Marketing & SEO Discussion List - LED Digest

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Hello all,

Welcome to the first issue of the LinkExchange Digest!  This is a moderated
discussion list for discussing issues about web site promotion.  

Our hope is that this list will become a valuable resource for everyone.
I've personally been subscribed to a number of other mailing lists, and it's
amazing how much you can learn from other people that are interested in the
same things you're interested in.

One of my favorite mailing lists is the I-Sales mailing list, moderated by
John Audette... which is why we've invited John to moderate the LinkExchange
Digest.  I'll leave it to John to introduce himself and talk more about his
role as moderator.

This digest, just like the LinkExchange service itself, will only work with
your participation and feedback.  So if there are things you like or don't
like about it, please let us know.

Being the first issue, there's not too much here except for information
about LinkExchange itself.  However, this digest is meant for discussion
of all issues related to web site promotion, so please don't limit your
discussions to only those issues about the LinkExchange service.

You'll find instructions for posting to the LinkExchange Digest at the end
of this digest.  And now... let the postings begin! :)

Tony Hsieh
Co-Founder, LinkExchange
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

 
++++ Moderator Comment ++++

Hi All....

I'm John Audette and I'm going to be your humble moderator here at the
LinkExchange Digest (which I will call the LE Digest).  We will get to know
each other over time -- for now I'll tell you a little bit about my
background and what my role is as moderator of this Digest.

I'm the president of Multimedia Marketing Group, Inc., the Internet's oldest
and largest online public relations and promotions agency. We offer a number
of services, both free and fee-based, that are designed to help online
businesses.  You may know us from the WebStep TOP 100, a very popular free
service that provides a hyperlinked, annotated listing of that we consider
to be the best free places to list your web site.

Another service we offer free is the Internet-Sales Discussion List, started
in November, 1996, which publishes a daily Digest focused on the discussion
of online sales and marketing issues. I-Sales currently has just over 5,000
subscribers from about 65 countries. I figure I've read over 10,000 posts in
the last year or so, and the knowledge that I have gained there has proven
to be invaluable in running my own business.

My job as your moderator is to keep your signal-to-noise ratio as high
possible. I'll try to accomplish that by selecting posts for inclusion in
the LE Digest that offer valuable content. I like theory as well as anyone,
but I make my living doing business on the Internet and I imagine that since
you're doing banner advertising and that you've subscribed to this list, you
share the same interests. So I will emphasize "ground-level" discussion here
-- what's working, what's not, and how to do it better.

I will try to stimulate (provoke?) discussion from time-to-time by posting
some of my own thoughts and experiences. I will also try to guide the
discussion a bit by cultivating certain topics and cutting others short.

I love the "power to the people" aspect of the Internet and the World Wide
Web. It's my opinon -- and first hand experience -- that there is tremendous
opportunity for small businesses online. As a result of those feelings, I
was quite taken by the Internet LinkExchange, their ideas and their
implementation, very early on. I recommended them to the I-Sales group and I
featured them prominently at the WebStep TOP 100.  I'm not surprised that
they've been successful, but I'm stunned by the degree of their success --
over 75,000 members and over 3,000,000 banner ads displayed every day.  Whew!

Another example of LE's success is that this discussion list is being
launched with over *5,000* subscribers!  I recall launching the I-Sales
Discussion List with about 30 subscribers and it's taken over a year to
reach 5,000. I was starting to think I was pretty hot stuff for building a
list up to 5,000 subscribers -- no more. :-)

The structure of the LE Digest is pretty simple. I will try to keep it to a
maximum of 22K in length and it will be published five days a week (roughly
Mon-Fri). We have four sections:

     o New
        These are posts that address a new topic.

     o Continuing
        Yep - continuing the discussion of a topic that has been started
        previously        

     o Introduction
        Introduce yourself to us. This is a good chance to do a little
        marketing. ;-)

     o Bulletin Board
        A catch-all -- not discussion per se, but items of general interest to
        the group

I'll keep ground rules to a minimum here because I hate rules worse than you
do. But we need to have a few:

        o Keep posts relevant
        o Avoid overt ads and solicitations
        o NO personal attacks
        o Keep sig files to six lines or less
        o Sign your post with your name

Not too bad, huh?  Well, hey, that's enough from me.

Thank you for signing up. If this group is anything like the wonderful folks
at I-Sales you will gain some valuable insights here. Please feel free to
e-mail me at any time with suggestions on how we can make this the most
awesome resource possible.

Regards,
John Audette
Your Humble Moderator

President, Multimedia Marketing Group, Inc.
http://www.mmgco.com

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From: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Subject: Click-Through Rates

   I thought I would share my experiences to date with ILE.  On Oct. 4th,  I
began participating in the ILE program.  

 I have only one other advertisement up,  because I am a free,
non-commercial page (http://www.mommydearest.com),  and as such,  have no
budget for advertising.  So in that regard,  the ILE is an obvious choice,
since it costs nothing.

 Periodically I check my statistics on their home page.  These counters are
free and reflect the number of times others access the ILE banner on my
page,  how many times my ad appears on other ILE banners,  and how many
times people click through my ad and actually visit my page.  This is a
valuable service for those wishing to measure the effectiveness of their ILE
ad.  So far,  so good.  Also on their home page,  they offer valuable and
pertinent information about designing an effective ad banner for your site.
This is also helpful to page owners without the benefit of expertise in ad
design etc.  

   What is not particularly beneficial,  is the click through statistics.
For example,  during one measurement period,  my click through rate was
measured at 147.3:.  What does that actually mean?  I'm not trained in
advertising,  so I'm not sure whether that number is good compared to other
mediums of advertisement,  and since I sell nothing,  people who visit my
site may or may not leave a note for me.  
 
  In the end,  this is all virgin ground,  and will be for a long time to
come.  Using services such as ILE is a painless and uncomplicated way to get
your feet wet,  and their statictics aren't any more or less meaninful than
anyone else's at this point.  So,  what's to lose?

Regards,
Betty St. John


++++ Moderator Comment ++++

Betty asks about click-through rates. For some reason, most banner
management software, Link Exchange included, uses a ratio number, i.e. the
number of impressions (banner deliveries) compared to the number of
click-throughs. In Betty's case, the number is 147.3:1, which means she
receives one click-through for every 147.3 times her banner is displayed.  I
think it's a little easier to think in terms of percentages, which in this
case is just 1/147, or 0.68%. And to answer your question, Betty, a
click-through rate (CTR) under 1% is very low.

The average CTR for LinkExchange members is reported to be about 3%, or
roughly 33:1.  CTR's are *extremely* dependent on banner design, and I
encourage you to experiment with the design of your banner.

John
Your Humble Moderator

++++ new post - new topic ++++

From: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Subject: Link Exchange Case Study

A CyberMarketing Letter "Case Study" about the Internet Link Exchange is
available at http://www.newsletteraccess.com/linkexchange.html.  You may find
this useful in answering some of your questions.

Regards,
Judy Blackwell
Editor & Publisher
The CyberMarketing Letter


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From: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it (Josh Wind)
Subject: Free Banners

I make banners for free, just sign up at my web site at

http://www.tidalwave.net/~wind

The link is at the bottom of the page.

Josh Wind
x099497