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Archive for September, 2010

The Economics Of Vertical Lead Generation Sites

An oftcited criticism of vertical lead generation sites VLGS is that endusers have the ability to request information on multiple concepts. This so the argument runs dilutes the attention making it more difficult for any given leaddesiring concept Concept to convince the enduser to pick its product over the others for which information was requested. It is hard to argue that such is not the case. For if choice is limited then limited choices will obviously be made. The problem with the argument is not in its probity it is in its mistaken simplicity and its lack of grounding in reality. A VLGS is nothing more than online information directory. Since the scope and reach of a directory is a function of the amount of revenue the directory can generate it is unrealistic to expect that a directory limit the interest in and therefore the information provided by any one Concept.

A VLGS like a directory cannot operate efficiently if the number of Concepts for which information can be requested is limited. Both VLGS and directories are dependant upon generating a deep interest across a broad swath of Concepts. Limiting the number of inquiries that can be made by one enduser degrades the efficiency of the VLGS business model and will eventually limit the efficacy of the model. No VLGS nor any business for that matter can limit its operational efficiency without some form of commensurate revenue increase as a counterweight and expect to stay in business. To understand why this is the case one must first understand the economic and operational principles behind a VLGS.

A VLGS aggregates traffic for the use and benefit of the paying Concepts which have paid to be listed on the site and/or are paying for leads that are generated by the site. This is primarily accomplished by directing keyword search results toward a single website. One of the advantages of a VLGS is its directory style business model to wit: it can offset the relatively high cost of purchasing a unit of advertising by diffusing the interest in the site across many paying Concepts. It is this operational efficiency that is degraded when a VLGS limits the interest in paying Concepts.

But the vertical lead generation model is equally as beneficial to the paying Concept as it is to the VLGS because of the time and cost associated with trying to drive traffic in increasingly very competitive marketplaces. The available SERPs on the major search engines is not growing and in fact can be said to have achieved a certain amount of stasis in many categories. Few are the times when a new website can achieve top level organic placement let alone top level placement on enough keywords to drive a high volume of traffic. Additionally the cost of paid traffic continues to increase.

Moreover one of the realities of online marketing is that there has been too much hype made of the longtail. For consumer driven purchases the majority of traffic is not on branded keywords or obscure keywords but rather a reactively small subset of keywords that drive the majority of the traffic. For example whereas there may be many searches on the word McDonalds Franchise a much smaller number of searches will be entered for MacDs Franchise even if MacDs happens to be a subsidiary of McDonalds and/or viable competitor. Similarly while there may be quite a few searches on the term food franchise there are many fewer searches on the term hamburger franchise. While there are still people searching for hamburger franchises the opportunity cost of spending money in the relatively slight hope that a sale will result from their search is often times outweighed by the cost of not being included in a directory.

This is where the VLGS true value add proposition is realized. VLGS are adept at sifting through a large amount of traffic in order to provide only the most qualified of leads. It does so by pooling its resources to get traffic on all relevant terms as well as terms that are not in the specific industry but are within the general theme of the action being requested. Some of this traffic will not of a sufficient quality to warrant purchasing again i.e. the money will have been wasted. But the purchase of the wasted traffic will not destroy the model precisely because the model is built on scaling a great amount of traffic purchases into leads. Whereas an individual Concept may spend through its yearly advertising budget in a month or less were it to attempt to do this on its own and run into similar traffic difficulties a VLGS can weather the storm and continue to produce quality leads. Moreover some of the traffic that would need to be purchased to produce the leads would be cost prohibitive to many Concepts in the first instance.

To understand more clearly why it is in the interest of both the Concept and the VLGA to allow for the enduser to inquire about as many Concepts as possible it may be helpful to view the VLGA as a retail shopping mall. The VLGS owner purchases and develops a website where it plans to advertise other companys products in order to generate interest in said companies. Similar to stores that choose to rent space in a mall Concepts rent space on the VLGS. In both instances both Concept and storeowner are free to choose not to enter into a contract with either the VLGS or the mall owner. People go to a mall exactly because there are many stores to choose from and that is exactly what is attractive to the consumer the ability to go to one destination and investigate the quality type and price of many different products with the opportunity to ultimately purchase one or more items. Each shop owner could find its own retail space and hope that its location is sufficient to garner enough traffic to stay in business. Similarly Concepts can advertise only their product on the Internet through either SEO and/or SEM efforts. But by doing so the Concept forgoes the chance to be found by consumers who might not have been interested or been able to find its product initially.

