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Protecting Your Most Valuable Online Business Asset...

With the huge number of SoBig virus emails hitting my computer recently, Zone Alarm is really getting put through it's passes.

On a daily basis it's denying as many as 1,000+ unauthorised attempts to access my computer via the net when I'm connected. It just goes to show you how important a firewall like this is. If you don't have a personal firewall yet, download and install Zone Alarm today.

Getting Your Websites Listed In The Search Engines Before They've Even Been Built...

Just last week I began the development of a new project I'm working on and took the initial steps I always take when I'm about to open a new website.

I thought I would share these steps with you so you can get ahead of the game when it comes to getting your new sites indexed in the search engines before they're actually built.

Whenever I set about to develop a new website, the very first things I do are register the domain name, setup a hosting account, knock up a "placeholder page", and then get a few external sites linking to it.

This allows the major search engines to find it naturally now, rather than later. Here's a recent example...

About 6 weeks before my Marketing Strategy site was officially opened, in fact before I had even designed the software itself, I took the above critical steps.

This is because I wanted the site listed in the search engines from day one. Sure I could have waited until the entire site was complete and ready to go live, but it would've meant waiting another 6-8 weeks before the search engines actually found it and included it in their index.

That's potentially an additional 8 week window before the site was receiving any exposure via the search engines at all. No thanks.

By taking the above steps you not only get your site listed earlier, but you don't have to worry about getting it indexed at a later date when you should be focusing on other important areas of managing and promoting your new project.

The "placeholder pages" I create simply talk a little bit about what the site will be in the very near future, and include a few of the keywords the site will be optimized for when it's actually online.

They take about 10-20 minutes to create if that.

The key here of course is that it's not going to fly to the top of the search engine positions. All you're doing is getting the site indexed and listed.

This means that when your actual site is online and the search engines come back to check it again during their updates, they'll pick up the rest of your pages and your entire site will then be listed in a matter of days rather than an additional 6-8 weeks.

Makes sense right.

To get the new site linked from external sites, I simply link to it from any existing sites I operate in a non-intrusive manner. I don't want visitors to actually visit yet, so I'll place the link in a not so prominent location.

If you don't have any existing sites where you can do this, then simply find a few topic specific discussion forums, make a few posts and leave your link behind.

This will allow the search engines to find the site naturally and get you ahead of the game when your entire site is ready to go.

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Word On The Marketing Strategy Street Has It...

Here are the latest 10 discussion forum posts made in the Marketing Strategy Discussion community. Be sure to visit today...

Register in the discussion forums now. Post your questions, share your ideas, and network with other like minded, success orientated people... It's free and takes less than 10 seconds.

PS: If you'd like to syndicate this feed on your own website please click here for copy & paste code.

A Discussion Community On Your Site Could Be Just The Ticket...

I received an email from a reader of this letter a few weeks ago. She didn't understand the logic & reasoning behind setting up the Marketing Strategy discussion forums.

What purpose were they actually serving?

Discussion forums are designed to do many things.

I guess their primary purpose is to keep visitors returning to your website. The more often visitors return to your site, the more often they're exposed to your marketing messages, and the more likely it is they'll actually make a purchase.

There's nothing new about this idea. It's the same reason why people use automated follow-up email marketing techniques. Discussion forums are simply another medium to help encourage this further.

In another respect, popular discussion communities can also help to build the owners credibility.

This can be done directly if the owner makes useful and informative posts. It is also related to the fact that the owner actually manages an active community of people in the first place. I guess this second point is not un-similar to the respect and credibility church and local community group leaders receive.

This credibility issue will also help to increase sales and help with the branding of your name, website, and online business in general.

Another great thing about setting up a discussion forum on your own website is the fact that it will drive new targeted traffic to your site as time goes by.

As the community starts to grow in popularity, more people will link to it and recommend it as a valuable resource. Furthermore, if you make your forum "search engine friendly", then each post made actually adds an additional page for the search engines to find.

There are quite a few very popular discussion forum communities out there that have several thousand posts, all of which are potential entry points into their websites via the search engines.

So if you're looking for a great way to attract new targeted traffic to your site, encourage repeat visitors to return to it on a regular basis, build your credibility and close more sales, setting up a discussion forum on your website might just be your ticket.

