NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> If you list me, I'll list you ...
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> If you list me, I'll list you ...
Cliff Kurtzman (cliff_at_tenagra.com)
Tue, 2 Sep 1997 22:09:29 -0500 (CDT)
Leah Roberts wrote:
>I've found that it is more difficult
>than I imagined for us newbies who don't know the tips and tricks on how to
>get traffic to our websites.
>
>I thought I had a great idea by deciding to add a page to my site that would
>list links and short ads for complementing business offers. I e-mailed to a
>selected list of these marketers offering to display their links and ads on
>this page in exchange for just a simple link somewhere in their sites (not
>even home page!). First (1) I received no responses back, and (2) this
>posting came through saying "be wary" of those who ask for reciprocal links.
> My question is... why??? What would make this not a win-win situation?
It is hardly a win-win situation, for quite a number of reasons. Consider
the case where someone invests hundreds of thousands of dollars or more
building and promoting their site and developing a regular audience
measured in the thousands (or more) a month. Someone else slaps up a page
on a related subject and asks for a return link. This is hardly a
reciprocal arrangement. Traffic is going to flow primarily in one
direction because the new site has no traffic and no audience.
When you e-mail someone on a site that is not of equivalent traffic and ask
them for a "reciprocal" link, you are effectively asking them if you can
take a free ride on the investment they have made to gain their audience
share. If you a charitable organization they might say yes. Otherwise
they are probably going to want you to pay your fair share and buy an ad,
if they even offer them.
Whether it is in the form of a graphic banner or a textual link, you are
really offering to exchange advertising for your sites. It would be like
writing a letter to the Wall Street Journal telling them that you will
include a free reference to their publication in your next company
newsletter in return for them providing a reference to your company in the
next issue of their newspaper. Not too likely...
An exception to this is, of course, web sites whose whole purpose of
existance is to be a directory (like Yahoo).
It would help your case if you could convince the party on the other end
that they (or their web site visitors) stand to gain at least as much from
the deal as you do. My experience is also that it helps if you can be very
specific about where they might place the link to your site and why it
would be something that visitors to their site might appreciate.
Here is an e-mail I received yesterday about the Tenagra web site:
I link to your Web site from my Web site in the Marketing
section the [deleted] area.
Would you provide a reciprocal link to my site at [URL of his site
deleted].
Thanks.
I appreciate the fact that this fellow is linking to me, but there is just
no way I'm going to link to his site based on this e-mail. Each page on
http://www.tenagra.com/ is designed to fulfill a specific purpose and
prompt a specific response. We don't just stick links at random on the
pages. Unless this person can give me a specific page on which to link to
his site and a reason why it enhances my site to do so, then there is no
chance I'm going to add the link.
Another good example is our experience on our Tennis Server site. We get
so many link requests on this site that I'd just about have to hire a full
time person to manage the related correspondence, add the links, and
monitor that the links are good on a regular basis. The costs of a full
time hire with related overhead comes to about 100K/year, so providing free
reciprocal links hardly looks like a low cost proposition from my
perspective.
Most of the organizations that e-mail in asking for reciprocal links are
companys that sell tennis-related items. This publication's only source of
revenue to stay publishing is from advertising from such companies, so when
someone asks for a free link (so they don't have to buy an ad) it is going
to get a negative response. And even besides the fact that it is unfair to
us to give them a free link, it would also be unfair to our paying
advertisers if we were to give out free links to their competitors. Our
advertisers would want their money back.
Because we want to make people widely aware of this site even if the
arrangement is not exactly even from a traffic perspective, and because
part of the value we offer to our visitors is our directory to tennis clubs
and non-commercial tennis sites, we have created a policy (stated on the
site) that provides free return links only to tennis clubs and
non-commercial tennis-related sites. This keeps the number of submissions
much more manageable -- down to the level that they can be handled with
about one day of labor a month.
--Cliff Kurtzman
President and CEO
The Tenagra Corporation
http://www.tenagra.com/
281/480-6300
Internet marketing, public relations, consulting and web design
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