To analogize back to the mall example people may not have known that they were going to buy a shirt from Store A when they decided to go shopping; in fact they may have setout to buy a pair of shoes at Store B. But upon seeing the shirt at Store A realized that they would rather have the shoes instead. This transaction likely would not have occurred had it not been for the dynamics of the retail mall. Of course the owner of Store A will complain that it lost a sale precisely because of the retail mall or more precisely because Store B and by extension the owner of the mall and his decision to rent to Store B. What this analysis fails to understand is that but for the mall Store A might never have had the opportunity for the sale in the first instance. This would be the case if Store A was a less well capitalized company and/or one that sold products that were not as well known such that being in the mall was the only way Store A could have remained either profitable or the way that it maintained its greatest profitability. Whereas both Store A and Store B would like to have the event of the sale without any competition from the other the only reason for the sale was competition that resulted from the dynamics of the retail mall. Neither the mall owner or Store A or Store B could remain in business if Store A got an exclusive right to sell its wares in the retail mall environment.

Similarly a VLGS must allow for further the options available for the enduser as that is the way that the most amount of traffic is driven to the site. This in turn drives the most interest to the individual Concepts advertised on the sites. Whether an individual Concept can affect a sale is dependent on its sales efforts and the attractiveness of the product. That an individual Concept may ultimately lose a sale to another Concept is simply the cost of doing business. If a Concept can purchase a significant amount of traffic to supply sales leads needs and get a ROI that is greater than the VLGS then it should do so. But for most that is simply not the case. As in the case of the storeowner who is more profitable being a tenant of the retail mall as opposed to a standalone retail location the ROI on leads purchased through a VLGS is greater for the vast majority of Concepts because of the time cost and complexity of generating leads on the Internet.

About the writer:  Garth Snider is the President of the largest franchise lead generation firm online. His firm has generated more than 4 million franchise leads since its inception. He has a degree in finance and banking from the University of Georgia and a law degree from Emory University. Garth Snider practiced for the law firm named Griffin Cochrane and Marshall from the year 1998 to 2003. For more information about Garth Snider go to http://www.franchiseopportunitiesnetwork.com

Scary Web Site Mistakes – And How To Correct Them

You’ve built a Web site youre getting a decent amount of traffic but you arent getting the kind of response that you had anticipated. Perhaps youve reviewed your Web site statistics and have found that nearly all of your visitors leave after viewing your home page. Asking your nephew to design your company Web site may have seemed like a good idea at the time but there are several simple mistakes that many inexperienced developers make that can drive visitors away in droves ultimately defeating the purpose of your Web site.

The scary news is that these problems are currently running rampant on many smalltomediumsized companies’ Web sites but the good news is that these can all be solved quite easily and inexpensively.
1. Problem: Multimedia Abuse

Multimedia abuse occurs when animation video or audio hampers the ability of visitors to properly view your Web site. Theres no doubting the fact that the use of multimedia can engage visitors in a way that plain text and images cannot however poor design or improper implementation of good design can place a virtual No Trespassing sign on your Web sites front door.

Your audience is vast and diverse. Not everyone has the same browser plugins connection speed and screen resolution that you have in your office. What does this mean? Your Web site needs to address the lowest common denominator for all four requirements. Your main Web site navigation should be presented in text or simple images not in a Flash animated movie. Imagine visiting your Web site and seeing nothing but red Xs all over the screen with no navigation provided. Sure downloading Flash is easy and fast but its even easier to find your competitors Web site.

Even if the plugins dont present a problem connection speed may. Its very easy to turn a small animated image into a 4 or 5 MB file meaning that anyone on a dialup connection will have to wait 2040 minutes for your page to completely download.

Also make no mistake about it video introductions when a video is presented before your home page with nothing else on the screen are not a good idea. Even with a small skip intro button at the bottom of the page these videos are better placed elsewhere so that your message is presented clearly on your home page to your visitors in the shortest amount of time possible.

Solution

If you have a Web site that uses a lot of animation allow the user to choose whether or not they see it. If your main navigation is placed in a Flash movie or inside of any other element that requires a plugin either present a redundant textbased navigational area or redo the navigational area in a more friendly manner.

An alternative solution would be to devise a method of detecting whether or not someone has the requirements for viewing the multimediarich Web site and diverting them to a second nonmultimedia Web site if they do not. This isnt the best solution because unless youre using a system that shares content it means maintaining two separate Web sites.

If you do not yet have a Web site but want to include multimedia consider designing it in a way that uses multimedia gracefully. One site that NuRelm developed http://www.harrisassoc.com offers a good example. Notice how the video is placed in a prominent area but does not contain main navigation nor does it contain any of the key text on the home page. So if someone doesnt have Flash the site is still functional and engaging.

