Link Building 101 List

It’s been a while since we’ve talked.  (My, how time flies when we’re having fun.)

I promised more ideas about getting the most out of your Web site and internet marketing.  Hope you can appreciate this week’s little shortcut to some great tips from SEO experts.

Want to get better search engine rankings?  Back links are critical.

As a live illustration of how link building works, here’s your link to a list of 101 ways to build links:

http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml  – from Aaron Wall of SEOBook.

No way around it.  To rank decently in natural search engine results, we must get lots of links from other high quality sites back into our own.

…More soon.  (Are we having fun, yet?)

Backlinks to improve rankings

Last week we looked at how a local company, Sleep Experts, uses keywords on their pages to improve traffic from natural (unpaid) search engine results. 

Getting your website toward the top of relevant search engine results is essential to good marketing these days.

But keywords on a page are only a small influence on how your business ranks in the search engines. 

Sleep Experts falls a bit short in another search engine optimization factor called backlinking.  A backlink is a link from a different website to your website.  The goal is to get more of these.

Why does this matter?  Most search engine optimization (SEO) experts agree that the number and quality of outside sites linking into your website is one of THE most important factors to your search engine results. 

How do you know who links to you?  You can find the links Google recognizes by typing in link:www.sleepexperts.com in a Google search.

A lookup of sleepexperts.com on Alexa  www.alexa.com includes a longer list of the sites linking back into the www.sleepexperts website http://www.alexa.com/site/linksin/sleepexperts.com . (Search engines have different rules about types of links they recognize.)

Here’s an Alexa link for Sleepy’s, a different local mattress retailer with stores in the northeast: http://www.alexa.com/site/linksin/sleepys.com .  Wow!  Over 400 outsiders link into www.sleepys.com.

No matter how you look it up, Sleepy’s has lots more backlinks than Sleep Experts.  Sleepy’s is higher ranked and competes well for mattress searches, even in non-localized searches. 

The good result is not just because of backlinks, but they are very important to website results.  It’s important for you to get some good backlinks to your site.

How do you get other sites to link to your site?

WHAT NOT TO DO:

Don’t buy a bunch of spam-type links. That tactic won’t help, because the links are low quality.  They might even get your site ignored or banned.   

HOW TO GET STARTED:

1. Press Releases

Send out regular news-worthy press releases.  You put a link in the press release (a link to your website).  When your press release distribution company (like www.prweb.com for example) posts the press release on their Site, their page contains a link back to yours.  The search engines pick up these press release pages in search results, too!

2. Articles

Write articles about your area of expertise for reputable sites that focus on your specialty.  Put a link in the article.  When your article is posted, the publisher is linked to your site – and the article content is picked up in the search engines.

3. Negotiate Link Trades for Donations, Events, Charities

If you are active in the local community, make the most of it. When a high profile business or other local organization asks to set up your product or service at an event or asks for a sponsorship for a worthy cause, ask them for a “Thanks to (your business)” link on their site to yours.

There are many more ways of getting good backlinks to your site – and quite a lot of complexity in this area, too.  Some businesses have delegated Link Marketing to in-house marketing departments.  Where internal marketing resources are stretched thin and in-house expertise is light, it pays to get professional help to jump-start your link building program.

On-page keywords and backlinks are just 2 factors among dozens that affect your website’s performance on the search engines.  I’ve simplified a complex topic. Even keywords and backlinks involve complexity that I haven’t touched on here.  Beyond this level, I, too, rely on my SEO experts.

Search engines aren’t very transparent about how you can do well in natural search results.   And, they often change the criteria.  This lack of transparency and flux complicates an already difficult challenge, especially for small businesses with limited budgets.

Doing a couple things right helps in more ways than just SEO:

• Always work on publicizing your website to get traffic and legitimate backlinks. 
• Update your pages with good content and appropriate focus on your keywords. 

If your goal is dramatic improvement, get professional help and expect to spend some time and money.  Acting on good professional advice will pay off in more traffic to your store, to your website and improved sales results.  But it takes time to move search results from near the bottom to nearer the top. 

