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Strategic Links
In 1996, the University of California at Santa Barbara Extension
Program created their Web site, UCSB
Extension, to present its quarterly course catalog as
well as all its academic programs, student services, and general
information in this increasingly popular format. The purpose
of the site was to give students easier access all course,
certificate, and policy information. It has been a smashing
success. The user sessions to the UCSB Extension Web site
have grown by 300% from 1998 to June 1999. They now receive
more e-mail inquiries about their programs than phone calls.
In addition, enrollments in Extension classes have increased
by 800% on the Web.
The credit for this success needs to be shared by Extension's
Web Team, Extension's Web designers, information technology
and marketing departments and management for both excellent
content management and design. However, a well-designed, well-structured,
well-managed web site is no guarantee that people will visit
it. In order to be discovered, your site, like any product,
needs to be marketed.
At UCSB Extension they tried an integrated marketing approach.
They first incorporated the URL address into their print,
radio, and TV advertising. They optimized their site for the
search engines and purchased banner ads. But they found that
the most valuable marketing strategy was free strategic links.
To find these links, they researched every possible education
site on the web and made sure UCSB, preferably UCSB Extension,
had a link on it. They found many sites with links to universities
or continuing education programs. Since UCSB Extension services
a fairly small service area, they went to every government,
media, education and city or county web guide they could find
in the surrounding four counties.
How did they do that?
They made polite requests to webmasters for a link on their
site if it was appropriate. If there is a value to having
you on their site, they will usually create a link for you.
These links are equivalent to a free newspaper ad that is
present 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
How have they done?
They tracked these sites with WebTrends
tracking software, which showed them the user sessions for
each referring site. All of the chamber, city, and county
site links they had set up consistently brought them traffic
each month. Media, miscellaneous, and city sites performed
even better. In fact, many of the referring strategic link
sites did about a quarter of what a banner ad on the home
page did on the same sites. The biggest difference between
their banner ads and strategic links was not the money. It
was that they had over 300 strategic links up all the time,
while having no more than eight banners ads up at one time.
Whatever your site is, you'll need to find targeted sites
that would be interested in it. Network
Buyers Guide.com is a well-respected resource for network
and storage products and companies. If you are a network or
storage company, you will want to have a link or links on
that site. However, you might have to pay a small fee, well
worth it in terms of branding and driving targeted leads to
your site.
Another way to drive traffic to your site is to create links
on your site. The web site ire-net.com
is one of the best resources for real estate sites. The downside
to being a resource for other sites is that once you have
someone on your site, you might be giving them an easy opportunity
to leave for another.
One of the most recent trends in Internet marketing is strategic
partnerships. A good example of strategic partnerships is
maps.com.
Maps.com has around 60,000 users visit their site each month.
About 200 of these visitors come from search engines. Where
are the rest coming from? Well, maps.com happens to be the
maps resource for America Online users, as well as for travel
related sites, and a large percentage of their visitors come
from these referral sites.
The Holy Grail of strategic links is to be a partner and
have a presence on a site like AOL. If you can offer a service
to a well trafficked site, you have hit the big time.
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