Standard, well-worn marketing techniques sometimes gain some
polish when you rework them a bit. Everyone knows that happy
customer testimonials are a valuable addition to your business
marketing materials and your web site. Glowing comments from
those who have had a good experience with your product or
service are successful relationships with your customers and
clients - publishing them on your web site shows visitors how
successfully you have dealt with previous customers.
TURN THAT TIRED MARKETING TECHNIQUE ON IT'S HEAD!
Have you ever gone out of your way to OFFER testimonials
to businesses online? There is a very fundamental difference
to one aspect of the web as a marketing medium. That
difference is the HYPERTEXT LINK. If you recieve marketing
materials in the mail and see testimonials printed on them,
you are likely to wonder who the people are offering that
glowing praise and if they really had such a wonderful
experience with the business they are praising. How do you
find out when those testimonials are printed on paper?
Here is the reason that offering testimonials ONLINE can be
of benefit to you. If you are quoted on a high-traffic web
site as being very pleased with a product or service offered
there, you will most likely be given a HYPERTEXT LINK to your
web site. This is done as a courtesy from most businesses as
a way to say "Thank You for your Compliment". It lends a sense
of credibility to your comments because people have the option
of visiting your site to see who you are or follow up with you
on the comments in your testimonial.
RECIPROCAL LINKING STRUGGLE IS A TEDIOUS EXERCISE
Many business owners struggle valiantly to establish links
by visiting sites one by one and asking them if they will
provide a link back to their site. The trick here is that you
must find those sites that are 'complimentary' and not
'competitors' to your own business and convince them that
their visitors would find your site valuable. Even the search
for relevant reciprocal links can be tedious and tiring.
When you offer testimonials, they can be from virtually any
site you've done business with or for any product you've used.
A link is a link is a link. Everyone knows by now that links
increase search engine rankings - right? The testimonial
linking technique doesn't require such care as reciprocal
links because you aren't likely to have done business with
a competitor. The additional benefit is that you needn't give
them a return link - it's one way linking!
YOU CAN AVOID THE DELETE KEY WITH GLOWING PRAISE
When you send those tired form-letter-type reciprocal link
requests to webmasters, they'll often delete them without even
a second glance. Here, they open their email to something they
actually WANT to see - praise for their hard work and a little
love from their web site customers. When you send a testimonial
along with your link request, you are now offering something of
real value in exchange for that link. That webmaster suddenly
feels grateful for your kind words and may even feel that they
have an obligation to link to you if they use your testimonial.
If you are a customer of an online product or service and
you're truly pleased with them, why not send the webmaster a
testimonial and tell them you'd be happy to have them publish
your comments on their site? They will be pleased at your
offer if your praise is short (one or two sentences) and highly
complimentary of them. Include a hypertext link to your site or
your e-mail in the note and tell them you'd be happy to have
your comments published and request a link to your site.
NEW PRODUCTS TESTIMONIALS PROVIDE HIGHER LINKING POTENTIAL
Some webmasters actively solicit customer testimonials to push
new products or services. If you are among the first to purchase
those new products or services, your testimonial praising them
will be particularly desirable as they seek new comments to use
in their promotional sales letter page or as teasers from the
home page. Give them what THEY want and they may be happy to
offer you that link. If they respect YOU as a customer, they
might even promote your site in email promotions.
Most sites have a page of happy customer testimonials and most
offer a link back to your site or your e-mail so their potential
clients can follow-up with you. Take a look at those businesses
you patronize online and see if they offer those linkbacks. Then
tell them how happy you are to do business with them and watch
your PageRank increase and traffic grow!
About the Author
Check your own Link Popularity with a free Software download:
http://website101.com/download/link-popularity-software.html
Mike Valentine is SEO at http://RealEstateDirectory411.com
Check out the Free Webmaster Tools & Software at WebSite101
http://www.website101.com/free-webmaster-tools.html