Using FFA Sites to Your Advantage
| Category: Traffic and Tracking | Date: 2001-04-12 |
If you've read my article "When and How to Use Free Services" you know that while some free services should be used only for a short time or avoided altogether (like putting your business site on a free web host), there are great ways to market and build your business using free services, if you're careful in choosing and using these services. Free for All (FFA) links are a good example of this. Used well, they can build traffic to your site and improve your site's ranking in some search engines.
Almost everyone with a web page has an FFA page now. (If you're not familiar with this term, a "Free-for-All" link page is a site where people post links to their site, and other peole can see those links and visit the ones they find interesting.) At first, this worked because people were actually visiting the page to add their own site. But now, when most people add their site automatically through paid services like Link-O-Matic the direct benefit of people seeing your site is somewhat reduced.
So what IS the benefit of FFA sites? Search engine rankings. Many search engines rank sites, in part, on "popularity," or how many sites contain links to that site. If you've submitted your site to hundreds of FFA sites-better yet, if you've submitted several different pages to all of the various FFA sites-you'll get a much better ranking on the search engines, and this can really boost your visibility and bring in more targeted traffic.
To improve your traffic, and your search engine rankings, you'll need to do two things: Submit several pages to the FFAs, and submit to the FFAs often. For both of these reasons, I recommend Link-O-Matic. (It also pays a 50% commission to resellers and you receive a 50% discount on repeat orders). I haven't found a better way to submit my sites to the Free-for-All sites, and I've had great results from my submissions. There are some other services, but most of the Internet marketers I've talked to agree that Link-O-Matic is the best.
So, submit as many pages as possible: If several different pages on your site could serve as an "entrance" to the site, you can submit each of these pages with a different headline. If you don't already have several pages to submit, build "doorway pages"- specially written pages that focus on a particular topic. A doorway page is simply a page on your site, other than the "home page," which serves as a good entrance and can be used to promote your site. Articles make great doorway pages, as do press releases. The more doorway pages you have, the better, and the more you promote these doorway pages, the more traffic you'll attract to your site.
Submit to the FFA sites as often as possible. Because you buy "credits" from Link-O-Matic, you're only charged when a site posts your link. So, if your link is still on the page and doesn't get re-posted, you don't get charged. With some popular sites your link may slip off the page in less than a day, while at other places it may stay on for a week or longer.
Another tip: get a free email account to use as your address when you submit to FFA sites; you'll be getting an email back from every site you post to, and trust me, you do NOT want all that mail hitting your regular email box.
To summarize all this quickly, submitting to FFA sites can bring traffic to your site indirectly, by improving your ranking in search engines. It may also bring direct traffic, but don't put too much hope in that.
To improve your results with this marketing technique, submit as many pages as possible to the FFA sites and submit them often. And, while you can do this by hand, it just doesn't make sense. In the long run it's "cheaper" to sign up with Link-O-Matic. You can find them at http://www.linkomatic.com/index.cgi?12260.
Be sure to sign up for their affiliate program. You'll get a 50% commission on everyone who signs up under you, and you'll also get a 50% discount on your own repeat orders. So really, this is a free advertising technique that can MAKE you money!
About the Author
Angie Dixon is the author of MarketWrite: Harness the Power of Words & Boost Your Sales Online. Get a free report, Jump-Start Your Publicity! when you subscribe to her ezine, Powerful Words. subscribe@powerfulwords.net.To visit Angie's web site or to contact her see details below.
angie@marketwrite.com
http://www.marketwrite.com
Almost everyone with a web page has an FFA page now. (If you're not familiar with this term, a "Free-for-All" link page is a site where people post links to their site, and other peole can see those links and visit the ones they find interesting.) At first, this worked because people were actually visiting the page to add their own site. But now, when most people add their site automatically through paid services like Link-O-Matic the direct benefit of people seeing your site is somewhat reduced.
So what IS the benefit of FFA sites? Search engine rankings. Many search engines rank sites, in part, on "popularity," or how many sites contain links to that site. If you've submitted your site to hundreds of FFA sites-better yet, if you've submitted several different pages to all of the various FFA sites-you'll get a much better ranking on the search engines, and this can really boost your visibility and bring in more targeted traffic.
To improve your traffic, and your search engine rankings, you'll need to do two things: Submit several pages to the FFAs, and submit to the FFAs often. For both of these reasons, I recommend Link-O-Matic. (It also pays a 50% commission to resellers and you receive a 50% discount on repeat orders). I haven't found a better way to submit my sites to the Free-for-All sites, and I've had great results from my submissions. There are some other services, but most of the Internet marketers I've talked to agree that Link-O-Matic is the best.
So, submit as many pages as possible: If several different pages on your site could serve as an "entrance" to the site, you can submit each of these pages with a different headline. If you don't already have several pages to submit, build "doorway pages"- specially written pages that focus on a particular topic. A doorway page is simply a page on your site, other than the "home page," which serves as a good entrance and can be used to promote your site. Articles make great doorway pages, as do press releases. The more doorway pages you have, the better, and the more you promote these doorway pages, the more traffic you'll attract to your site.
Submit to the FFA sites as often as possible. Because you buy "credits" from Link-O-Matic, you're only charged when a site posts your link. So, if your link is still on the page and doesn't get re-posted, you don't get charged. With some popular sites your link may slip off the page in less than a day, while at other places it may stay on for a week or longer.
Another tip: get a free email account to use as your address when you submit to FFA sites; you'll be getting an email back from every site you post to, and trust me, you do NOT want all that mail hitting your regular email box.
To summarize all this quickly, submitting to FFA sites can bring traffic to your site indirectly, by improving your ranking in search engines. It may also bring direct traffic, but don't put too much hope in that.
To improve your results with this marketing technique, submit as many pages as possible to the FFA sites and submit them often. And, while you can do this by hand, it just doesn't make sense. In the long run it's "cheaper" to sign up with Link-O-Matic. You can find them at http://www.linkomatic.com/index.cgi?12260.
Be sure to sign up for their affiliate program. You'll get a 50% commission on everyone who signs up under you, and you'll also get a 50% discount on your own repeat orders. So really, this is a free advertising technique that can MAKE you money!
About the Author
Angie Dixon is the author of MarketWrite: Harness the Power of Words & Boost Your Sales Online. Get a free report, Jump-Start Your Publicity! when you subscribe to her ezine, Powerful Words. subscribe@powerfulwords.net.To visit Angie's web site or to contact her see details below.
angie@marketwrite.com
http://www.marketwrite.com
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