Finding Your Best Potential Linking Partners
| Category: Affiliate Marketing - Development | Date: 2003-04-28 |
We have been receiving numerous questions over the last few months regarding a concept that we have been taking for granted for over the last year! It is a concept that we use every single day we do business on the Internet that saves us hundreds of hours in time and money.
Have I got your attention yet? Aroused a little curiosity?
Let me ask you this:
How do you know which websites and businesses on the web are worth your while to advertise or partner with and which are not?
This is a question we have known the answer to for so long that we just assumed that everyone must be using the exact same technique.
The answer is a handy little service called Alexa. I am sure many of you are well aware of the power of this absolutely free piece of software that makes picking out your real competitors and potential partners a breeze.
For those of you who have never heard of Alexa it is simply this:
A free web navigation service that works with your web browser to provide you with essential information about every web site you visit, every company you consider making a purchase from, and all of your competitors!
Alexas real-time reporting provides you with in-depth information on every single website you visit. It gives you statistics on:
Traffic: The traffic-rating feature tells you how much traffic the site you are viewing receives, based on the number of page turns made on the site by Alexa users. This feature is useful for a couple of reasons. First, if you are interested in purchasing advertising on a particular site, you can use this feature to see how much traffic the site generates... and determine from that how much you are willing to pay to advertise there. Second, you can use this feature to determine which pages at a competitors site are most popular. This allows you the opportunity to ensure that a similar page is incorporated into your own site (But do NOT copy!).
Not only does this determine the amount of traffic that your competitors are currently receiving but it also gives you a great idea of what websites you really want linking to yours! This gives you the ability to weed out the "Somebodies" from the "Nobodies" just by browsing to their website! When you know how much traffic your potential linking partners are getting through to their website you can now prioritize who you put the real effort into negotiating with!
Alexa uses a "5 Star" ranking system to show how much traffic each website receives. If a website has 2 or more stars this is generally a very good indication of a higher traffic website and someone you would want to establish as a linking partner. The Alexa system is not perfect but it gives you a very good idea of what kind of traffic websites are receiving AND gives you the ability to compare each website against the next... to say the least there is no other system comparable to that of Alexa when it comes to determining the popularity and traffic of a particular website!
Important Note: If you are a little confused or not quite sure what a "linking partner" or an "affiliate" is, it is simply this... a website that contains a link on their website directing visitors to your website! What is the easiest way to find linking partners or potential affiliates? I suggest looking in the search engines for websites that could potentially drive targeted traffic to your website. Just simply ask yourself "What type of websites have the visitors that I need?", pick out the keywords that apply to those websites and query the search engines. Then begin visiting the websites that the search engines return with the Alexa program and "Voila!"... you have now established your potential linking partners!
Reviews: Written by surfers like yourself, the reviews allow you to see how other people have felt about the product or service you are interested in. This is a great way to learn what customers think about your competitors’ products or services! You can then use this information to make improvements on your own product or service.
Contact Info: For each site you visit, Alexa provides you with the site owners address and phone number, a map and directions, and a related City Guide. You will even learn the date that the site first went online. This means that youll always know who is behind the sites you visit -- and you will know how to get in touch with them. This feature alone makes Alexa the perfect tool for locating potential joint ventures or linking partners!
Site Stats: This feature provides you with popularity and speed ratings, the number of links pointing to a particular site, and third party ratings and reviews. You are also given the option of voting on the site you are viewing. Again, this is the kind of critical information you need when choosing partners for a joint venture... or when checking up on your competition!
Related Links: As you surf, Alexa suggests links that are relevant to the page you are viewing. Alexa uses crawling, archiving, categorizing and data mining techniques to build the Related Links list for millions of URLs. The day-to-day use of Related Links helps to build and refine the data by analyzing the requested URLs to determine high-level trends. This information is then used to establish relationships between web sites. From this, the top ten Related Links for each URL are chosen.
Alexa re-crawls the Web on a regular basis and rebuilds the data, pulling in new sites and refining relationships between existing sites. New sites with strong relationships to a site will automatically appear in the Related Links list, displacing any sites with weaker relationships. At times, the Related Links are questionable... but this should not be a surprise when you consider some of the bizarre results you get with search engines.
Overall, the Related Links feature is great for doing quick searches without having to waste time clicking back and forth between the search engines. And if you are using a search engine, this feature can help you even more by suggesting links that will take you directly to the same query in other search engines. This means that you do not need to type in the address of the other search engines or repeat your query.
Can you see the tremendous power of having all of this information at your fingertips?
This will allow you to
Determine, right away, where your effort is better spent when pursuing potential linking partners for your website.
Find out exactly how this website treats their customers just by browsing through the Alexa reviews for a particular website you will know immediately if this is the kind of company you want to send your valuable customers to!
Instantly locate all of the necessary contact info so you no longer have to dig through unending pages to find the information you need.
and the list goes on!
Every time I visit a website that could be a potential linking partner, the very first step I take is to check the Alexa stats. This is going to tell me immediately if this is the partner that is going to benefit my ebusiness.
Let me tell you a brief story to illustrate the money and time saving potential of being able to tell if a website is worth the effort to try and partner with.
