There’s a little childish game I play with each visit to Starbucks: each time I order a ‘medium size latte’. Now for the benefit of the few readers who have not yet visited Starbucks, the key is that there is no such thing as ‘medium-sized’ at Starbucks. Their marketing folks have come up with a scheme for describing the size of their cups as ‘Tall, Venti, and Grande’ to replace the ‘small, medium and large’ designations used by ordinary mortals. It’s a slick marketing ploy which enables them to avoid the word ‘small’, and use the words venti, and grande (pronounced gran-day) to suggest something foreign, exotic, larger-than-life, and worth extra money. It’s part of a very successful program, and has made Starbucks one of the outstanding marketing successes of the past 20 years.
But it is exactly the wrong strategy for marketing on the web.
In the web environment, it is always the customer who initiates the dialog. It is the customer who is active, rather than the salesman/marketer. There are no street signs, no billboards, and no thumping rock music to attract their attention. There is no local mall, where you can set up one of a hundred or so stores. The web turns some traditional marketing strategies inside out. Because it is the customer that is the active participant in the dialog, the search terms they use becomes the focal point of all of the marketing effort, and the crucial element of any marketing strategy. Any web campaign that does not use this tenet as the centerpiece of the strategy will not be successful.
For example, suppose you own a microbrewery, and in a previous marketing campaign you described your product as ‘amber nectar brewed from barley still moist with dew’. That phrase might be combined with a visual of a slowly poured beer, accompanied with the appropriate sounds or pouring and subsequent enjoyment. But the odds that anyone looking for your beer will search for the term ‘amber nectar’, ‘barley’, or ‘moist’ is very near zero.
This kind of misstep is not uncommon in companies with strong willed marketing executives who are steeped in the traditional marketing methodologies that have very successful for them in the past. Their knack for creating a phrase to enhance product identification and branding is an excellent technique, but it simply doesn’t work on the web.
One of the worst mistakes is the use of ‘corpo-speak’ to describe a product on the web. Those types of slogans may work just fine within the corporate environment but are poorly understood and not usually in the vocabulary of the average buyer.
Gorilla Snot
Successful web marketing campaigns are centered on selection of key terms that are proven to be sought by potential buyers. These key terms selected impact copy, images, title, tag sets, content, directory choices, file names, and category choices. An excellent example of this is the product ‘gorilla snot’. Now gorilla snot is a rosin product that rock ‘n’ roll musicians use to help them hold their drumsticks and guitar picks. It is also the name of the gooey rubber substance that holds your automobile windshield in place. Now if one looks for ‘rosin adhesive’ or ‘gooey rubber adhesive’, one gets thousands of sites, none of which are appropriate to our real search. However a search on ‘gorilla snot’ will turn up many sources for exactly the product we are seeking.
In the past it has been the practice of webmasters to load key phrases, especially ones like this which are not politically correct but are, in fact representative of sought ofter terms, into the meta tags of html documents. There insued a free-for-all using this method to see how many times one could stuff a strategic key phrase into the meta tag listing. The more times is appeared, the higher the page ranked when that term was called. After a while, the engines got wise and began to penalize for this obvious abuse. Bear in mind that the meta tags are not even seen by the reader, and that there was no control to assure even what appeared in the tags was even remotely related to the page content.
Nowadays, there is a trend away from using meta tags as locators of material on the web. Since all search engines index all the text on a page anyway, tags are redundant. In fact, some of the larger search engines don’t even read meta tags. Today, there is a strong current towards using key phrase loaded conent in the main body of the page text in building the ranking formulae. And external links (from other sites) pointing to your site are becomming very powerful ranking factors.
The dos and donts of directory submission.Brian Holte
By Brian Holte
Email: theebookking@shaw.ca Copyright-Brian Holte
If you own a business online, would like to increase targeted traffic to your site but simply dont have any free time, hiring someone to submit your URL to niche directories may be what the Dr. ordered.
I hope the following interview with Tim Mathews who owns http://timmathews.com a Directory Submission Service helps.
Before we get started Tim tell us a little about yourself.
I am an avid web designer at heart. I have been in the computer industry for about 10 years – back when AOL 2 was the bomb, and if you didn’t have a 14.4 modem, you were cruising slow. (Wow, how times have changed). I really enjoy taking the mom and pop 100 product site and building it into a powerhouse ecommerce site. I love building sites, then getting them listed in the search engines and directories, and watching the sales roll in for the client.
How did you get started in directory submission services?
I first stumbled into Directory submission services when I was trying to get a companies site listed in the search engines. I was trying and trying to get it listed, but no use. After numerous reworking, I finally got the site listed. I was then thinking… Huh, this was tough for me, and I am a pro! I was wondering if others were having issues, and alas, THEY WERE! From then, business has spawned from current local clients to all the seven seas!
For those new to the internet could you explain what a directory
submission service is?
A Directory Submission Service, in my opinion, is a company that will submit your website to directories. Now, the client must be careful when selecting a company. Many I have seen say something along the lines of “We submit you to over 800,000 Search Engines and Directories”. This statement alone lets me know that they are not trustworthy. We can all fire up ANY free/shareware submitter and boast the same statement. What I LIKE to see, when checking my competition, is a listing of directories they will submit to. And, of course, no one can guarantee inclusion.
What was your motivation for offering directory submission service?
Well, to be blunt, I was thinking this could make us some money. I was thinking of my stumbling in the submissions, and how long and hard I worked to get sites listed. I learned what to do, and definitely what NOT to do. I figured it would be a great service.