I’ve taken my own lesson.  I sell some product for a family retail business on the Web.  Our backlinks have been from unranked pages on social media and blogs – and no help in SEO.  As I retool my site plans with a focus on SEO, I’ve found that patience is a critical asset.  When it comes to search engine optimization, instant gratification, as much as we may yearn for it, simply does not apply.

 Next week: more ways to improve results from your small business website, with local examples.

3 Easy Keyword SEO Tips for Small Businesses

In today’s Local Web tips, you’ll see how Sleep Experts, a local DFW business with a good Website www.sleepexperts.com , uses keywords on their homepage to improve search engine results.

My association with Sleep Experts started as a very personal story.  A couple of years back, I wasn’t resting well, even with 8 hours of sleep.   Lack of a good night’s sleep hurt my appearance, my gait, my temperament – my focus – almost everything. I researched mattresses on the Web and, then, I visited local stores.  Sleep Experts came out on top of that process, and, as a result, I’m a satisfied customer – and I look and feel much better.

But I had to find them first. Everyone knows that if you want to buy a product from a business in your town, you must be able to find the store. The same holds true on the internet.  If you want people to research and/or buy your product on the internet, they must be able to find your website.

It’s easy to find Sleep Experts website when you do a Google search for its products in its market.

Sleep Experts consistently is near the top for Google searches like “mattresses Dallas Fort Worth” and “sleep experts dallas fort worth”.  They do many things right to make it so.

Improving search results involves more than good keywords on your web pages, and some factors are highly technical. But many on-page KEYWORDS factors are so simple that non-technical people like I am can understand and apply them.  Let’s look at how Sleep Experts uses 3 simple on-page keyword factors to improve search engine results.

 1. Use Keyword in your title tag:

 The keyword in the title tag is important to your search engine results.  Sleep Experts does a good job.  Find the title tag by going to www.sleepexperts.com . Right click on any “blank” area of the page.  Click “view source” to see “title”. (If you don’t get this, don’t worry.)  Here’s the Sleep Experts title tag:

 <title>Mattresses – Sleep Experts – Mattress Stores – Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano, Frisco</title> .

This tag shows up in Google’s link back to your Website. Sleep Experts didn’t “stuff” the title tag with too many keywords.  It gives sensible information about the business.  And search engines like Google use the words in the title tag as one factor in how high you rank in a related search result.

Look at your homepage.  What is your title tag?  If it contains just the name of your business, rewrite it and ask your webmaster or tech savvy friend to change your title tag. 

 2. Use the keyword as the first word in the title tag:

 “Mattresses” is the most important keyword for the search engines to match to related searches, and it’s the first word in Sleep Experts’ title tag.  That first word helps your site rank higher in related searches.

3. Use keyword in the root domain name:

Sleep Experts also uses a keyword “sleep” in their domain name: www.sleepexperts.com .  If your keyword isn’t in your domain name, this is not nearly as critical as having the keyword in your title tag.

There are other factors for keywords on your pages that affect your search engine results.

Here’s an up-to-date list that includes the top keyword factors as well as the many other factors affecting your search engine rankings http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors#ranking-factors .

Caution – Don’t “stuff” keywords in meta keyword tags or anywhere on the page!

If you “stuff” keywords anywhere on your web pages, using excessive repetition or other tactics, search engines may ignore your site completely.  Don’t hide keywords with invisible text, either.  If it seems sneaky, don’t do it!

SEO workers who focus mainly on adding keywords to your meta keywords tag or stuffing keywords on your pages in any way are using out of date information.

Share Velocity and SEO Experts

When I recommend an SEO tune-up, I am passing along the up-to-date expertise gathered from local SEO experts and the most credible Web resources, like Search Engine Watch www.searchenginewatch.com . All recommended work is double-checked and completed by tech-savvy specialists who thrive in the ever-changing world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  The Share Velocity goal is to make it affordable – and understandable.

