Outbound Links

OH NO! All my visitors are leaving!

[AWildman]

Yesterday, I was trying to extoll the virtues of linking to authority sites for various pages. For example, one being that the visitors will find such links useful, that such links could lead to reciprocal links when I do a link campaign, and that such links prove that we are knowledgeable about our business.
The graphic artist and sales/marketing person jumped down my throat! Nope. Can't do that. People will leave our site. My response was well, if we have quality content, they won't. Sides, even if there were NO links, visitors will quickly leave a site that doesn't appeal to them anyhow. There's NOTHING you can do about that but improve your content.
They didn't want to hear that. They'd been to conferences and read books that said don't do anything to help people leave your site. Pardon me, but isn't the web a WEB cause there are a bunch of pages that LINK to one another?
I could only get them to agree to a solitary links page instead of links at say the bottom of product pages. I'm okay with that, but I think they are being wholly naive about marketing a website. They even argued that "this is not how we market our products". I'm not trying to market a product. I'm trying to market a page. YOUR job is to market the product.
How do you feel about this? Am I the naive one who needs to wake up?

[Marketing Guy]

Hehe done that, been there, got the t-shirt! ;)

There's only so much you can to to argue and / or educate them. Then you have to just give up on creating a quality site and resort to creating an online corporate brochure.

Personally, I would try to go over their head to the boss, and say,

"Look, I need to be able to tell them what I want for the site, not be told what they want the site to be. You pay me to design your website, and I can only do that if I have full control over it".

Failing that, this may work:

"OK, do you want 500 or 5000 visitors a month?" (ignore sales conversions for the time being! ;))

If you are left to deal with the marketing people, confuse them with technology and hope they don't look it up....

"OK, if we don't have outgoing links in certain places the spiders will get caught up in our web and corrupt the entire site - do you want that?" (this will really screw with their heads)

Or,

"Would you like me to tell you how to coordinate your print marketing? No? Why not? Oh....because I dont know enough about it..." :-/

But ultimately you are stuck with idiots that don't have a clue about the web. Sorry. :(

Scott :)

[AWildman]

>>"OK, if we don't have outgoing links in certain places the spiders will get caught up in our web and corrupt the entire site - do you want that?" (this will really screw with their heads)

Hilarious! Thanks for brightening my day!
Unfortunately, the whole going over their heads with tech talk won't work cause I work for a tech company. I'll admit that marketing and editorial don't know much about technology, but there are tons of people here who do.

I do wish I could have the ultimate say in the sites since I'm ultimately responsible. I know I have a few bosses above me, one of whom is "responsible" to the ceo for the sites. However, the boss will just come ask me why we aren't placing higher on SERPS for this or that keyword.

I've decided that for each page I make or update from now on, I'm going to keep a list of what on-page and off-page marketing is being done. If something isn't being done, I'll write a note as to why. At least I'm somewhat less culpable then, if overworked and underpaid.

[rogerd]

Corporations can be sticky about linking, not just because they are ignorant, but also because they may not want to appear to endorse other sites.

You might try the "open in new window" approach if their primary concern is people leaving & never returning. "See, this way the visitors will never leave..." :)

[Marketing Guy]

You can also pitch the value of targetting keywords using your links pages.

Approach from a "repeat business" (read: sticky) angle - OK, you dont want visitors to leave, but if they keep coming back when they do leave..... ;)

Scott

[AWildman]

I guess I hadn't thought of them not wanting to endorse other sites, although, that wasn't their thought at the time and I'm not going to give them another weapon with which to bludgeon me by pointing this out.

I really appreciate the support. After the gang-up on me yesterday, I was beginning to think maybe I was wrong. But then I remembered, "OH YEAH, the title on MY cube says WEBMASTER. Of course I'm right!" :)

PS - I find it funny that that is my actual title. Not web designer or web developer or anything of the sort. I'm actually a webmaster.

[rogerd]

Don't bring up the "endorsing" issue, AW, but be prepared. Sooner or later some senior manager will stumble across the company site by accident, click on a link, and be totally confused as to why he's on another web site. You'll get a call like, "Why do we have Acme Widget information on our site? I found hundreds of pages of widgets, and we don't sell them!" "Sir, those aren't on our site. You must have clicked on a link." "Huh? What's a link? Just get that $%^&*# widget information off our site right now!" ;)

[AWildman]

You know what? That sounds like something my mom would say. We'll be watching a show, she won't pay attention for a few minutes, and then ask what kind of crap we're watching when there's a commercial for another show! I don't know whether to laugh or cry. She refers to the Internet as "the eBay".

