Internet Marketing: Discuss/Learn which strategies work.

[DSL Guy]

In the month of September 2004, Yahoo and MSN dominated the internet both receiving unique visitors totaling near 90 million. Google got just over 60 million. AOL and a few others also received 10's of millions of visitors. These visitors are probably duplicated somewhere but these are still phenominal and staggering traffic stats. If you're not getting sales or visitors it's time to step back and take a long hard look at what is or isn't working. Whether you have a commercial site, or an informational site, or just your own blog or home page, there is really no excuse for no traffic other than lack of internet marketing knowledge. To get truly successful at internet marketing, there is a whole lot of study and website preparation to do first - :wink:

My business offers a free service. It locates in Real-Time broadband connection providers in the US nationwide. If you're a business and are looking for T1 or better, we offer free consultations and low price guaranteed quotes. I've had hundreds of sales and quotes and thousands of visitors. It seems over 75% of my visitors stay only a couple minutes. I'm looking for ways to really capture their interests and engage them so they stay somewhat longer and or generate a quote more often. I also am looking to increase sales but not necessarily since I want this to be a service of use that shoppers will return for.

* 11/08/04 : Did some updates to the websites. Added a couple new features that may be useful.

Posting in Forums, Newsgroups, Ad sites, Directories: One Business Directory that is giving me some exposure driving customers to me is Verizon SuperPages. To list there is Free. These are higher quality visitors since they are looking in a business directory for a business that offers a specific service.

What have some of you done to really capture your audience and at least a small percentage of these tens of millions of visitors? Want to share with us your strategy that worked? :)

[DSL Guy]

:D
Another Technique I've begun to use is regions and keywords combined. I have web pages that go to local city, county, and state urls. I can submit each of these and get massive search engine caches under various regions for different services using a unique url for each service. Each url is of course under one business network name.

So for each url for instance I'll use bplexperts for broadband service - I can get cached 100's of pages. Add that to 3 other service urls for T-1, DSL, VOiP services and that turns into 4 times those 100's of urls.

Does this seem like a viable technique for internet marketing? Give me your feedback. 8)

[DSL Guy]

Posting on forum pages adds some strength to your url. Do a search on your url and/ or your keywords and you can often pull up pages that were cached on a forum such as this one. I Believe this type of search return is good for the forum exposure as well. It's a 2-fer.

FeedBack?

[China Tea]

I just submitted my site to AOL's Open Directory. I noticed that I have been getting queries through AOL searches and so I thought of submitting my URL to their directory as well.

Does URL submission to open directories REALLY help in marketing one's site? (or is this a stupid question?)

[DSL Guy]

Hi China Tea,

Pleasent surprise to hear from you. Thanks for your question.

From my experience they help. But be selective in which directories you post to. I've had good success using Verizon Super pages. You suggest AOL open directory? That may be a good one. There is also DMOZ which is widely used and reputable. I'm going to check out AOL later today.(Found out DMOZ and AOL are the same)

The reason I say be selective is as you may be finding out there are unscrupulous email scammers who harvest email addresses like mine and yours to hit us with their spam. I've thought of starting a website to premiere and put on public display all the nasty little details behind some of these spam messages and their senders. I digress.

Try AOL and see. It can't hurt other than an inconvenient spam message. 8)

[webado]

DSLGuy, I would suggest you don't post your email visibly anywhere, including your own website. You are ripe pickings for spammers this way :lol:

[DSL Guy]

I know what you're saying but nearly 97% of all of my quote leads opt for email only contact. Some can initiate a toll-free call or a toll call to my mobile phone, but only a small 2-3% are serious enough to want to personally talk with us. Usually they are big business owners or associated with a business.

I just delete the spam. Some receive online quotes and still give us bogus email addys for contact so it's really just the nature of this beast I'm riding. :roll:

[webado]

I know what you're saying but nearly 97% of all of my quote leads opt for email only contact. Some can initiate a toll-free call or a toll call to my mobile phone, but only a small 2-3% are serious enough to want to personally talk with us. Usually they are big business owners or associated with a business.

