Driving People to Your Site: Banners and Links Pay Off
by Bill
Koelzer, "The Web Marketer"
Reciprocal links
and banner exchanges are essentially, "I’ll link to you
if you’ll link to me." Banner exchanging is a variation
of link exchanging—"I’ll put your banner on my site
if you’ll put my banner on your site."
Both strategies
increase the chances that people will find your site. As an added
incentive for you, most major search engines place your site higher
in their summaries based on how many pages link to it, which is
another reason to get as many links to your site as you can. So,
with whom do you set up reciprocal links, and where? How do you
go about exchanging banners? Are these strategies worth the time
and effort?
Linking with
Others
You and your
realty office do business with many firms who do not compete with
you. Some are your suppliers, some are vendors, some are even companies
owned by your clients. Some are title firms, appraisers, mortgage
companies, loan agents, insurers, storage facilities, truck rental
agencies, window blind installers, painters, landscapers, maid services,
and dozens more.
Search the Web
to find the firms in such categories WHO ARE IN THE CITIES YOU SERVE
and who have a strong Internet presence. (If you can find them easily,
so might others. And if they find your link there and are interested
in buying or selling a home, they might just go to your site.)
You find non-competing
but realty-related sites by searching on Google (www,google.com)
using key word phrases like, "Tacoma appraisers," "Manhattan
mortgages," "Cleveland landscapers" and so on. Then
send them an e-mail inviting them to exchange links or banner ads
with you. There are no costs to doing this and only win-win potential
for both of you.
Sample e-mail:
Subject Line:
Local (City Name) Realtor(R) will help YOU get more leads.
(Note---Your
"Subjects" are VERY important in quickly showing the recipient
that you are not sending him more SPAM.)
Dear Webmaster
of http://www.(domain of target Web site):
You will likely
gain additional monthly inquiries and sales if you have a free link
or banner on my Realtor(R) ’s web site at http:// www. (domain
name).
And I would
be happy to give you such a link on my (City Name) "Home-related
Services" page at http:// www (domain name).com/Local-Services.
In return, perhaps
you’d be willing to post my link or banner for free in YOUR
web site on page http:// www, (domain name). Here attached is one
of my banners and here is the text I have written for a text link
and the page that the link goes to.
Waterfront
Property—Buying? Selling?
Be Confident
Using a 20-year Specialist
(Link goes
to http://www.BreezyBeachieAgent.com)
Just send me
your text and link address and I can get you in MY site within three
days.
If you’d
like to call me, I can be reached days at: _____________ and nights
at:________.
In (city name)
I often hear about people planning to improve their home before
selling it long before they get around to using services such as
yours. It’s the same for home buyers who remodel. I could give
you their leads if you would agree to let ME know when you hear
about an upcoming home sale. Meanwhile, I hope that you will consider
swapping links or banners with me. We can each benefit from doing
so and best of all, there is no cost involved.
After you
email
Don’t be
discouraged. Not every site owner is smart enough to exchange links
with you. To be sure that they understand your offer, be sure to
follow up with a phone call. For these people, once you explain
how a link exchange works, most are willing to exchange links or
ads with you.
Remember that
your target for reciprocal links and banners are firms that serve
your target audiences from a "commercial contracting"
or "housekeeping," "maintenance" or "repair"
standpoint. In your own regional area, such firms also include roofers,
contractors, repair people, electricians, plumbers, telephone service
firms, and dozens more—you get the idea. First, however, check
to be certain that you are not at any legal risk in your state by
"recommending" vendors to your visitors on your site.
Banner exchange
services
"Banner
exchange" firms can help you increase your exposure by displaying
a banner of yours on a number of Web sites in ex-change for your
displaying a rotating banner of theirs—actually, of one of
their clients—on your site. Usually, you get a banner exposure
for yourself for a certain number of times that someone clicks on
the banner of theirs that is displayed on your site. Some banner
exchange firms are more generous, giving you two views for every
three that you provide. The banners of all participants in the exchange
are of the same size. Thus, banners can be rotated within the "banner
frames" placed on the Web sites of banner exchange members.
For more information, go to http://www.linkexchange.com.
Bottom line
on banner exchanges.
It’s probably
not worth the bother, cost, and reduced speed in page loading on
your site just to have more people who are unlikely to be buying
your niche-related product see your banner. However, if you sell
a retail product nationwide that anyone can buy anywhere, banner
exchanges may help your sales. Note, too, that having different
banners show up on one of your web pages may confuse your visitors
as to why the banner is there, plus its presence can conflict with
the layout and design colors on your page.
Affiliations
With affiliations,
a link from your site takes visitors to some other site. If the
visitor buys something at the other site, like a book, CD, or poster,
you get a commission. Note that this does not bring visitors to
your site. In fact, it sends your hard-won visitors off to some
other place on the Internet. Affiliations are probably not worth
your time and energy. An exception is when you offer a "store"
as a sub-part of your web site and its primary function is more
a service to your visitors than as a profit center for your firm.
An example would
be a realty chain that has a web site section from which Realtors®
can easily order gifts for clients at the close of escrow. Products
in this vein often include Omaha Steaks (http://www.OmahaSteaks.com.,
Maine Lobsters (http://www.maine-lobster.com), Harry and David (http://www.harry-david.com)
and others.
Conclusions
Bottom line?
The reciprocal exchange of banners and links can work well for you
if they are done with local web sites---ones within the cities that
you serve. In addition, they should be done with firms that are
in some way realty- or home improvement- or relocation-related.
Why? So that you can reach more of your target audiences. Remember,
in positioning yourself on the web, you want to be there, waiting,
in exactly the places that your target audiences are likely to go.
Establishing
good rapport and trusting working relationships with such non-competitive
firms can, after just a few years, become one of a Realtor(R) ’s
most powerful ways to get more web site popularity that makes a
web site show up higher on search engines, and, best of all, get
more sales.
-- SkyVault™
Web Design provides marketing consulting, web development,
and Internet business services to small and medium sized businesses.
They have been developing income-producing online properties since
1998. Contact the development team at: www.skyvaultwebdesign.com.
Free Report Reveals Secrets of Their Successful Marketing Strategy:
www.daretodoubleyourincome.com.
