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issue #6 - February 2004 - Donīt let your traffic stats fool you.
Dear Reader, Hi folks ! oh what a lazy month that I left behind me. I must confess that I didnīt get accomplished very much online. Ok, you know Iīve also got a "job" and itīs very satisfying to get all that positive feedback from my patients. Most of my free time Iīve spent together with my family. On the week-ends we scraped together all the snow we could find in our garden and built snowmen and an igloo. That was real fun. In the first week of this month, I met a guy at an online forum who was searching for help regarding his newsletter. He was wondering why he didnīt get subscribers although his site got several hundreds of search engine visitors in two weeks. Read article one "donīt let your traffic stats fool you" for more information about this story. Hope you enjoy ! Guido Article 1: "Donīt let your traffic stats fool you" I recently met a fellow website owner at an online forum who was wondering why he got only 2 subscribers out of 500 search engine visitors. The site was about flight simulators and other flying stuff. I gave him a few general tips like putting a subscription box in a more prominent corner of the page, posting a short privacy statement, writing a short targeted "blurb" on top of the box and offering an enticement for people to sign up for his ezine. Two days later, another idea came to my mind and I asked him to send me a list of the top 10 keyphrases that people were using to find his site. It was exactly how I thought: his main keyphrase "flight simulator reviews" has got 10 visitors only out of the 500. Another two less targeted phrases added 10 visitors each. But the main volume out of the 500 visitors came from over hundred untargeted keyphrases (with 1 to 2 visitors each). So itīs obvious that these kind of visitors werenīt interested in subscribing to a newsletter about flying and flight simulators. Let me illustrate this example with my own stats for TheJungleMarketer, which has been first optimized to rank well for the term "internet marketing ezine". Here are some more keyphrases I get traffic from: things found in the brazilian jungle getting rid of pay per click targeted traffic now pay later "lazy man's way to riches" download description of the grammatical categori... good presell webpage googlebot positioning free downloads for alphabetizing chip tarver Ehingen town adfree pdf creator "article banks", personal growth rainflorest As you can see, a lot of untargeted search phrases. I wouldnīt expect getting much response from those visitors. So what I want you to tell you with this article is: "donīt let your traffic stats fool you". Donīt just look at the overall amount of visitors to your site but also where they are coming from and which keywords they used to find you. A great tool to analyze your traffic is AdvanceLogger which you can get from http://www.perlonline.com Itīs just been updated with some more features and for under 30$ itīs a real bargain. SEO Experiment You remember about the experiment I started last month ? If not, just read last monthīs newsletter online. Unfortunately, Google didnīt update my site since then so weīll have to wait another couple of days in order to see the results. Iīll send you a notice when I got results. Guest Article "How To Handle Leads Safely" by Pamely Heywood One of the many questions readers have submitted. Q: "I have one list that is comprised of people from a lead company. In view of the spam laws, can I market to these people or not?" This is a topic that concerns all of us right now and, over which we have many unanswered questions still. So today I thought I would give you my take on the matter and, give you some links and resources for further information. That way, you can decide what action is SAFE to take. The short answer to this particular question is "maybe". In an interview with Jason Anderson of "Achieve Net Profits" http://www.achievenetprofits.com/archive/issue066.shtml John Glube makes the point: "Rent a list from a third party, co-generate leads and so forth, the person has to specifically agree to receive messages from you." John also goes on to say: "To be sure you are in compliance, you want to satisfy yourself you have "affirmative consent" as the American's call it, or "direct consent" as the English describe it from your subscribers." The interview contains much more explanation that I am not going to attempt to repeat and many useful links, including The Can Spam Act of 2003 and the UK Anti-Spam Regulations. However, to add to the weight of interpretation, my own translation from the EU Directive, upon which the UK & European laws are based, what's required is worded as: "previous and express authorization" * Previous obviously meaning you need that authorization, permission, or consent BEFORE you send people anything. * One definition of the word "express" in my dictionary is "to state explicitly", i.e. you have to spell it out exactly what someone is going to get (in advance), so permission being granted is for that specific purpose. The crux of the problem with lead companies and co- registrations, etc., is that it depends on how the leads are collected or what's promised, but it's very unlikely to be specific enough to comply with the requirements of the law. Often, you don't get to see what the lead or subscriber sees, so you just don't know what they are giving consent for, or if they are really giving consent at all. And, even if people agree to "receive email" (this is often asked, for instance, in return for a free service) or even volunteer "to hear about great business opportunities" or some such general statement, this is NOT good enough. Don't believe what the lead company or co-registration service tells you about where the leads come from ... Even if you DO see the page that leads supposedly see, which is completely specific and law-abiding, that may not be how leads are really gathered. In reality, you may be sold lists that were bought from elsewhere, and which were collected, who knows how? I had that happen once with a supposedly bona-fide (and recommended) co-registration service. If there is any risk that the leads are harvested and not volunteers, then you would certainly be breaking the law. Unless you generate the leads yourself, so you know exactly what you specified and got permission for, is NOT safe to add leads direct to any list and start marketing to them. Can you offer them your information or qualify these leads via a confirmation process? You'd have to make a judgement based upon all the individual facts, wording, etc. You also have to be prepared with the reality that maybe only 10% will actually respond or confirm, if you are lucky. And yes, this would mean your one dollar leads have now cost you $10.00 each or even more. Not such a bargain, huh? Re-think your strategy for the future ... Build your own lead capture system at your own site. Generate traffic, get listed on the search engines ... Then people who DO want what you have to offer will be able find and request your information for themselves. The only leads you'll get this way will be interested ones! And, this really is the only way you can know, for certain, exactly what they were offered and have consented to. Protect yourself and know the rules ... As I said before, there are lots of useful links that you should explore, within the interview with John Glube. http://www.achievenetprofits.com/archive/issue066.shtml Something else worth reading is from MarketingSherpa, who spent two and a half hours quizzing the FTC's attorney on exactly how the new law affects emailers. As they say, Read on ... and then forward to your legal department: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2576 Copyright Đ 2004 Pamela Heywood Don't Be Caught by the Online Hype! Find Out What YOU Should Know BEFORE Starting an Online Business. Subscribe: mailto:allgoodthings@aweber.com Drop in: http://www.pamela-heywood.com Talk to you again soon. Truely Yours, Guido W. Stiehle TheJungleMarketer.com P.S.: Iīve just added "the vault", a subscribers exclusive download center where you can get a whole lot of freebies. The password to acceess the vault is ## REMOVED - subscribe today and get access to The Vault ## Disclaimer I accept no responsibility whatsoever for the content, profitability or legality of any published articles or advertisements contained within articles published on my web pages. And, although all of the guest articles have been selected for
their content, the publishing of such articles on this website
does NOT constitute a recommendation of the products or services
mentioned or advertised within those articles. If you found some information to be out-of-date, please contact
me and let me know it. Sincerely Yours, |
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