What problems did you have to overcome to start your directory
submission service?
Our main problems are the sites that boast hundreds of thousands of submissions to directories… This confuses the client to thinking there are this number of “separate” directories. After explanation that there are far less, (We submit to as few as 20 directories up to around 200 for some clients), so you can see why this would be a problem.
How did you overcome these problems?
We overcame the issues by explanation of the services that the “other guys” provide, and most importantly, we overcame the problem with RESULTS. We do what we say, and get it done.
What impact can using a directory submission service have on
ones online business?
Directory submissions can make the business, LITERALLY. Submitting to search engines is fine, and SHOULD be done. Submitting to directories is definitely a necessity.
What kind of gains can one expect to make by using a directory
submission service?
Once Directory listings take, you can expect to probably double your traffic. Double traffic could mean double sales/leads.
What could the downfall be of using a directory submission service?
Well, un kept promises. Many “other guys” make big promises, but deliver seldom few or none altogether. Do your research. How long has the site been in business? Do a who is look up and see when they bought the domain name just to be certain.
Can you give 3 tips on successfully submitting to directories such as DMOZ for example?
With Pleasure!
Tip 1.) MOST IMPORTANT
Proper Category Selection is KEY You MUST submit to the applicable category. This is the most overlooked, because we think we have a site selling Sports Blankets, like http://www.blanketmall.com/tim and they wanted to be listed into the “sports category” After research, I decided it be best that they be submitted into the Shopping: Sports: Theme Merchandise category. If I would have submitted the site into the root of sports, I can GUARANTEE it would have not been accepted.
Tip 2.) Wait.
Do NOT submit your site to ODP (dmoz.org) again in a month. Give it 2 months to see results. If after 2 months, you are not listed, rethink your submission, drill down to a deeper, more relevant category, and resubmit.
Tip 3.) Do not hound the guides. I have seen people talking about “direct relationships with guides for category “****” They say to email the guide and bug them. We disagree with this. If your site is properly submitted, you will not have a problem. We have clients that tried this tactic, and have never been listed. We submitted them, and got them listed.
Thank you for the opportunity to give my feedback in this. It has really been a pleasure. Thanks!
Have You Been Thinking of Creating E-books? Brian Holte is a freelance writer/researcher and owner of www.theebookking.com
he publishes a newsletter which focuses on brainstorming and researching techniques for e-books.
HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITH FREE VIRAL MARKETINGLuke Goodin
HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITH FREE VIRAL MARKETING
7 FREE easy steps to build a massive viral email list or obtain millions of website hits guaranteed! This is a very easy way to get your viral marketing campaign pumping out massive traffic for FREE. You could spend hours reading articles to get this information, yet this is a summary of the best techniques to get viral traffic within the next 30 days.
For a more viral marketing tips sign up to my FREE internet marketing course at:
or subscribe by sending a blank email to:
Step 1: Join two free viral type websites. Write an article in a word document explaining the benefits of viral marketing. Provide a link to your viral URL. This is very easy to do, just use some of the information that is advertised in your free viral site. Recommended viral sites:
Viral mailing, email 250,000 opt-in subscribers free http://viralmailing.com/index.php?referid=elindabay Join Free
Free viral, 1,000,000 hits to your website Free:
http://www.FreeViral.com/?r=58829 Join FREE
Step 2: Join a couple of Free traffic exchanges. I recommend the following sites:
Traffic swarm is the number one traffic exchange on the internet. You can expect about 200 to 300 hits to your Free viral site per week (remember you only need to get 5 to 10 people to sign up to get hundreds of thousands of website hits or email lists).
Traffic swarm: http://www.trafficswarm.com/go.cgi?325600 Join FREE
Toolbar traffic: http://www.toolbartraffic.com/hits/elindabay Join FREE
Now add your free viral URLs from step 1. You will have to surf for credits but you only need to do this for about 20 minutes a day and both of the above exchanges can be surfed at the same time by clicking between each site on your browser.
Step 3: Add your article to the following article directory for FREE:
When you put the title in make sure you use the word Free in the title. This site is excellent for increasing your ranking in all the major search engines and I can prove it!
Go to google and type in Free subscribers, you will find my article at about number 4 $$$ Free autoresponder subscribers $$$.
Then type in deadly disease prevention, you will find my article at about number 1 or 2 Deadly disease prevention, powerful supplements free info. Both articles you will find are written by me (Luke Goodin) and both provide a link to my site.
Step 4: Now this is where the work begins however this method is totally FREE. Get free traffic to your free viral site by submitting your article to FREE article directories for massive amounts of FREE traffic.
Go to google and type in article directories. Start submitting your article to as many article directories as you can. Dont stop until you have submitted your article to at least 70 article directories.
Congratulations you now have the edge over 98% of all other viral marketers!
Step 5: Repeat the process in step 4 but this time do it with article announcement groups. Go to google and type in article announcement groups. Spend the whole day joining and sending your article to these groups.
Step 6: By now you will have a few people signed up, go back to step 1 where you joined viral mailing:
Log in to your account and enter THIS article into your first message (dont forget to change your referal URLs to your own or you will not be getting traffic to your own sites).
You have my permission to use this article and this will instruct your viral downlines how to spread the word about their sites in the same way that I have shown you.
Step 7: Wait a week and start sending advertising to your viral downline by repeating step 6 but sending them your advertising about your sites or products.
Congratulations, You are now sending your advertising to thousands of targeted prospects. This is the way the pros do it and this will gain you thousands of new propects and website hits! Give your self a pat on the back and start watching your sales go through the roof.