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5 Ways to Entice Your Parallel Market to Trade Links

by: Tinu AbayomiPaul

Copyright 2004 Tinu AbayomiPaul

Lots of people get confounded when attempting to exchange links, you�re not alone. The people who have the spot you want are competitors. The people who don't aren't worth exchanging links with. What to do?

It's not necessarily the method you're using, it may be the approach.

If you know anything about SEO, you know you need relevant links to your site, preferably more in than you have out. And whether you actively pursue search engine listings or not, you�ll find that many surfers travel the web through the links they find, often without realizing it.

So how do you achieve this without linking to the sites you are competing with?

Think Parallel Markets.

When most people think of this term, they are speaking from an investment standpoint. In this discussion, I'm simply referring to groups of products and services which cater to people with similiar needs.

If your market is delivery or carry-out pizza, your market is fast food. But your parallel market might be frozen pizzas, Italian food store chains, or cheese, maybe even films.

Pizza delivery chains offer free DVDs with a delivery order because they figure that people who eat pizza at home watch films while they eat - ordering in and watching a movie is (sadly) the new third date.

To discover your parallel market, think of things that your customers have in common that brings them to your site, then eliminate things that compete.

So now you know *who* to ask to link to you. But *how* do you get them to link back?

Especially as a new webmaster, it helps if you think from the opposing end of your desires.

Meaning that, before you ask for something, think of what you can give in return. What are the other person's needs? If you don�t know, you can probably find out by subscribing to their newsletter or feed.

That way, when you write to them, instead of sending the standard cookie-cutter email, you can add personalized information that lets them know that you have been to their site repeatedly, list specific issues they have stated before, and use this information to make it worth their while.

Which email would you answer? The one that is obviously a copy, personalized only with your email address? Or the one that states your name and shows that the other person has actually been to your site before?

So take a look at your site. Why should anyone link to you? What will they get out of the deal? Is your site a great resource? Do you have a higher Google PR? Do you do site reviews? Or maybe you�ll just use whatever text they ask for?

When you first start out, with no links back to your site, find other people in your parallel markets who need links too. You're both in the same boat. Help each other.

Then as you see your traffic rising, you can start going after bigger and bigger fish. But again, make it worth their while.

Here are some ways in which you can make a link trade a little more attractive.

Method One: The Recommendation Exchange

When I know of a site that sells inexpensive tools for new marketers that are ready to advance to the next level, I refer a lot of my more advanced crowd to them, and they send me their beginners.

So in approaching them, I might tell them that not only have I already linked to them, but if they link back I�ll also write about them in my blog and my newsletter. Costs me nothing but an extra five minutes, and I�m more likely to get a little bit more than the link trade.

Method Two: The Bribe

This can also increase your reputation as an expert in your field.

Pick five people who are a bit more knowledgeable than you. Ask them if they�d like to be interviewed, for a collection, and offer to distribute the resulting resource for free to their audience, if they�ll link to your home page, where the free ebook can be downloaded.

You've got their link, they've got free publicity in a book they can - and probably will - distribute for you.

Method Three: Use That Feed

There are the sites that want to carry a relevant, frequently updated feed in order to get more search engine visits. So, if you have a feed, you could send that webmaster a link to your feed, and tell them how they can use tools like CARP, RSS Equalizer or RSS Digest to display your feed on their site.

If you update daily, and you're willing to take the bandwidth hit, you might find that they don't even mind a one way link.

Method Four: The Barter

Give them a free copy of your book if they�d link to you. Offer to link back to them if they�ll write a testimonial about the book.

Method Five: The Testimonial

This is a slight variation on the recommendation, because it sometimes ends up as more of a one-way trade.

If you sincerely enjoy a service or product that you bought, go back and pull up the sales page. If the links on the page for the testimonials are live, offer your testimonial.

Caution: Only offer testimonials on products you really used and benefitted from. It�s fine to put your name on something controversial if you really believe in it, but if you give a testimonial just for a link back to your site, you�re messing with your good name.