Over 1 year ago (before Alexa was around) we were approached by a company claiming to be the leader in their area of expertise these guys claimed they had it all! They claimed to have a huge opt-in list, huge traffic to their website, huge sales figures I mean, these guys were the business everyone wanted to be and then some!
So, as any wise businessperson would do, I setup a special deal with these guys and actually took the time to build a new website promoting our products just for them! Anyone who has done any website design knows this is not a 5-minute task. In fact, I probably had a website designer who was dedicated to this one task for approximately 2 days, as there was also some custom programming to be done, and all for nothing!
Now of course they were full of promises I mean, I hadnt figured on doing all of this work for nothing right? They had promised to make us their #1 marketing resource for their entire client base and send us all of the new traffic coming to their website. And by the figures they were throwing at us, how could we lose?
So everything was said and done and, as they had promised, we were posted on their website and everything was ready to rock and roll the sales should have been rolling in any minute!
Well, to our dismay the sales did not come rolling in in fact, in the first month of their "supposed" big launch, we did not make one sale! That’s right not even one sale! After investing, everything said and done, nearly $1000 into this deal on my end they sent us nothing!
To be blunt I felt like an ass! How could I be soooo stupid! Simple, at that point I had no real way of finding out how much traffic these guys really had. I mean, their website was professional heck they even looked more professional than many companies that do killer business on the Internet!
So the moral of the story is this if I had been using Alexa, as I do now every single day, I would have been able to call their bluff and save my hard-earned money! Right when I saw where they ranked on the Alexa traffic charts I would have know they were not worth the time and effort!
When Alexa finally did become available and I checked out the website, do you want to know where they ranked on the traffic charts? Get this they didnt! Thats right, they had soooo little traffic to their website they didnt even rank! I have seen websites that are ranked 500,000+ and they still were not ranked!
So bottom line is this... if you plan on doing business on the Internet you must be using the Alexa software if you are not already. Like I said before, this is a piece of software we have been taking for granted for the last year we just assumed that everyone, like us, was using Alexa in their everyday ebusiness!
To download your own FREE copy of the Alexa software go to:
http://www.alexa.com/download
For all of you MAC users out there, please go to:
http://www.alexa.com/download/mac.html
Do not hesitate! I would honestly hate to see any of the members of Internet Marketing Challenge losing money when it could be so easily avoided. What do you have to lose? Alexa is 100% free and if for any reason you are not satisfied with the service, and don’t like knowing who your real competitors and potential linking partners are, you can uninstall it at any time!
About the author:
Derek Gehl is the CEO of Internet Marketing Challenge.
:To contact see details below.
webmaster@marketingchallenge.com
http://www.marketingchallenge.com/
Have I got your attention yet? Aroused a little curiosity?
Let me ask you this:
How do you know which websites and businesses on the web are worth your while to advertise or partner with and which are not?
This is a question we have known the answer to for so long that we just assumed that everyone must be using the exact same technique.
The answer is a handy little service called Alexa. I am sure many of you are well aware of the power of this absolutely free piece of software that makes picking out your real competitors and potential partners a breeze.
For those of you who have never heard of Alexa it is simply this:
A free web navigation service that works with your web browser to provide you with essential information about every web site you visit, every company you consider making a purchase from, and all of your competitors!
Alexas real-time reporting provides you with in-depth information on every single website you visit. It gives you statistics on:
Traffic: The traffic-rating feature tells you how much traffic the site you are viewing receives, based on the number of page turns made on the site by Alexa users. This feature is useful for a couple of reasons. First, if you are interested in purchasing advertising on a particular site, you can use this feature to see how much traffic the site generates... and determine from that how much you are willing to pay to advertise there. Second, you can use this feature to determine which pages at a competitors site are most popular. This allows you the opportunity to ensure that a similar page is incorporated into your own site (But do NOT copy!).
Not only does this determine the amount of traffic that your competitors are currently receiving but it also gives you a great idea of what websites you really want linking to yours! This gives you the ability to weed out the "Somebodies" from the "Nobodies" just by browsing to their website! When you know how much traffic your potential linking partners are getting through to their website you can now prioritize who you put the real effort into negotiating with!
Alexa uses a "5 Star" ranking system to show how much traffic each website receives. If a website has 2 or more stars this is generally a very good indication of a higher traffic website and someone you would want to establish as a linking partner. The Alexa system is not perfect but it gives you a very good idea of what kind of traffic websites are receiving AND gives you the ability to compare each website against the next... to say the least there is no other system comparable to that of Alexa when it comes to determining the popularity and traffic of a particular website!
Important Note: If you are a little confused or not quite sure what a "linking partner" or an "affiliate" is, it is simply this... a website that contains a link on their website directing visitors to your website! What is the easiest way to find linking partners or potential affiliates? I suggest looking in the search engines for websites that could potentially drive targeted traffic to your website. Just simply ask yourself "What type of websites have the visitors that I need?", pick out the keywords that apply to those websites and query the search engines. Then begin visiting the websites that the search engines return with the Alexa program and "Voila!"... you have now established your potential linking partners!
