At 12:18 PM 12/6/98 -0600, Peter J. Schoenster so eloquently stated:
>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.
>
Not sure I agree. If you put a site to the search engines and it
is not ready, you risk folks visiting and not coming back.
Teasers are good if done well. Under construction or coming soon
doesn't work.
I do agree that it takes a lot of work to keep marketing your
site. Javlik's S.E. Report is a great tool. While you may know
who searches you for what based on referrer logs, John's report
tells you who you missed, i.e., who searched on a keyword that
you are not using.
George
_______________________________________________________
George Matyjewicz, C.M.O. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.gapent.com/
Marketing Your Web http://www.gapent.com/myweb/
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