I just delete the spam. Some receive online quotes and still give us bogus email addys for contact so it's really just the nature of this beast I'm riding. :roll:
Use email forms!

[China Tea]

Does it help that I use protected e-mail links? (thus makes it ok to post my e-mail addressed on my site?)

[DSL Guy]

Hi China Tea-

I still will list my email addy as a secondary way to reach me even though I already use email forms. Why? B/C some people want information about services before sending more of their personal info to generate a quote. That reply was for Christina.

Explain to me what a protected email link is. I don't know.

[China Tea]

That's what I call it but the more appropriate description is it is an anti-spam script that allows you to display one or several email addresses on your webpage without spam harvesters being able to extract them.

All my e-mail addresses displayed on my site are "supposedly anti-spam". I have not verified however if these indeed are powerful enough not to be extracted by spam harvesters.

[DSL Guy]

I just made that up. Not.

Put it this way: everyday I get about 10 spam emails. I don't use any protected email link script. Are you getting any spam at this point? If not then the script probably works. If it's working then post wherever you wish. Maybe you can share that script w/me sometime. :)

[webado]

That's what I call it but the more appropriate description is it is an anti-spam script that allows you to display one or several email addresses on your webpage without spam harvesters being able to extract them.

All my e-mail addresses displayed on my site are "supposedly anti-spam". I have not verified however if these indeed are powerful enough not to be extracted by spam harvesters.
China Tea, if your so-called anti-spam email address is what I see on your site appearing in your sig here, it most definitely is not anti-spam. It's in full view, hovering over it displays the mailto:..... with the exact email address shown on the page; it's totally machine readable, nothing anti-spam about it whatsoever.

I use email forms where my email address is not displayed anywhere, not even if you read the html code. They are processed by PHP scripts that cannot be seen or used separately from the email form.

I have also introduced an extra step before my actual email form where one has to enter a code which is displayed as a graphic image. This is because I have already had spam email even through my email form, some bot of sorts has managed to actually fill out the fields sufficiently correctly. It may have been a one-time thing, but I placed the extra protection both against spam and against prank emails.

I don't mind if I cannot be contacted directly. Anybody interested in contacting me can use the form. It even has a spellchecker ;) No attachments are possible but that's by design. I do have versions of my forms that allow attachments, but I'm doubtful I will use them like that. There's simply no need for that at this point, but it was an exercise for me.

[China Tea]

You are right Christina... Everybody sees those e-mail addresses on my site and nobody needs a machine to extract my e-mail addresses and use it for spam letters because they are just there visible to everybody!

(By the way, your daughter is so beautiful, Christina. I visited
your site last night - one of the best I've ever seen on the web . . .)

Let me correct myself - my e-mail links (on my site)
are NOT anti-spam however there is a script available for that purpose but I do not know for sure that it works.

I copied and pasted the following from my notes:

Description: "This is a powerful anti-spam script that lets you display email addresses on your site without spam harvesters being able to pick up on them. "

Enter email addresses into the script using the simple format "chris[at]whatever[dot]com". The script will dynamically replace [at] and [dot] at run time for anti spam purposes.
Easily display email addresses in 2 different modes: 1) A drop down menu 2) Plain text and email link.
Display a list of email addresses, or just one from the list.
Pass in an optional CSS classname to easily style the email addresses.

Directions:

Step 1: Cut and paste the below script into the <head> section of your page:


<style type="text/css">

.textstyle{
font: bold 12px Verdana;
line-height: 1.5;
}

.formstyle{
background-color: #E1E1E1;
}

</style>


<script type="text/javascript">

// Anti-Spam Email Displayer- By JavaScriptKit.com
// Visit JavaScript Kit (http://javascriptkit.com) for this script and more.
// This notice must stay intact for use

var contacts=new Array()
//Specify text and corresponding email address.
//Use [at] and [dot] in place of "@" and "." for anti spam purpose:
contacts[0]=["Chris Timber", "chris[at]whatever[dot]com"]
contacts[1]=["John Doe", "johndoe[at]whatever2[dot]com"]
contacts[2]=["Jannet Low", "janet[at]whatever3[dot]com"]
contacts[3]=["Albert Good", "albertgood[at]whatever4[dot]com"]

