A StomperNet Featured Faculty Newsletter
By Jerry West
While I have not verified any of this information (as I never
used the product that is referenced here), the point isn't that
the story is true or not, but that trust must be deep and you
must be sharp.
While attending Webmaster World in Las Vegas in 2006 I finally
got to speak uninterrupted to a top affiliate that I had been
chasing down the last few years. He shared something that he
did, that while extremely unethical, is a strong reminder that
trust goes beyond your words. It is verifying the information
you are given.
He is an affiliate, a good one. He markets a product that is
highly competitive. He wouldn't tell me which product but that
it was on the same level as Viagra in terms of payout and
competition.
Welcome back.
This is a continuation of the previous email on list-building, so if you missed that one, it's posted in the archive.
Now, as promised in the last issue, we're going to talk a bit about squeeze pages, and how we've used them for StomperNet and SMARTS.
If you don't know what a "squeeze" page is, let me take a second to clarify.
When you're building a list, you need a destination where your visitors will arrive and find your opt-in form, right? You can really put an opt-in box anywhere on the page: build it into the navigation, put it in-line with the copy, put it in a pop-up…
The list goes on.
But a "squeeze" page is a specially designed web page that makes an offer to provide certain information to the visitor ONLY if they opt-in to your list. It "squeezes" the visitor so they have only two choices. Join the list and get the information they want, or leave without it.
It may seem harsh, but if you're giving away valuable information at no charge, the least you should ask for is an email address to follow up, right?
Well since their inception, the "squeeze" type page has become the standard of list-builders and marketers everywhere. It's simple, it's direct, and it's effective.
Last week, we did a series on a "new" way of thinking about link-building. I mention that because we're going to continue with some of the ideas I introduced there. You can catch up on that series in the archives you missed it.
Now, onto the topic at hand – "Lists".
Last time I wanted you to stop building links, and start building CONNECTIONS. If you focus too much on building links for SEO benefit, you can forget that the real audience we want is made up of PEOPLE, not search spiders.
That same kind of "blindness" can happen when it comes to building and managing lists in our business.
We all know the refrain, "The money is in the list". We know about squeeze pages, and reverse squeeze pages. We know we have to double opt-in, and we know we have to avoid certain words, and keep our eyes on blacklists, etc.
NOTE: If you DON'T know the above stuff – if you're a list-building newbie – just stick with me until the end and I'll include a resource you can use to get started.
So what I'm getting at is that yes, the money IS in the list. But so many little moving parts and tips and tricks go into building and messaging that list, we start to forget about that human element again.
Before we get into Part 3, I wanted to let you know we're going to be talking about Traffic Kahuna, which Jason Potash and
company are releasing today.
In the previous parts of this series, we focused on the idea that as internet marketers, we need to:
Stop building links, and start building connections.
We talked about how through creating connections between ideas, and developing relationships with site owners and bloggers, we can essentially take on a shepherd role in our niche markets. We can steer the tribes we target by helping them develop their niche interest.
If we use this strategy wisely and ethically, we can practically use OTHER people’s web properties as part of our own lead generating funnel.
We are no longer perceived as an outside force – like a door-to-door salesman imposing on their community.
We instead become a valued member of that community, associated not with marketing messages, but rather with being a valuable resource of information – as well as a provider of products and services.
Note: This is Part 2 of a series – click here to see Part 1.
So, last time we talked about how you need to rethink your linking strategy to focus on building real connections rather than just plastering links all over creation.
Here's a summary of how I think we can ethically and profitably build connections in our niches:
1. Identify "tribes" of people with common interests
that we want to target with our messaging.2. Find the bloggers in those tribes who have
readership and influence, and who regularly write about
your niche topics.3. Of those tribal blogs, identify the ones that will
also give you SEO benefit through linking (primarily,
blogs that don't add rel=nofollow to links in their
comments).
You read that subject line right.
Stop. Getting. Links.
Until you evolve your thinking about what "links" REALLY are, you risk wasting your precious time and resources on work that will lose its value in the long run.
Ever since Google invented Page Rank, human behavior has determined what websites were really "about" and which ones were more relevant than others.
Page Rank did this by giving webmasters and site owners the ability to "vote" for the sites they liked with their links.
But now, with things like social bookmarking and content tagging, EVERY web user gets to vote on the relevancy of content – not just webmasters and site owners. Anyone can Digg, anyone can StumbleUpon, anyone can blog.
And that's a great thing for marketers.
After all, it's the PEOPLE on the web that we really want to reach anyway. A spider program will crawl any and all links it finds, but it won't ever take out a credit card and BUY anything.
