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5 Ways to Entice Your Parallel Market to Trade Links

Copyright © 2005 Tinu AbayomiPaul



Lots of people get confounded when attempting to exchange links, you’re not alone. The people who have the spot you want are competitors. The people who don't aren't worth exchanging links with. What to do?



It's not necessarily the method you're using, it may be the approach.



If you know anything about SEO, you know you need relevant links to your site, preferably more in than you have out. And whether you actively pursue search engine listings or not, you’ll find that many surfers travel the web through the links they find, often without realizing it.



So how do you achieve this without linking to the sites you are competing with?



Think Parallel Markets.



When most people think of this term, they are speaking from an investment standpoint. In this discussion, I'm simply referring to groups of products and services which cater to people with similiar needs.



If your market is delivery or carry-out pizza, your market is fast food. But your parallel market might be frozen pizzas, Italian food store chains, or cheese, maybe even films.



Pizza delivery chains offer free DVDs with a delivery order because they figure that people who eat pizza at home watch films while they eat - ordering in and watching a movie is (sadly) the new third date.



To discover your parallel market, think of things that your customers have in common that brings them to your site, then eliminate things that compete.



So now you know *who* to ask to link to you. But *how* do you get them to link back?



Especially as a new webmaster, it helps if you think from the opposing end of your desires.



Meaning that, before you ask for something, think of what you can give in return. What are the other person's needs? If you don’t know, you can probably find out by subscribing to their newsletter or feed.



That way, when you write to them, instead of sending the standard cookie-cutter email, you can add personalized information that lets them know that you have been to their site repeatedly, list specific issues they have stated before, and use this information to make it worth their while.



Which email would you answer? The one that is obviously a copy, personalized only with your email address? Or the one that states your name and shows that the other person has actually been to your site before?



So take a look at your site. Why should anyone link to you? What will they get out of the deal? Is your site a great resource? Do you have a higher Google PR? Do you do site reviews? Or maybe you’ll just use whatever text they ask for?



When you first start out, with no links back to your site, find other people in your parallel markets who need links too. You're both in the same boat. Help each other.



Then as you see your traffic rising, you can start going after bigger and bigger fish. But again, make it worth their while.



Here are some ways in which you can make a link trade a little more attractive.



Method One: The Recommendation Exchange



When I know of a site that sells inexpensive tools for new marketers that are ready to advance to the next level, I refer a lot of my more advanced crowd to them, and they send me their beginners.



So in approaching them, I might tell them that not only have I already linked to them, but if they link back I’ll also write about them in my blog and my newsletter. Costs me nothing but an extra five minutes, and I’m more likely to get a little bit more than the link trade.



Method Two: The Bribe



This can also increase your reputation as an expert in your field.



Pick five people who are a bit more knowledgeable than you. Ask them if they’d like to be interviewed, for a collection, and offer to distribute the resulting resource for free to their audience, if they’ll link to your home page, where the free ebook can be downloaded.



You've got their link, they've got free publicity in a book they can - and probably will - distribute for you.



Method Three: Use That Feed



There are the sites that want to carry a relevant, frequently updated feed in order to get more search engine visits. So, if you have a feed, you could send that webmaster a link to your feed, and tell them how they can use tools like CARP, RSS Equalizer or RSS Digest to display your feed on their site.



If you update daily, and you're willing to take the bandwidth hit, you might find that they don't even mind a one way link.



Method Four: The Barter



Give them a free copy of your book if they’d link to you. Offer to link back to them if they’ll write a testimonial about the book.



Method Five: The Testimonial



This is a slight variation on the recommendation, because it sometimes ends up as more of a one-way trade.



If you sincerely enjoy a service or product that you bought, go back and pull up the sales page. If the links on the page for the testimonials are live, offer your testimonial.



Caution: Only offer testimonials on products you really used and benefitted from. It’s fine to put your name on something controversial if you really believe in it, but if you give a testimonial just for a link back to your site, you’re messing with your good name.



You should also know that they may not use your testimonial on their site, unless it’s really good - so and try to be as specific as possible about how their product helped you.



The point is, if you think creatively, you can solve your linking problem.

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Tinu carries on various internet marketing related discussions in her blog at http://FreeTrafficTip.com .

RSS Meets the Needs of Direct Marketers by Rok Hrastnik

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Copyright 2005 Rok Hrastnik Contrary to general opinion, RSS meets the needs of even the most demanding direct marketer, actually providing most of what e-mail marketing does, except for the strong push factor.
Most direct marketing reasons against RSS are in fact the result of inadequate understanding of RSS by most marketers.
a] Scheduled and autoresponder messages
There are already a few services and software packages on the market that allow for scheduled and autoresponder messages via RSS feeds. Once your visitor subscribes to your special RSS feed, he can receive a pre-determined set of messages in a specific time frame, determined by you. Use these messages to welcome your new reader to your RSS feed; thank your new customer after the purchase, send him additional information about the ordered product and give him the opportunity to buy an additional product at a lower price tag a couple of days later, and so on.
b] RSS metrics
RSS can in fact be tracked: track anything from the number of your subscribers, their reading habits, their reading frequency to your click-through rates and activities after clicking-through from your feed. This includes tracking which of your RSS feeds are performing better, are more interesting to your readers and drive more sales ... and the same for individual content items.
c] Message targeting
Since RSS feeds can be dynamically generated on a per-user basis, you can easily track the interests of your individual subscribers and then target marketing messages directly to them, making each message relevant to their needs and interests in order to increase your sales success.
d] Message personalization
If you generate your RSS feeds for each individual user, you can also personalize these feeds. Basic personalization includes elements such as the reader's first name, while more advanced personalization might include personalized content and product recommendations and so on.
e] Data capture
E-mail marketers have already become experts at using opt-in forms to get as much information from the prospect as possible; the prospect's name, his interests, the current products he is using, his current position in the purchase cycle and so on. RSS can be used in the same way, giving your visitors access to the RSS feed only after they've filled in a simple or complex opt-in form. This can work with e-zine subscriptions, as well as forms you require your visitors to fill in to either register on your website or download your free report or whitepaper.
Good news for direct marketers is that these capabilities are already available in many RSS publishing/marketing solutions, available at very acceptable prices, accessible even to the smallest companies.
About the author:
Rok Hrastnik is the author of »Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS«, acclaimed as the best and most comprehensive guide to RSS for marketers by leading RSS experts.
The complete guide on RSS for marketers:
http://rss.marketingstudies.net/index.html?src=sa4