You should also know that they may not use your testimonial on their site, unless it�s really good - so and try to be as specific as possible about how their product helped you.

The point is, if you think creatively, you can solve your linking problem.

About the author:
Tinu carries on various internet marketing related discussions in her blog at .

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Tracking and Measuring RSS Feeds
by: S. Housley

Measuring and tracking RSS while a fairly simple concept, is really anything but. Unlike websites, RSS have the added caveat of potential syndication, making accurate tracking a challenge to anyone but the extremely tech savvy.

It is not unrealistic for marketers to want to know how many subscribers they have, which items in their feeds attract the most interest, or how many click-throughs are generated as a result of an RSS feed.

There are a number of 3rd party providers who focus on tracking the consumption of RSS feeds. Some solutions are rudimentary but likely sufficient for a small business testing the waters with RSS. Other RSS tracking solutions are more complex and while they can come close to being accurate, with syndication there is no solution that tracks with 100% accuracy.

Techniques Used to track RSS Consumption

Small businesses can view web logs to provide information on how many times a specific file (RSS feed) is requested. The logs and information is rudimentary but will give a basic sense of a feeds success. Many 3rd party tracking options have additional tracking information available.

Hosting

The most common method to track the number of feed accesses or individuals accessing a feed is to use a 3rd party feed host. Companies like FeedBurner essentially track feeds based on accesses. The downside to using a 3rd party like Feedburner, is that the url is a FeedBurner url and any PageRank or popularity associated with the url will benefit the feed host rather than the feed creator. Additionally, no distinction is made between unique views or syndicate feeds.

FeedBurner provides a free no frills service to host RSS feeds and they have been proactive in circumventing user concerns. Recently implementing a service that eases users concerns about migrating from FeedBurner. There is a 3 step process for users interested in migrating from FeedBurner's free service, implementing a permanent redirect, and url forwarding.

Details can be found at: http://www.burningdoorc.om/feedburner/archives/001251.html

Some publishers, who were concerned about lock-in or wanted to retain control of the domain and feed urls often resist a hosting service. The new program FeedBurner Partner Pro is not free, but allows for users to point to their own domain, retaining complete control of their feeds without sacrificing statistical tracking.

The downside to using a service like FeedBurner is that some filtering applications used on corporate proxy servers block feeds residing on FeedBurner or other free hosts.

Redirects

Companies like SyndicateIQ have more complex tracking solutions that generate unique urls for each subscriber. The tracking benefits to such a customized solution is obvious. Individual user habits can be monitored and any users abusing their access and inappropriately syndicating a feeds content can have their feed turned off. The downside of course is that the success of RSS is in a large part due to the anonymity. Users don't want their personal habits tracked.

Considering the venture capital interest in these 3rd party hosting services. It is important to note that their value is in the data that they collect. As with any 3rd party service, it goes without saying that publishers should read the privacy policy carefully, be aware of who owns the rights to the collected information, and how that information might be used. It goes without saying that the value in many of the free services currently available lies in their aggregate data.

Uniquely Named Transparent Images

Uniquely named transparent 1x1 graphics can be added to the description field of an RSS feed. Users can use standard web logs to see the number of times the image is viewed and determine the number of times the feed was accessed.

Companies Specializing in Tracking and RSS Metrics

Pheedo - Pheedo creates tools that enable individuals, organizations and corporations to promote, analyze, and optimize their weblogs and content.

http://www.pheedo.com

SyndicateIQ - SyndicateIQ's position in the content distribution chain provides clients a set of analytics.

http://www.syndicateiq.com/

FeedBurner - FeedBurner offers a full range of services to help you build awareness, track circulation, and implement revenue-generating programs in your feed(s).

http://www.feedburner.com

Each individual using RSS needs to make a decision of the extent and importance of the analytics they require. Realizing that any system they employ is not going to be perfect.

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