by Mike Banks Valentine
© September 27, 2004
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!
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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
