Getting
I have a few friends that struggled
day and night to get recognized by the major awards (Cools Site of the
Day, Point Top 5%, Cool Sighting etc.). Finally, they got Point Top 5%
and they thought they had really hit the big time. When the link came up
they expected their traffic to hit the roof. They were sorely disappointed
when at the end of that first day they received a total of 15 hits as a
result of the award.
Now granted, if they had received Cool
Site of the Day, they probably would have had one stellar day, but most
awards do not perform this well. Cool Site of the Day is also quite difficult
to get and the effects only last one day. (There is a bit of trickle as
a result of their archives, though.)
Some awards will give you a big boost
for one day, some will give you a slow consistent trickle (the Point Top
5% award did continue to trickle in about 15 hits a day).
Given all this, I would still recommend
trying to get as many awards as possible. Awards will increase your
traffic somewhat, but more importantly, they will increase your websites
credibility. When someone sees an award on your page, they are automatically
brainwashed into thinking that the site is good. It's inevitable, the site
will be far better received. More people will bookmark the site and more
people will come back.
There are hundreds of sites that give
awards these days. I would make a habit of trying for at least one every
day until you have them all. If you are turned down by one, keep trying
until you get it. Be persistent.
A good place to start is "Aesop
Award Submitter". Simply go to the Internet Marketing Library, click
on "free marketing software" and you can download it for free.
This little gem will submit your site to over 100 award sites including
what I consider to be the 8 most important awards on the web.
Giving
One of the smartest things you can
do is offer your own award. Create a snazzy small graphic that people can
place on their sites with pride. Ensure that they link the graphic back
to your site. Boom! Instant free advertising.
I would advise against giving out a
simple "cool site" award. There are far too many of these around. If you
sell widgets give out a "best widget site of the web" award. The chances
of your award being seen by someone interested in your widgets is increased
dramatically.
I did this with my earliest website.
I started offering the High Octane
Award and got a slew of submissions.
After I distributed about 30 or so
awards, I noticed a pretty noticeable influx of hits as a result (it was
already a site getting about 2,000 hits a day - much more than that now,
but every little thing helps).
It varied from site to site, of course,
but it was a nice chunk.
I still offer the award and it's still
a good source of traffic. At that site, I get about 150 hits a day as a
result of those links alone. Some of you out there could probably use that.
The effectiveness of that award, though,
is based on it's validity. I don't just give it out to anyone. If you do
that, it loses value.
My award helps give the recipient sites
some credibility and also gives them some traffic as well. The section
featuring the awardees is pretty well trafficked and the sites listed there
get a lot of hits as a result.
A win/win solution is the only way
to suceed on the web. If you don't help others, they probably won't be
willing to help you.
Next --->
Home | The
Basics | Contests | E-
mail | Events and Press Releases | Linking
|
Awards | Content | Newsgroups
Further Study
For more great stuff, see the Internet
Marketing Library and the Internet
Marketing ProShop.
Copyright © 1999 Aesop Marketing
Corporation
All Rights Reserved. You may distribute
this report freely if left intact.
You can give it away or even include
it as part of a package you sell. Feel free to post it to your website
or BBS if you like. Just be sure to leave the contents intact (that is,
it must be distributed as the guerilla.exe
file with no changes or modifications). For this, you need ask no
permission from us, just do it.
However, You may not quote from
or distribute any individual part of this report without express permission
from Aesop Marketing Corporation (pubs@aesop.com).
|
