Does your website offer visitors a quick and easy way to
recommend it to a friend? If not, you're missing out on a
potential gold mine of free traffic.
The benefits:
1. Automated website promotion. You set up the program and your
visitors do the work of promoting your website for you.
2. You receive higher quality visitors. Your visitors will refer
people *really interested* in your products or services. These
people will be more likely to subscribe to your newsletter,
request your free reports, and ultimately BUY YOUR PRODUCTS!
3. Nobody will every be insulted or upset by this promotion
technique (as long as you make it clear that the message comes
from their friend). People can only participate if they visit
your website, and email will only be sent by people the
recipient knows.
Just asking your visitors to recommend your website isn't
enough. You need to make it easy. Offer a form on your website
your visitors can fill out to recommend it to a friend. Either
put the form on every page of your website, put it in a pop-up
window, or link to it on every page.
There are many ways to do it:
1. Javascript. See the Javascript resources on my Webmaster
Resources page at http://www.busymarketing.com/links.shtml for a
website with instructions on how to use the script.
2. CGI. I really like Birdcast at http://www.bignosebird.com -
it's what I use on my website. You can find more options on my
Webmaster Resources page.
3. A service. Many remotely-hosted scripts are available. The
most popular is Recommend-It at http://www.recommendit.com
(which offers a contest as an incentive and allows you to add
recommendation links to the email you send out). There is also a
free program called Let 'Em Know at http://www.letemknow.com
which allows you to run your own contest for participants and
probably offers more statistics. Either can be set up in 5
minutes or less.
Javascript and CGI scripts have the benefit of being completely
under your control. You can customize them to work on your
website and decide if and how visitors are notified about the
origin of your script.
Services are easier to set up, but have to make a living somehow
and may use advertising or big, tacky buttons with their name
and/or logo in order to do so.
Don't delay! Set up a Tell-A-Friend system on your website to
watch the number and quality of your visitors improve without
raising a finger.
About the author:
Dawn Gray writes Busy Marketing Tips! Subscribe today by
emailing <a href="mailto:subscribe@busymarketing.com">
subscribe@busymarketing.com</a> and get free Search Engine Tips.
Busy Marketing dawn@busymarketing.com