My expertise is in small business advertising and marketing – on and off the Web, and if I can understand a few basic principles of SEO, so can you!  Focus on 3 critical factors for keywords on your web pages:

1.       Keyword in well-written Title Tag

2.       Keyword as first word of title tag

3.       Keyword in the root domain

Next week, more simple tips to improve ROI from your website with local examples.

Share Velocity – new focus on local businesses

Share Velocity is powering up with a new focus on local business.  Here’s what’s happened since my last post in April.

That the newspaper business is in a painful transition is not news to anyone close to the business.  In some ways this is one of the best times to market products and services to newspaper companies.  But, alas, this is not so if the sales cycle extends beyond my projected life span. 

In a practical sense, that’s what happened.  Newspaper companies are reluctant to part with their hard-earned and still plummeting revenue – and their buyers’ consideration phase now stretches from here to eternity.  Newspapers will survive and thrive in exciting new formats and business models of the future, but their process for getting there, while appropriate for their business climate, is way too slow for my livelihood.

In the meantime, never one to be idle, I’ve been busy working with a new kind of customer – retail consumers to my family’s jewelry business, www.originaltrinityring.com .  It’s been a great education in small business – the hands-on kind of education! 

What a great complement to my years of advertising and marketing in the newspaper business.  Now, I have first-hand experience and knowledge about how various ads and marketing plans actually affect sales for the small, local business.  That would have led to some “aha!” moments, whenever, but in these “special” times, the experience has been a constant eye-opener!

Starting this week and once a week until – whenever – I’ll share some of these insights and tips to help other small businesses succeed.  I’ll be wearing both my hats: the b2b marketing cap and the small business sweat band. 

At least one post each month will feature a small business and how it is reaching its local market on the Web.  I’ll also say some good words about the featured business on my favorite review site: www.ecompliments.com where the emphasis is: “Share the Good!”

Beginning now, Share Velocity is all about making good things happen faster – for local businesses.

Don’t look back

Newspapers have slowed down projects for months, but, lately, newspapers have practically halted new development, even through vendor partners.  It’s the slowest market I’ve ever seen.  A couple weeks back, I promised a blog about partner ideas for the newspaper industry.   I’ve put that post on hold for another week.

 

Today, I’ve been wondering how things might be different if newspapers were managed more like startups and less like potential “shut downs”.  Here’s what I mean.

 

Fully embracing its “industry in decline” role, the newspaper industry has cut so deeply that it’s almost suicidal – with great potential to drive present and future value to nothing.  Startups must control costs, too.  But they must do so, while using their limited capital to create value in areas where none previously existed.  They start with nothing, so they focus on future value – everything depends on it.  That applies to newspapers, too – everything depends on it, and the best papers are working on creating that future value.

 

Still, many newspapers have slowed down innovation and development to a perilously plodding pace.  They seem to be hoarding the remaining resources for “safe” projects, like business as usual.  In stark contrast, startups can’t simply sit on their limited initial cash and stretched resources.  They must put everything in play for the future, even though some of the projects will fail.  Newspapers, too, must put everything in play, right now, for the future.  Vendor partnerships, when they’re a good match to an idea, may be among the good options, for speed and efficiency.

 

Many newspapers are backing off product development because they’ve lost so many good people.  Marketing and business development departments can barely manage projects already in the queue, much less implement innovative new ones. What good can come from this?  Startups go into debt to get great people to build value in the business.  A startup’s business involves development of value and marketing the value well enough to lead the industry.  To move quickly, they often use temp help, brokered sales and independent contractors.  Newspapers can do the same – and many are, because good ideas can’t be ignored, even for lack of staffing.