Having said that, setting up a popular discussion community is no easy task.

It takes time, commitment, dedication, and specific marketing strategies to promote the community until it reaches the point where it becomes self sustaining and continues to grow in popularity without your intervention.

You cannot simply set a forum up on your site, link to it, and expect the masses to start coming in and making posts. That just doesn't happen.

Just to give you an example of how intensive and well planned out discussion forum marketing needs to be, I'll give you some direct examples of how I'm attempting to build the Marketing Strategy discussion community into a popular place where online business owners can meet, discuss, and network with each other.

These are in no particular order...

If you visit the forums you will notice there is no advertising at all. Sure I could place a few ads around the place, but it would remove peoples attention from actually registering and making posts. Excessive advertising will hurt a new forum.

I do plan on introducing some advertising for my own products and services in the future, but probably not for another 12 months. When I do do that, it will also be extremely minimal.

(12 months is a long time but I told you this was not an overnight "magic pill" marketing technique. Such things don't exist and you need to get real if you think they do. There are no secret marketing techniques that will guarantee your success online. There are only smart marketing tactics and techniques which take time and dedication to work and produce results.)

Another thing about discussion forums is that people don't like to hang out in barren wastelands. As such, you need to make a few initial posts, and more importantly regularly post to keep your community looking alive.

The more people that make posts, and the more frequently that they post, the more likely it is that other people will join in and participate.

What I did to achieve this as much as possible was make several founding posts in each of the forums I have setup in the community, each of which contained useful information.

That's because it's not only about the frequency and number of posts that occur, but also about the quality of those posts. Why would people want to join in on the discussion if you post crap?

I also make regular posts when ever I have useful information to share and/or can help someone who is having difficulty.

Another technique I'm using is to encourage my existing subscribers, prospects, and customers to make use of the forums on a regular basis.

That is, you'll notice in this letter I include links to the forums to discuss the issues and techniques I talk about in each of the weekly columns in the forums themselves.

This constant exposure is required in order to actively encourage non-registered users to frequently visit and check out the latest posts made. I also expanded on this idea further the other week by introducing a dedicated column in the newsletter featuring the latest posts made in the Marketing Strategy forums.

This technique appears to work very well. I notice that the greatest volume of new registered users and posts made occurs the day after the newsletter is sent out.

Something else that I purposely did before opening the forums was to ensure there is a very specific focus of discussion. In my case this is the "Scientific Internet Marketing Assistant" and scientific marketing & testing in general.

This was due to the fact that people will initially join in on the discussions related to that specific focus, become conditioned to posting in the forums, and then fingers crossed, start tricking out into the other forums and areas of discussion going on.

In the case of the Marketing Strategy forums this works because I have set it up as the support medium for the SIMA application I give away at the site.

If people have trouble setting the software up on their website, and/or would like help with their tests, then there is no email support available. They need to make use of the forums.

This triggers the posting conditioning process, and they start tricking out into the other areas of discussion that are going on.

In fact, when I wrote the user manual for the SIMA application, I purposely left it a little thin on guts to encourage users to make use of the forums more often ;-)

Here are some other things I'm doing...

I have recently setup a free forum syndication service

I can't tell you how well this is working yet, as I am not tracking the people who actually do decided to syndicate the content. (Note: I should be).

I do expect this technique to grow much more effective as time goes by and as the community continues to grow in popularity.

I also have all of my follow-up email marketing campaigns referencing the forums multiple times.

Again this is to encourage no-registered users to return as often as possible and get them to participate in the discussions.

There are also other numerous techniques I'm using that might not be directly apparent but I think I'd better stop there. I didn't plan on writing a special report on discussion forum marketing today ;-)

However if you are interested in setting up such a community on your own site, then hopefully this has given you some good insight into how aggressively you need to market it to make it successful.

And of course, if you would like some more advice, then you're welcome to...

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Featured In This Issue:

Protecting Your Most Valuable Online Business Asset

Getting Your Websites Listed In The Search Engines Before They've Even Been Built

Word On The Marketing Strategy Street Has It

A Discussion Community On Your Site Could Be Just The Ticket

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Duncan Carver

Let me know what you thought about this weeks issue!

Until next time...

Sincerely always,

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