//Specify caption text to display within SELECT menu. Only applicable if you're using the form option:
var dropmenucaption="CONTACT US FORM "

function displaycontact(emailarray, cssclass, displaymethod, extrainfo){
if (displaymethod=="text"){
document.write('<span class="' + cssclass + '">\n')
if (typeof emailarray[0]=="object"){ //if array passed consists of multiple elements
for (i=0; i<emailarray.length; i++){
var seperator=(i<emailarray.length-1)? extrainfo : ""
document.write(''+ emailarray[i][0] + ' (' + modifyemail(emailarray[i][1])+ ')' + seperator)
}
}
else //else if it is a single array element
document.write(''+ emailarray[0] + ' (' + modifyemail(emailarray[1])+ ')')
document.write('</span>')
}
else if (displaymethod=="form"){
document.write('<form>\n')
document.write('<select size="' + extrainfo + '" onChange="jumptooption(this)" class="' + cssclass + '">\n')
document.write('<option value="caption">' + dropmenucaption + '</option>\n')
for (i=0; i<emailarray.length; i++)
document.write('<option value="mailto:' + modifyemail(emailarray[i][1]) +'">' + emailarray[i][0] + ' </option>\n')
document.write('</select></form>\n')
}
}

function modifyemail(emailitem){
var modified=emailitem.replace(/\[at]/gi, "@")
modified=modified.replace(/\[dot]/gi, ".")
return modified
}

function jumptooption(themenu){
if (themenu.options[themenu.selectedIndex].value !="caption")
location=themenu.options[themenu.selectedIndex].value
}

//USAGE INSTRUCTION. displaycontact(1st paramter, "2nd paramter", "3rd paramter", "4th paramter")
//1st parameter: Input the name of the array containing the list of email addresses. To display one single email, input the corresponding array element.
//2nd parameter: Input the CSS Classname that is to be applied. Enter arbitrary name for none.
//3rd parameter: Input either "form" or "text." Former will display email in drop down menu. Later in plain text. Only "text" mode supports displaying of single email address!
//4th parameter: If in "form" mode, enter an integer to control the height of the <SELECT> tag. If "text" mode, enter any string to act as a divider between each email text. For example "|", "
" etc.

//SAMPLE USAGES (uncomment below to see)
//displaycontact(contacts, "textstyle", "text", " | ")

//displaycontact(contacts, "formstyle", "form", "1")

//displaycontact(contacts[2], "textstyle", "text", "")

</script>

Inside the script, input the desired email addresses per the comments.

Step 2: You now need to invoke the function displaycontact() to actually show the emails on the page. Here are a few examples:

<script type="text/javascript">
//display emails using dropdown menu with height of "1"
displaycontact(contacts, "formstyle", "form", "1")
//display emails using regular text links, separated by "
"
displaycontact(contacts, "textstyle", "text", "
")
//display the single email address contacts[2] from array
displaycontact(contacts[2], "textstyle", "text", "")
</script>
Refer to the comments listed at the bottom of the script in Step 1 for full usage instructions.

[webado]

Thank you China Tea. My daughter would also appreciate the compliment :)

As for this script, man, it's more like a whole package! I haven't read through it all to see what it really does. It look horribly and unnecessarily complicad though. And being in javascript, it won't work for non-javascript enabled browsers.

I can think of a few other ways to achieve this that require much less coding, or at least, whatever coding is there goes towards making a form instead of just hiding a darn email address.

A method that's helps against spambots is simply having your email displayed as a graphic image rather than text, with no mailto link. Humans can read it and will easily just write it down and use it in their own email program. Perhaps the script you have does the mailto linking part to such a graphic.

I use an simple html form where the action component is another simple php script that collects the form data, validates the basics and sends the email to an address contained in the php script itself, using a php mail function. Once that's done an acknowledgement page is
displayed.

