SEM Blog

After reading my last post about defining viral marketing you’ve probably gone out and created a killer product or found something popular’s coattails that you can ride one. After taking all the time to get the process started, you realized that you’re not sure exactly what the benefits of viral marketing are. To ease your worries and as a way to convince you to credit me when your product catches on, I’ve decided to outline for you some of the key benefits of viral marketing.

A big benefit of viral marketing is how inexpensive it can be in comparison to nearly all other marketing methods. Take that product you’ve created and send it out to some influential people in your niche for free. As a professional blogger, I review every thing that I’m sent in the most honest fashion possible. I even carry the product around with me if possible for at least a week before passing judgment. In that scenario, your cost is the loss of one product for a review and a wide audience of people to come in contact with it first hand outside of a retail environment.

Another great benefit of viral marketing is the wide audience you’ll be able to reach. I’m sitting here writing at Starbucks on my Eee PC that I fell in love with after reading a review on it. Do you know how many people, from little kids to grandma’s, ask me about it on a daily basis? That product has just trickled down three levels and I’m only one small factor in the reach the original review had.

The process can easily work with services as well. Take a cool concept like OwnMyTeam.com which is growing it’s numbers to achieve their goal of owning and operating a professional sports team. They’ve spent no money on advertising what so ever and have made more growth through sending info out to influential individuals in their niche to the point that their traffic is steadily beating their only stateside competition even when the competitions biggest marketing piece came from a misleading review of their services posted in the New York Times. People are 10 times more open to an idea if it comes from someone they deem to be at their level.

These benefits don’t end once you’ve finished the campaign either. The trickle down effect can spread infinitely further than your normal ad campaign. But watch out, if you’re product sucks, viral marketing can ruin you over night.

I saw this video on YouTube and wanted to share it here. Google engineer Matt Cutts talks about 2008.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dSMFiCjwwE

Matt again mentions importance of high quality content as well as the importance of targeting a specific niche. He also mentions the Google’s Local Business Center

https://www.google.com/local/add/ and how you can submit for free and show up on Google Maps at no charge. Also mentioned was the importance of having a website well suited for a mobile device. Overall mobile device load time seems like an important issue for 2008 so hopefully we can get some good blog discussion here on that issue.

 

Please see our Directory Submission Service page for ordering.

Below are answers to our most frequently asked questions. If you have any additional questions please feel free to email us.

Q. What forms of payment to you accept?

A. We accept Paypal.

Q. Can I spread the submissions out over several weeks/months?

A. Yes you can. Please email us with any instructions after your order.

Q. How many of the directories will add my site?

A. While we can’t guarantee any specific number of listings we have found around 50% of the directories will add your listings.

Q. Should I enter the email address I use everyday for these submissions?

A. You need to use a valid email address but you may not want to use the email address you use everyday. Many directories send out emails that may contain a confirmation link so the directory can determine that the submission was manual. For this reason you may want the numerous emails to be sent to an address that you can check but is not the one you use for regular communication.

Q. Do all directories send out these email confirmations?

A. Not all directories send out confirmations but many do.

Q. What if I don’t have time to click on the email confirmation links, will you do it for me?

A. Yes, if you contact us and let us know that you would like us to click on the email confirmations we will use a gmail account for your submissions so that we can access it to click the email confirmation links. You will also receive login information to this email if you would like.

Q. Can I alternate descriptions as well as titles for my submissions?

A. Yes, please email us indicating the varied descriptions.

Q. What if my site is already listed in some of the directories you will be submitting it to?

A. If a directory gives an Already Listed message upon submitting, we will replace that directory with another directory so you will still get the number of submissions you ordered.

Q. When will I receive my submission report?

A. The report will take:

1-2 days for 100 submissions

3 days for 300 submissions

4 days for 500 submissions

5 days for 800 submissions

7 days for 1000 submissions

 

Q. I have numerous sites; can you give me a discount?

A. Yes, please email us and we can work out a bulk discount.

Many people refer to a site having extra links in Google’s search results as being an authority site. For example see:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS176US215&q=golf+gifts&btnG=Search

The links to the interior pages of a site are given at Google’s discretion when a site is deemed worthy enough to feature them. This is very useful to the site owner because it brings more attention to the search result; it also takes up more of the space on the top of the first page, which is excellent for the site owner trying to drive traffic.