2. Problem: Adobe Acrobat Overuse

If most of the content on your Web site is contained in Adobe Acrobat PDF documents your message is likely not getting out as efficiently as it could be. Even with a cable or DSL connection launching Acrobat Reader and downloading an enormous file will take precious seconds. Then if you do not have the proper version of Acrobat Reader it will take even longer.

Some documents will need to be in PDF such as anything that needs to be printed out and mailed in but most do not. If it can be placed on a regular Web page it should be for speed and searchability. Yes its true anything placed in a PDF on your Web site will not be searchable by search engines.

Solution:

Move as much content from PDF documents to plain Web pages as you possibly can. If you absolutely must have most of your content inside of PDFs provide summaries of the documents along with the links to them.

3. Problem: BrowserSpecific Issues

A good Web design and development firm will make sure that your Web site looks and feels the same way on the most popular Web browsers on both a PC and a Mac. This may be something that you never think about but should. If visitors who are using Mozilla Firefox or anything on a Mac visit your site and cant make out what is on your Web site theyre going to go elsewhere and they wont take the time to tell you.

Yes over 90 percent of Internet users are using Internet Explorer IE currently but that is changing due to critical security flaws in Active X and other components of the browser that make IE users susceptible to viruses and spyware. Instead of buying more virus protection and spyware removal products consumers are turning to alternative browsers which employ different technology that is immune to many delivery methods of viruses and spyware. For example at NuRelm most of us use Mozilla Firefox.

If your Web site does not function properly or worse yet looks completely garbled on one of these alternative browsers youre turning away approximately 1015 of your visitors.

Solution:

Download some of the more popular browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and take a look at your Web site. If you dont have a Mac find a friend or colleague who does and ask him/her to review your Web site. If problems exist theyre likely easily fixed.

4. Problem: A Home Page with Little or No Content

Your home page may be the only page that a visitor sees on your Web site before moving on so you need to try to capture their attention as quickly as possible. If your home page only presents your logo and links to other parts of your Web site youre likely losing visitors who do not immediately see exactly what they want. This falls under the category of you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Solution:

Find ways to add elements of each main section of your Web site to your home page. You can even get software that will share text from other sections of your Web site with your home page so you will only have to update information on the subpage and the home page will take care of itself.

5. Problem: Stale Content

The text and images on your Web site dont change often enough to keep repeat visitors pleased. Most visitors wont continue to frequent a Web site that offers the same information time and time again. With a Web site youre not locked into the same text and images as you are with print you CAN and SHOULD make updates often.

Solution:

Find two or three sections that you can regularly write about and publish at least one or two major changes per quarter such as an events calendar an industry news section or an articles section. The rate of change may be more or less depending on your industry your audience and/or the purpose of your Web site. Software that can help you make the updates to your Web site without having to pay for consulting hours with your Web developer is now extremely affordable and easy to use such as NuRelm’s NuContent.

NuContent can be delivered as part of your hosting package for a small monthly fee that is rolled into your hosting payment. This is called content managed hosting and NuRelm was one of the first in the country to offer this highly affordable convenient service to our hosting clients. For NuContent no technical skills are needed. You can be up and running and changing your own Web site text/images in a matter of minutes. Since NuContent is delivered over the Web no special software is needed and you can use any Internet connection whether at work at home or on the road.

If youve read through this list and none of these problems seem to fit there may be some other hidden issues with your Web site that are very specific to you. As a free service NuRelm provides Web site assessments to anyone who would like a critique. Our team of seasoned professionals will investigate your Web site and identify potential problems providing helpful suggestions based on years of expertise.

About the writer:  Heather Jewell is the Manager of Planning and Administration of NuRelm. NuRelm is a Web software and services firm that focuses on helping nontechnical professionals utilize on the Web to build business. For more information please visit www.NuRelm.com.

What Is Localadlink And How It Can Help Your Sites Rankings

What is LocalAdLink.com and how does it work?

LocalAdLink is a full online ad network offering a total online advertising solution. They are the low cost provider for online advertising designed for local businesses and corporations offering a huge benefit to the smallest business as well as the largest chain stores.

Local Ad Link The Directory Service.
As you first may notice when you come to www.localadlink.com they have a full national directory service like yellowpages.com and yellowbook.com. They offer many of the same services as other directories as well including geo targeted landing pages which try to show your local businesses first by detecting where the visitor is coming from. They also offer featured listing business information directions business websites easy search ability movie galleries picture galleries coupon galleries full descriptions reviews and logos. All of this is made as one main site for users to find businesses as well as for businesses to have a larger web presence but most of all as a portal to control their advertising campaigns.

