On 6 Dec 98, at 9:40, Rainmaker wrote:
> Some time ago we launched a new service and did some tests. I
1.
> On one site we submitted it to search engines only. We used
> Broadcaster to submit to 200 search engines and were confirmed on 125.
2.
> On the second we did not submit it to any search engine. Rather
> we sent out a press release to approx 800 publication contacts,
> a message to prior visitors to another site of ours, and we
> mentioned it on some of the newslists that we are on. We also
> sent a fax broadcast (off-line) to approx 1,000 people on one of
> our fax broadcast lists (don't know if they have Web access or not).
> The first week results:
>
1.Page on search engines - 24 visitors with no orders or e-messages
> to us.
2.The second site - 997 visitors with 247 e-messages or orders to us.
> We dropped the search engine site, and "un-submitted" it on
> search engines. IMHO search engines are only good if you have a
> branded product or are well-known or you have some free/fun
> stuff. For business-to-business, search engines are like a
> gigantic Yellow Page directory. I don't know about you, but I
> never got any business from the Yellow Pages.
George, thanks for the info.
Where I work we too send out the press releases. There is even a
person who then follows up to get screen shots if the press releases
ended up in links or mentions of the website. The referrer log helps
a lot with this; we have found that other sites use those sites where
we have sent press releases to get new links about new information.
The search engine work, though, is really done before the site is
ever designed, imho, and I keep trying to convince people of this. A
search engine will find your site...no need to submit it. A little
work in advance of html hitting the page can help in your "yellow
page" listing, which I think will help much more than hurt.
How many people are mining their referrer log to get a listing of
sites which are dedicated to providing links to focused subjects? My
site gets its top hits from pages on other sites that are just pages
of links to sites about web programming. A commercial site I have
done gets a lot of hits from sites which just provide links to
"sweepstakes" pages. Those "sweepstakes" pages consistenly send
people to the site and provide fodder for marketing (the quality is
probably low and it might be interesting to include in the visitor
profile where they came from before they filled out the form; I have
done this on another site).
But, I still think a page well-designed for search engine ranking is
worth the small effort it takes. I agree with George that there are
many ways to market your website. My point is that just a little
work on the front-end can pay big dividends in the future, because
search engine registration is done before the site becomes html.
Peter
--------
The enduring goodness of the American military character over the past
two centuries does not automatically derive from our nation's
nutritional habits or from a good job benefits package. This character
must be developed and supported, or it will die.
-By Daniel J. Rabil http://www.wbap.com/marknote/note111298.html
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