 

Here’s another take on the problem: Maybe newspapers aren’t focusing on good ideas for the future.  Instead, maybe they still are focused on managing the present in light of the past.  The newspaper industry obsessively compares today’s decline to yesterday’s glory.  For a startup, there is no past.  If they don’t use the present to envision & build a future, they soon will have nothing at all to focus on.  I believe the same can be said for newspapers.  We can’t just eliminate the newspapers’ past.  But strong leadership can focus forward, toward creating new value – just like a startup.  Let the accountants tabulate the present against the past, but allow the rest of the workforce to focus on inventing (not reinventing) future value, one day at a time.

 

To change that inherent backward focus will require strong leadership.  Startup companies are known for high profile leaders who communicate a strong, inspiring vision.  Where are the visionary newspaper leaders who will inspire the industry to develop well-differentiated and defensible future value?  If newspaper publishers and executives want more productivity out of reduced staffs, they must open those office doors and get out there with the workers, exposing them to an infectious, passionate vision of a new future for the business.   That kind of passion stokes energy and inspires long hours and terrific productivity.  And from such enthusiasm comes innovation and momentum. 

 

Better results won’t be gotten by doing the same things as always, not even with a little tweaking.  If newspaper leaders don’t have ideas for creating future value, one of two things must happen.  The industry must import strong, visionary leaders from outside the newspaper industry.  Or, today’s newspaper leaders must resolve to define a valuable and defensible vision of their future.  Need a shortcut?  Make it look a lot like a startup.   And, whatever you do, don’t look back.

Building local audience and sales revenue, part 1

In the last post we looked at how some of your out-of-market traffic may prove to be substantially more valuable than your current ad network rates, when managed and sold purposefully. 

 

No matter how purposefully managed, your non-local page views will never be as valuable as your local views.  We’re switching focus now on growing local audience to become the dominant piece of your audience pie – and to generate the highest CPM and improved ad sales. 

 

This week I’m just back from NAA’s mediaXchange, where I talked with attendees about sessions they attended and with vendors about the solutions they were presenting.   The conference was more focused on general survival through deep structural changes than about finer tactics like growing local audience.  

 

Still, a good many execs are focused on local market online dominance and engaging the audience for more time on site and more page views per visit.  Here are 3 tactics I heard discussed in the aisles at the conference.

 

1. Sticky content

Catch the “fly-by” visitors and convert them to loyal users with sticky content such as contests and picture galleries of kids and pets.  Here’s the OC Register’s pet pix gallery: http://www.ocregister.com/share/gallery/?plckGalleryID=2b38156f-c93a-472c-9be0-dd91275237d1

Local photo galleries are easy user-generated content – which most local media sites are offering – with good vendor support available: 

 

Second Street Media www.secondstreetmedia.com  exhibited at the conference.  They focus on online contests and user generated content & online photo submission.  Here’s one of their many publishing partners: http://yourscene.latimes.com/mycapture/photos/Upload.aspx )

 

NewsGator Technologies www.newsgator.com  offers sticky widgets (and other products) to increase repeat traffic to your site.  Here’s an example of a widget used by Media General -  http://newsgatorwidgets.com/GalleryMEDIA2.aspx .

 

Textdigger, Inc.* www.textdigger.com  makes web pages easier to find and navigate, and they offer related topics & keyword generators.   Related topics are sticky, and the links drive local traffic deeper into your Site.  See examples of Textdigger in action at www.star-telegram.com .

 

Sports Direct, Inc. www.sportsdirectinc.com offers unique sports content solutions to grow traffic.  For avid local sports fans, odds and injury reports, for example, make for really sticky content.  Here’s one live example: http://dallasnews.sportsdirectinc.com/gamematchups.aspx .

 

2. Local Directories and Local Search

People were talking about providing deep local content and local search to convert local tire-kickers into loyal users.  Take a look at how content is aggregated for “Local Search” on Boston.com: http://www.boston.com/search/?p1=GN_LocalSearch .

 

Several vendors in attendance play in the search and directory space for local media:

 

10-20 Media, Inc.* www.10-20media.com  showed its unique, easy to implement home and garden marketplace for local co-branding, searchable local gardening content and built-in revenue.   They work with newspapers and magazine titles.  Here’s a live example of how one newspaper is attracting more local traffic with this vertical marketplace search:  http://baltimoresun.lgyp.com/ .

