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I am attempting to build our publicity and ranking at the lowest cost availible. I have done CPC advertising for the last 8 months successfully with Overture; however, after spending ($ommitted) with them, they now feel that my industry is not what they would like to continue advertsing -- and thus, my online advertising is down to ZERO.
To repair this, I am working to get naturally higher listings for our products through DMOZ, $paid for Yahoo! directory listings, etc.
I read about link exchanges. We have several sites that link to one-another; however, we do not link our competition. We do link the product manufacturer, though.
What is the PR#? What value is a PR#? How do I discover my PR# and the PR# of my competition and of potential link enchange partners? What are general rules for developing a PR#?
I am also working to get listed on more sites though donations, sponsoring, local chamber-of-commerce(s), press sites, local publications (grass roots organizations), etc.
What other recommendations are there for developing our online presence?
Is there anyone out there that would like to get paid to do this? (what companies or people specialize in this?)
Do you have any reccomendations on specific ad agencies that can handle this?
Thank you and best regards for all our successes,
Kirk
[edited by: engine at 7:24 pm (utc) on June 24, 2003]
[edit reason] No sigs, thanks. See TOS [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]
You certainly appear to have done your research and have definitely come to the right place for more info.
Some tips....
1. You can find out your PR by downloading the Google toolbar: toolbar.google.com (it displays as a green bar when you visit a site).
2. Linking: don't worry too much about the PR of the site you are exchanging links with - have a think about what kind of people would visit that site, and would they like to buy what you sell?
3. When asking a site to link to yours, it is more effective (in my experience) to send a personal email and comment on why you want a link from their site (usually something like, "I feel our site would be a great resource for your visitors").
4. Work on your converting your existing traffic too - can customers find your contact details easy, including address and phone number? Are your product descriptions clear and useful? Is your navigation logical and easy to use?
5. Do you have a sitemap? It's a good starting point for getting your site fully indexed and helping users navigate.
6. The sites you are targetting for links are a great start, but try to think of more related businesses (not direct competitors) that you could exchange links with.
7. Content - you can never have too much - adding content frequently (articles, news, etc) encourages repeat visits by both humans and search engine spiders.
8. General rule for developing PR is more links = more PR. But keep in mind; high quality links (from good sites) = quality traffic, but high quantity of links (indiscriminate linking) does not necessarily mean high quantity of traffic.
9. Creat a well organised links section - a neat directory style links section will be more attractive to other webmasters than a big list of links.
10. Try posting a message in the commercial forum if you are thinking about hiring someone to do this. Id imagine there are agencies that specialise in this, but a lot of the top professionals in the world visit this forum.
All the best! :)
Scott
This is also my first post here. I was referred by a business partner of mine, and wow - this place is HUGE! I've only had time to read a few posts, but so far so good. Kudos to all of you!
- Rabbit