Local Ad Link The Advertising Network.
Like Google ad words and Double Click Local Ad Link is also a full ad network designed to spread local businesses across the internet by allowing small to large businesses to display their listing across a network of partnered websites. What this means to businesses is that they not only allow users to search for what they are looking for but they also go out on the internet to show people what they are looking for based on where they live and by which web sites they are going to. The first part is easily accomplished by geo targeting our advertising to a person’s location by detecting where they come from. The second way they accomplish targeted advertising for businesses is by reading the content of the web site ahead of time and ensuring that they deliver advertising through Local Ad Link that matches up well. This all means that a person from New York City reading an article about gardening may get an ad or coupon from their local gardener local nursery or maybe from their local florist. With this superior targeting technology Local Ad Link is capable of adverting to hundreds of millions of people a day on millions of different web sites and pages sift through all of it to find people more likely to visit and shop with businesses near them.

Local Ad Link The Web Presence.
We’ve all heard of SEO search engine optimization but reality is that no one can guarantee that you will be the first on a Google search result every time. Google uses automated programs called “bots” to add new websites to their system every minute and determines search results by best word match up as well as by popularity. Local Ad Link uses this common knowledge to advertise your business by taking the descriptive words you add to our system and displays them easily for “bots” to find. Local Ad Link also takes the same words you use to describe your business and inserts them in your ads across our vast network of partnered websites across the internet. This builds up popularity as these “bots” find you all over the place.

What is “geo targeting” and how does it work?

Geo targeting is a technical term that really is a commonly used technology. They attach their programs to a national database that stores zip codes cities counties states and countries tracked by IP addresses. IP addresses are unique addresses assigned to your internet access by your ISP internet service provider. Local Ad Link matches your IP Address to this national database and delivers the closest results. These results will allow Local Ad Link to display advertisements businesses events coupons and maps accordingly. This is not 100 accurate but very close with over 83 accuracy.

How do businesses get placed on search engines?

There are a few ways that businesses can get placed on search engines.

Local Ad Link helps you speed up this process by using its large network of partnered websites to display your businesses information utilizes your business display on a clean and easy to read format through our directory system and shows many visitors by combining all of the total traffic into one main site LocalAdLink.com.

What are keywords and how do they work?

Keywords are just as they sound. They are the key to you successfully advertising your business to the internet. What you want to do is find single words that best describe your business not phrases or terms. Make sure that the words you use are the root form such as move instead of movers and moving. The system on most search engines including Local Ad Link will automatically match you up to other forms of the word. If I were a florist I may use the words: flower plant deliver wife anniversary and birthday to best describe my business. This way your ad will show up for people that are looking for those words when they type it into search engines. Then if someone were to search for “what do I get my wife for her birthday”. Since I have the keywords “birthday” and “wife” and the other words are considered too basic to conduct a search on such as what and is I my and for I will come up higher on the search results since the subject and proper nouns are most found to be matching what my business is about.

How do I add a new business into LocalAdLink.com?

After you become a salesperson for Local Ad Link you can login with your user name and password. When you first arrive to your control panel under “Administrative Options” you will find “Create A New Customer”. There are three steps in this section that you must fill out. The first step is for you to assign your customer a user name and password as well as to fill out their customer contact and basic business information. The second step will ask you to choose a package for your customer to purchase and the title of their advertising campaign. A single business can have many separate advertising campaigns that they may want to manage. The second step will also ask for some more detailed information for the business to add in to best target their marketing audience. This information can always be edited as for anything else in all 3 steps. The last step will require the business to decide how long they their package will run as well and choose a payment method. Local Ad Link currently accepts all forms of major credit cards. After all 3 steps are filled out and processed and the credit card is confirmed the business is added into the Local Ad Link network.

How long does it take a business to appear in the Local Ad Link network?

It takes about six hours for a new business to appear in the Local Ad Link directory and network. All edits to a preexisting business will take effect immediately in real time.

How do businesses tell if they attract people and how they attract people?

Local Ad Link provides each business with their own assigned salesperson to help them with their system as well as each business gets their own login to their account to manage their system directly. All changes to their account are instant throughout their entire network. One of the tools that they give every business is live statistics. These statistic tools allow the business to monitor how many visitors come to their website. In the next couple of weeks you will be seeing an even more advanced system that will tell you how many people visit you where they are coming from what ad sent them to you how many printed your coupons how many viewed your image and movie galleries how many people asked for directions and where they are coming from and so much more. With all of this information each business can see what best works for them and can modify their advertisements accordingly.

In summary I personally believe that LocalAdLink is truly the Next Big Thing and anyone interested in working from home should seriously consider this new star on the horizon. Its also a great opportunity for local businesses to get higher natural rankings for their web sites by submitting an ad for inclusion in their vast directory.

About the writer:  Mattress industry professional of over 30 years Latex Mattresses and established network marketer LocalAdLink living in sunny Phoenix AZ.