Now check this out:

http://www.google.com/search?q=walmart&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS176US215

Not only does the top result have extra links it also features the site’s search box so users can easily search for merchandise. The buttons are also custom in that they have the site’s name right on the button “Search walmart.com”. Other sites that return a search box in the results include:

Target:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS176US215&q=target&btnG=Search

PetCo:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS176US215&q=petco&btnG=Search

Several months ago one of the moderators on http://www.webmasterlighthouse.com/forums/index.php

Wrote me to tell me he had listed my directory on his Squidoo lens under Top 10 Web Directories http://www.squidoo.com/seonutshell

I went to check out what was called a lens and I thought it was a great form of marketing. At the time of writing this post 315 users have already ranked the lens. This means 315 users personally visited the lens and it is very likely all were someone tied to the field of SEO. That equals targeted marketing.

With a little time and effort a user can create a content rich lens for free. More about Squidoo can be found on their about us page http://www.squidoo.com/squidoo

Pretty much all of the internet and that little thing attached to it that we call reality are completely infatuated with social networking in one form or another. The rate at which people interact through networks like Myspace, Facebook, and LinkedIn continue to grow on a daily basis. And of course you have to take into account how many blogs, social bookmarking sites (Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us), and forums that people frequent day to day so they can catch a glimpse of how everyone else sees it.

If you stand back and look at the whole picture, what you see is a marketing dream. All it takes is one splash, something to captivate even one individual and spread like a virus through all of their avenues of communication. But unlike conventional marketing, you can’t approach viral marketing as straight forward.

The goal behind viral marketing is for you not to see it as marketing at all. In essence, the product or service being marketed needs to either be so appealing that it can explode onto the scene or you’ll have to attach it to something that already has. From there, your target audience is in the drivers seat and ultimately they’ll be the ones spreading your viral marketing or stopping it in it’s tracks.

Let’s take a look at two examples using a similar strategy:

Mountain Dew Commercial: An already well known product has been attached to a pop culture reference. You know it’s an advertisement, but until the Mountain Dew sign at the end, it’s just another Chuck Norris joke.

Will It Blend?: This is a series of videos dedicated to showing how insanely powerful this device is. Instead of paying for infomercial spots where they blend up a nice smoothie, they’ve torn through everything from an iPhone to GI Joe’s. They’ve cut out the obvious and stepped it up a notch.

Which method is actually the more successful of the two? Will It Blend has become so popular that every new video hits the front page of Digg the day it’s launched. But which of the two products are you more likely to buy? I’d say Mountain Dew.

Do you have a favicon for your site? DynamicDrive.com has come out with a very user-friendly favicon generator that I would like to share:
http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/favicon/
To create a favicon you browse to find the image on your hard drive you would like to use for your favicon, and then click on “Create Icon”. Upload the favicon as favicon.ico and insert the code shown below into the head section of your pages:

<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”/favicon.ico”>

For anyone not familiar, a favicon is a 16×16 pixel image that is basically used for branding your site and getting people to remember your site by the little icon in the address bar. It also serves to be useful in favorites (or bookmarks) where your icon will show with the book marked listing. The idea is that if the bookmark for your site stands out in a potential visitors bookmark list then that user is more likely to see it and click to visit your site.

It is best to pick an image that represents your site. In many cases a site’s title is too long to be used as a favicon but there are many other options. You can try using your logo or even an acronym that accurately represents your site. For example, Yahoo uses their capital Y with an !. This red Y is small enough to fit in the 16 x 16 space and still be easily read. It also stands out and can be recognized by many as being the trademark for Yahoo!

If your site does not already have a favicon you will find that by adding one to your pages they will look more complete. It is amazing what one tiny icon can do to make your URL stand out both on your live site and in bookmark lists.