I will be prepared. Well, as prepared as one can be for arguments with the ill-informed.

[Marketing Guy]

> Internet as "the eBay".

We all know MS Internet is not associated with Ebay! ;)

[rogerd]

Yes, and the Internet was invented by Al Gore while eBay was invented by Meg Ryan (between movies). ;) Please let Mom know this.

[AWildman]

Geez, if I refer to Microsoft Internet Explorer, then she'll really be confused:
"Can you look something up on the Microsoft's eBay?"

Meg Ryan invented eBay? I hadn't heard that. The things you learn on WW! :)

[rogerd]

Well, your mom probably doesn't know Meg Whitman, so Meg Ryan will be easier to remember. :)

[martinibuster]

Getting your hands tied behind your back by corporate is when the work gets interesting because it pushes your creativity.

You have to play around with content they don't care about. Create mini-sections that are tucked away in the sitemap and the faqs...

Outbound links have always been a sticking point.

[AWildman]

I was seriously thinking of asking my supervisor and her boss whether they'd mind if I "tweaked" some pages without prior approval from editorial or marketing.

I HATE it that I'd have to sneak behind anyone's back, but I'd love to take a product page of a product that doesn't do so well and add some outbound links, if only to sate my own curiousity about the effects of outbound links. I know one test on one page isn't really to be relied upon, but I'd like to show them SOME proof. Actually, I'd just like to knock some sense into them.

I was really quite insulted when they attacked the way they did, telling me that they'd been to conferences blah blah blah. As if I haven't kept current on webmarketing. Of course, it was a big powerful department head talking to a lowly webmaster.
Its true what they say about stuff sliding downhill...

[sudden]

I feel for you, Wildman. As I am from Germany, I´m afraid I have no clue what they say about "stuff sliding downhill" on your side of the world. Can you enlighten me?

[AWildman]

Thanks. I appreciate the support.

The phrase is kind of vulgar of roughly, its the crap work that no one wants starts at the top of the company and goes from desk to desk until it winds up on the desk of the least senior person in the company.

Cool that you're from Germany. I used to live in Waldorf and go to school at Rheine Main.

[sonjay]

At the place I used to work, shortly after we first launched our Web site, the discussion of links came up. And my boss's boss initially proclaimed that we were not to allow any other sites to link to us.

:rolleyes:

[Fruit and Veg]

Would it be possible to duplicate a page so you have one how the CEO/Marketing, etc want it, then you have your own one...and before all the spamming Saints slit my throat...the two pages will be completely different as one will be SEO'd the other will be CEO'd (eg. crap).

Then do what martinibuster said, and hide them in a site map sub page or something. Then in a few months you could show some comparison results.

CEO's and top bosses are absolute nincumpoops, but if you confront them with cold hard facts, plus get in a dig against the marketing/techie person, then you'll be in for a gold watch before you know it.

[sudden]

Thanks for the explanation, Wildman, I think i get the idea. Greetings from your old home (more or less, I live in the northern part of Germany)!

[Mark_A]

sonjay that no one must link to us is not uncommon .. plenty of corporate lawyers seem to want to put that in the terms and conditions of accessing their clients websites ..

Very amusing in some ...

terms for accessing .. we take no responsibility for the accuracy of information on this site .. you may not link to this site .. etc etc .... hello ...

[AWildman]

Well, I had some bit of vindication yesterday. My dream would be to just write the manuscript myself and let editorial do their thing. What I find happening a lot is that the editorial department is also the dept. that writes our products. So, they often leave things out, like WHAT THE PRODUCT ACTUALLY IS! It is SO frustrating! I often have to write the "what it is" paragraph. "BlahWidget is a blah to help you blah blah." They often just jump right into "BlahWidget contains 10 subblahs and is great for dubl-de-blah." Whoah, cart! You took off without the horse!

I met with editorial yesterday to discuss my marketing plan and the head of the dept. said something along the lines of "you should write this stuff and we edit it." YES! PLEASE! Not that I need ANY more work, but I'd LOVE to do that. I'll see where it goes.

It is funny in a straight-jacket kind of way that someone would actually say "Let no one link to us". I have found that my people are like "get people to link to us, but don't link back." I feel like saying, sure and next time your mom gets you a birthday gift, don't reciprocate with a mother's day gift.