You can use html forms wehre the action is a simple mailto:.....

The disadvantages are that 1) the source code reveals the email address; 2) the person's own email client program is used which means they can employ HTML formatting, add attachments and thus viruses at will, plus they'll get to know your email address immediately.

You can obfuscate (encrypt) the email address shown in the code in mailto by using a simple free program (http://www.awes.com/obfuscator/ ) that converts text to unicode. That takes care of humans looking at source code. Machines have no problem with this. In any case, if using mailto, no matter how you disguise the email address, it will still appear.

A step up from this is using a php script as an action for the form, provided of course you also validate a bit to make sure you don't get a bunch of blank or otherwise invalid emails from nosy people or bots who want to bypass the form. If you don't have php then you cannot use this obviously. Other similar methods involve using some mail cgi scripts like the notorious Matt's email form (Google should find it).

You can find programs on the web that can help code forms in fact. There are also sites that offer email form setup and handling, some are free but contain some advertising.

[DSL Guy]

Good morning and have a blessed Thanksgiving!

Hi China Tea:
It's early in the morning hours but quiet enough to do some homework. Everyones sleeping here except me obviously. I do my best study in a quiet home. Anyway, here's what I have, if you haven't used a tool like this :
Go to this site and locate the free tools in the Search Engine Marketing Section.

http://www.marketleap.com/default.htm

It will give you great insight into what you most likely need to do to increase your exposure: "Link Popularity Check" will show you how many ways you are linked in the major search engines/ "Search Engine Saturation" will show you how many web pages you have indexed on all the major search engines/ "Keyword Verification" will tell you if you are indexed within the first 3 pages of 9 major search engines using the keywords you are targeting.

I've used this tool to give me an idea of how the search engines see my sites. I can locate the pages and info they have indexed and then target submit pages and info they haven't indexed yet. You can also get an idea of how well the keywords you use are working to get you within the first 3 pages of results. Remember that #1 is not the only best place to be. Shoppers may go to #1 but more often will continue on to page 2 or 3 or 4 and possibly higher. I've got one site that is indexed under two different titles but will be found using the same keywords. I don't think I have any sites showing up within the first three pages except on Moodule which is a new search engine. I'm competing against millions of other indexed pages and I would guess you are too. That's one reason why it's good for me to work on "Link Popularity" which means posting in directories, forums, PPC to get indexed on other sites.( I'm indexed on yours now), because your site was crawled since posting the Grace Note to me. Thanks sincerely. However that also means if you search you can find your site come up some place near where mine might come up but not always. You may be in a dslexperts.net result on Yahoo or All the Web or Alta Vista. That's how "Link Popularity" works.

Anyone who is interested in knowing these qualities of their web site and how the search engines see them, and believes these qualities really matter just as much as the aesthetics of what the viewer sees should use this free tool. Besides, how else will viewers see the beauty of your site if your site is buried beneath 10's of thousands of other indexed web sites.

[China Tea]

I will definitely go to that site. I have so much to learn.

Yes, it is most important that our sites be visible and accessed easily. I am glad that AOL and MSN found me lately. I have the most queries from Yahoo/Alta Vista and Google but some of my keywords bring me up with search engines like Alexa, SearchEstate and some little search engines.

Again, thank you for advisory DSL Guy. :D

China Tea

[Nomad]

DSL Guy..

Just wondering if you accept overseas Affiliates? I have quite a bit of traffic come through my site from the States ...so was wondering on that?

Nomad

[DSL Guy]

I can check on that for you and get back to you with a post here if that's ok. Let me ask first where?

[DSL Guy]

Nomad - Here's what I have:

We do have services that are offered world-wide. So my inclination is to say if I can offer a service to you, you can offer the same service to someone in your region or to someone in mine. I was unable to reach my corporate manager for a reply. If you want more info, email me at either of my email addresses with your settings to accept my email that I will send you giving you more detailed information. I do have one affiliate in South Africa right now. All we can do is try since I don't know where your region is.