Black Belt Web Marketing.pdf - Costa del Sol

gaining on you.
Reputations can be trashed overnight in discussion groups. While continuing to round up new
visitors, make sure that previously ones (or competitors) aren’t undercutting you behind your
back. Set aside time weekly to check what’s being said about you in discussion groups. You want
to counter derogatory comments with timely "damage control" postings. Deja News is a
convenient way to monitor what’s being said about you in over 20,000 newsgroups. To monitor
comments in mailing lists, bookmark the archives page of the most important ones and
periodically search them for your name, your site, or your product.
While monitoring what’s being said about you, also check out what’s being said about
competitors. Negative comments may suggest opportunities to improve your relative
standing with target audiences. Conversely, positive comments may warn you that a
competitor is trying something new to attract your target audiences.
Monitor reciprocal link agreements. If reciprocal links provide a significant portion of
your web traffic, it’s important that you make sure your partners aren’t fudging
on your agreement. If they move your link to a less accessible page or drop it altogether,
you’ll want to respond quickly or you’ll lose more visitors than you gain. Search for
your URL at least weekly at one or more major search engines. Print the results and save
so that you can compare with the findings the next time you search. Also look for new
links to your site that point to potential new partnerships.
Update links. If you’re maintaining a list of resources for your visitors, periodically
validate existing links and add new ones. The rapid turnover in Web sites makes lists of
resources quickly obsolete. More up-to-date lists will lure visitors away from your site.
Regularly check to see that your contents or ideas haven’t been copied by others.
Intellectual property is easier to steal online than offline. It’s also tougher enforcing
copyright laws. The stealing of ideas, content, and graphics is rampant. Periodically visit
a major search engine like AltaVista that indexes an entire site. Search for terms, strings
of text, etc. that only your site should have.
Schedule for Maintaining the Status Quo
1.Weekly – check your search engine ranking.
2.Bi-weekly – Register again at major search engines.
3.Weekly – Monitor your toughest competitors.
4.Weekly – Monitor what’s being said about you in discussion groups.
5.Weekly – Monitor what’s being said about your competitors.
6.Weekly – Monitor compliance of reciprocal link partners by searching to see who’s
linking to you.
7.Bi-weekly – Validate links in your resource directory.
Lesson 11 Pg. 12