Reviews: Written by surfers like yourself, the reviews allow you to see how other people have felt about the product or service you are interested in. This is a great way to learn what customers think about your competitors’ products or services! You can then use this information to make improvements on your own product or service.
Contact Info: For each site you visit, Alexa provides you with the site owners address and phone number, a map and directions, and a related City Guide. You will even learn the date that the site first went online. This means that youll always know who is behind the sites you visit -- and you will know how to get in touch with them. This feature alone makes Alexa the perfect tool for locating potential joint ventures or linking partners!
Site Stats: This feature provides you with popularity and speed ratings, the number of links pointing to a particular site, and third party ratings and reviews. You are also given the option of voting on the site you are viewing. Again, this is the kind of critical information you need when choosing partners for a joint venture... or when checking up on your competition!
Related Links: As you surf, Alexa suggests links that are relevant to the page you are viewing. Alexa uses crawling, archiving, categorizing and data mining techniques to build the Related Links list for millions of URLs. The day-to-day use of Related Links helps to build and refine the data by analyzing the requested URLs to determine high-level trends. This information is then used to establish relationships between web sites. From this, the top ten Related Links for each URL are chosen.
Alexa re-crawls the Web on a regular basis and rebuilds the data, pulling in new sites and refining relationships between existing sites. New sites with strong relationships to a site will automatically appear in the Related Links list, displacing any sites with weaker relationships. At times, the Related Links are questionable... but this should not be a surprise when you consider some of the bizarre results you get with search engines.
Overall, the Related Links feature is great for doing quick searches without having to waste time clicking back and forth between the search engines. And if you are using a search engine, this feature can help you even more by suggesting links that will take you directly to the same query in other search engines. This means that you do not need to type in the address of the other search engines or repeat your query.
Can you see the tremendous power of having all of this information at your fingertips?
This will allow you to
Determine, right away, where your effort is better spent when pursuing potential linking partners for your website.
Find out exactly how this website treats their customers just by browsing through the Alexa reviews for a particular website you will know immediately if this is the kind of company you want to send your valuable customers to!
Instantly locate all of the necessary contact info so you no longer have to dig through unending pages to find the information you need.
and the list goes on!
Every time I visit a website that could be a potential linking partner, the very first step I take is to check the Alexa stats. This is going to tell me immediately if this is the partner that is going to benefit my ebusiness.
Let me tell you a brief story to illustrate the money and time saving potential of being able to tell if a website is worth the effort to try and partner with.
Over 1 year ago (before Alexa was around) we were approached by a company claiming to be the leader in their area of expertise these guys claimed they had it all! They claimed to have a huge opt-in list, huge traffic to their website, huge sales figures I mean, these guys were the business everyone wanted to be and then some!
So, as any wise businessperson would do, I setup a special deal with these guys and actually took the time to build a new website promoting our products just for them! Anyone who has done any website design knows this is not a 5-minute task. In fact, I probably had a website designer who was dedicated to this one task for approximately 2 days, as there was also some custom programming to be done, and all for nothing!
Now of course they were full of promises I mean, I hadnt figured on doing all of this work for nothing right? They had promised to make us their #1 marketing resource for their entire client base and send us all of the new traffic coming to their website. And by the figures they were throwing at us, how could we lose?
So everything was said and done and, as they had promised, we were posted on their website and everything was ready to rock and roll the sales should have been rolling in any minute!
Well, to our dismay the sales did not come rolling in in fact, in the first month of their "supposed" big launch, we did not make one sale! That’s right not even one sale! After investing, everything said and done, nearly $1000 into this deal on my end they sent us nothing!
To be blunt I felt like an ass! How could I be soooo stupid! Simple, at that point I had no real way of finding out how much traffic these guys really had. I mean, their website was professional heck they even looked more professional than many companies that do killer business on the Internet!
So the moral of the story is this if I had been using Alexa, as I do now every single day, I would have been able to call their bluff and save my hard-earned money! Right when I saw where they ranked on the Alexa traffic charts I would have know they were not worth the time and effort!
When Alexa finally did become available and I checked out the website, do you want to know where they ranked on the traffic charts? Get this they didnt! Thats right, they had soooo little traffic to their website they didnt even rank! I have seen websites that are ranked 500,000+ and they still were not ranked!
So bottom line is this... if you plan on doing business on the Internet you must be using the Alexa software if you are not already. Like I said before, this is a piece of software we have been taking for granted for the last year we just assumed that everyone, like us, was using Alexa in their everyday ebusiness!
To download your own FREE copy of the Alexa software go to:
http://www.alexa.com/download
For all of you MAC users out there, please go to:
http://www.alexa.com/download/mac.html
Do not hesitate! I would honestly hate to see any of the members of Internet Marketing Challenge losing money when it could be so easily avoided. What do you have to lose? Alexa is 100% free and if for any reason you are not satisfied with the service, and don’t like knowing who your real competitors and potential linking partners are, you can uninstall it at any time!
About the author:
Derek Gehl is the CEO of Internet Marketing Challenge.
:To contact see details below.
webmaster@marketingchallenge.com
http://www.marketingchallenge.com/
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