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Driving
People to Your Site: Banners and Links Pay Off
Reciprocal links and banner exchanges are
essentially, "I’ll link to you if you’ll link to me."
Banner exchanging is a variation of link exchanging—"I’ll
put your banner on my site if you’ll put my banner on your
site."
Both strategies increase the chances that
people will find your site. As an added incentive for you,
most major search engines place your site higher in their
summaries based on how many pages link to it, which is
another reason to get as many links to your site as you can.
So, with whom do you set up reciprocal links, and where? How
do you go about exchanging banners? Are these strategies
worth the time and effort?
Linking with Others
You and your realty office do business
with many firms who do not compete with you. Some are your
suppliers, some are vendors, some are even companies owned
by your clients. Some are title firms, appraisers, mortgage
companies, loan agents, insurers, storage facilities, truck
rental agencies, window blind installers, painters,
landscapers, maid services, and dozens more.
Search the Web to find the firms in such
categories WHO ARE IN THE CITIES YOU SERVE and who have a
strong Internet presence. (If you can find them easily, so
might others. And if they find your link there and are
interested in buying or selling a home, they might just go
to your site.)
You find non-competing but realty-related
sites by searching on Google (www,google.com) using key word
phrases like, "Tacoma appraisers," "Manhattan mortgages,"
"Cleveland landscapers" and so on. Then send them an e-mail
inviting them to exchange links or banner ads with you.
There are no costs to doing this and only win-win potential
for both of you.
Sample e-mail:
Subject Line: Local (City Name) Realtor(R)
will help YOU get more leads.
(Note---Your "Subjects" are VERY important
in quickly showing the recipient that you are not sending
him more SPAM.)
Dear Webmaster of http://www.(domain of
target Web site):
You will likely gain additional monthly
inquiries and sales if you have a free link or banner on my
Realtor(R) ’s web site at http:// www. (domain name).
And I would be happy to give you such a
link on my (City Name) "Home-related Services" page at
http:// www (domain name).com/Local-Services.
In return, perhaps you’d be willing to
post my link or banner for free in YOUR web site on page
http:// www, (domain name). Here attached is one of my
banners and here is the text I have written for a text link
and the page that the link goes to.
Waterfront Property—Buying? Selling?
Be Confident Using a 20-year
Specialist
(Link goes to http://www.BreezyBeachieAgent.com)
Just send me your text and link address
and I can get you in MY site within three days.
If you’d like to call me, I can be reached
days at: _____________ and nights at:________.
In (city name) I often hear about people
planning to improve their home before selling it long before
they get around to using services such as yours. It’s the
same for home buyers who remodel. I could give you their
leads if you would agree to let ME know when you hear about
an upcoming home sale. Meanwhile, I hope that you will
consider swapping links or banners with me. We can each
benefit from doing so and best of all, there is no cost
involved.
After you email
Don’t be
discouraged. Not every site owner is smart enough to
exchange links with you. To be sure that they understand
your offer, be sure to follow up with a phone call. For
these people, once you explain how a link exchange works,
most are willing to exchange links or ads with you.
Remember that your target for
reciprocal links and banners are firms that serve your
target audiences from a "commercial contracting" or
"housekeeping," "maintenance" or "repair" standpoint. In
your own regional area, such firms also include roofers,
contractors, repair people, electricians, plumbers,
telephone service firms, and dozens more—you get the idea.
First, however, check
to be certain that you are not at any legal risk in your
state by "recommending" vendors to your visitors on your
site.
Banner exchange services
"Banner exchange" firms can
help you increase your exposure by displaying a banner of
yours on a number of Web sites in ex-change for your
displaying a rotating banner of theirs—actually, of one of
their clients—on your site. Usually, you get a banner
exposure for yourself for a certain number of times that
someone clicks on the banner of theirs that is displayed on
your site. Some banner exchange firms are more generous,
giving you two views for every three that you provide. The
banners of all participants in the exchange are of the same
size. Thus, banners can be rotated within the "banner
frames" placed on the Web sites of banner exchange members.
For more information, go to http://www.linkexchange.com.
Bottom line on banner exchanges.
It’s probably not worth the bother, cost, and reduced
speed in page loading on your site just to have more people
who are unlikely to be buying your niche-related product see
your banner. However, if you sell a retail product
nationwide that anyone can buy anywhere, banner exchanges
may help your sales. Note, too, that having different
banners show up on one of your web pages may confuse your
visitors as to why the banner is there, plus its presence
can conflict with the layout and design colors on your page.
Affiliations
With affiliations, a link from your site
takes visitors to some other site. If the visitor buys
something at the other site, like a book, CD, or poster, you
get a commission. Note that this
does not bring visitors to
your site. In fact, it sends your hard-won visitors off
to some other place on the Internet. Affiliations are
probably not worth your time and energy. An exception is
when you offer a "store" as a sub-part of your web site and
its primary function is more a service to your visitors than
as a profit center for your firm.
An example would be a realty
chain that has a web site section from which Realtors® can
easily order gifts for clients at the close of escrow.
Products in this vein often include Omaha Steaks (http://www.OmahaSteaks.com.,
Maine Lobsters (http://www.maine-lobster.com), Harry
and David (http://www.harry-david.com) and others.
Conclusions
Bottom line? The reciprocal exchange of
banners and links can work well for you if they are done
with local web sites---ones within the cities
that you serve. In addition, they should be done with firms
that are in some way realty- or home improvement- or
relocation-related. Why? So that you can reach more of your
target audiences. Remember, in positioning yourself on the
web, you want to be there, waiting, in exactly the places
that your target audiences are likely to go.
Establishing good rapport and trusting
working relationships with such non-competitive firms can,
after just a few years, become one of a Realtor(R) ’s most
powerful ways to get more web site popularity that makes a
web site show up higher on search engines, and, best of all,
get more sales.
© William Koelzer, 2001 |
