the
delivery of your product or service.
This is the essence of doing business on the Internet.
It seems to us that far too many organizations do not, as yet, understand
this basic principle. It often appears that they have a site "because they
should" - they don't actually believe in the medium. The Internet component
of their sales and marketing effort is seen as peripheral.
Too many sites are static, rarely updated, full of excessive graphics, and
make no attempt to interact with their visitors.
The Internet is about building and consolidating relationships. In the
Digital Age, we need to remind ourselves from time to time that it is this
base which underlies the whole superstructure. --John Blower
In a recent issue of ClickZ newsletter Rob Frankel, Principal of ad agency
Frankel-Anderson propounded the decidedly retro notion of the Web as the Great Level Playing Field.
It sounds like Rob has been smoking the same stuff as the usually intelligently readable Gerry McGovern of Nua Limited, whose recent piece is a hymn to the notion that all information on the Web is - or should be - free.
Frankel propounds the absurd notions that "for next to nothing, our
websites can look as big and as powerful as Coca-Cola's…" , and that "nobody charges you for access".
Last time we looked at our bank statements, we noticed a few items called "computer equipment leasing" and "charges to ISPs". And those items are just the tip of the iceberg, and take no account of site architecture, design and maintenance, not to mention the amount of time we spend using and contributing to the Web as a whole.
"Time is money"…or has that notion taken the same hike as Frankel's and McGovern's sensibilities?
Anyone who has been involved in the New Medium for any length of time will have realized that the Web consumes time, money and content voraciously. Our columnists, for example, do actually have to buy groceries and pay rent. And we're happy to pay them for their words of wisdom.
And someone has to pay us. And that's you, gentle reader.
There is a sense in which each and every one of us pays for the "free" information available on the Web, be it through an extra penny on a box of detergent or through access to Northern Light's "Special Collection" documents.
In fact, the Web is like any other business medium. It's dominated by a few big players (ever heard of Microsoft, Rob?). Which is not to say that, through astute marketing, a small organization can't carve out a small but profitable niche for themselves.
"Information wants to be free", whines McGovern.
Yeah, sure. So do Mercedes Benzes. But the people who produce both information and Mercs like to get paid…
--John Blower
Take a look at the Archives. We've indexed all the past issues with topic pointers.
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