 

Adpay, Inc. www.adpay.com consolidates non-newspaper listings such as craigslist with your local site classifieds for deep local search results in classifieds.  Here’s a live example at www.pe.com  as a search result for “dogs”:

http://secure.adpay.com/searchresults.aspx?city=1027_city&p=1027&search=dogs&region=1068&procid=b9c99110-5bad-4995-8d43-765806fc0a1d

 

Planet Discover www.planetdiscover.com  provides local search engine and directory solutions.  Here’s one of many publishers using their platform to customize local directory solutions: www.dfw.com .

 

Travidia www.travidia.com  has long been known for digitizing print display ads.  Now, their offering includes directory products, too, with display ad integration and more rich features.  You’ll find some applications of newer Travidia products at Evening Herald’s auto portal www.ncautocentral.com and at the CT Post Business Directory http://businessfinder.connpost.com .

 

3. Micro-Local/hyper-local content

Micro-local and hyper-local ideas were buzzing around.  Read last week’s Boston.com announcement to readers about the launch of the 4^th Site in their hyper-local network: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/regional_editions/globe_west/west/ .

 

Look at all the local micro-sites “produced by you” on www.News-Press.com in Fort Myers, Florida:

http://www.news-press.com/ ; try Bonita Springs: http://www.news-press.com/section/NEWS0102/ .

 

Topix LLC www.topix.com  helps publishers grow audience through headline widgets, hyper-local platforms, forums & more. Here’s an example: http://www.metroactive.com/ .

 

Next post: a look at exciting new vendors and or exciting new products from “old” vendors.  The general vibe from Vegas was positive and determined.  The little bit of negative vibe about today’s business climate – well, that’s the part that stays in Vegas. 

Is out of market worth it? (that’s up to you) Part 3

Selling more behavioral targeted schedules, geo-targeted in the local DMA, reduces waste and improves results for local advertisers.  That’s great value!  It also leaves a chunk of out-of-market impressions, sold for pennies to the remnant networks.

 

A few of you emailed, last week, expressing dramatic interest in raising CPMs on non-local impressions.  Best practices aren’t yet well-established for local media sites.  (At least, I didn’t find them.)  If you’re doing a good job of monetizing non-local ad inventory effectively, I hope you’ll share your comments.

 

In the meantime, here are a few suggestions for Monetizing Out-of-Market Impressions:

 

1. Plan ahead to monetize big local events that will attract both local and national traffic.

Let’s say you’re hosting a big event like the Super Bowl next year.  Congratulations.  The coverage will create lots of out-of-market traffic on top of strong local interest.  Your goal is to sell all related impressions – locally.

 

Major event planners often announce funding sponsors well in advance.  They are usually big local businesses interested in high profile local and national publicity.  You can target them for premium, fixed ad positions served to both in and out-of-market eyeballs at a $20+ eCPM.  The key is to offer geo-blended (in and out-of-market) impressions only to advertisers who value both sources of eyeballs, in the right, premium context, and can message properly to both.

 

Regional hotels, off airport parking, shuttle services, tourist spots & destination restaurants will value geo-targeted out-of-market impressions on the event coverage, served into a second CPM-based ad position.  These packages will bring a lower CPM, maybe $10+, but higher than networks, because you’re selling targeting within a premium context.  Category exclusivity will also increase value. 

 

That leaves local impressions in that same second position, to be sold to local businesses who want to convert eyeballs to brick & mortar local store traffic.  Local geo-targeting, in a premium context, earns a good CPM. 

 

By matching local and non-local segments to advertisers’ target markets – and selling geo-blended schedules only to customers that can value the blend, we better monetize all of it.

 

2. Manage impressions for big breaking news stories.

It’s harder to plan for big breaking stories that spike up page views, unexpectedly, from in and out of market.  Plus, the unpleasant reality of some breaking stories may not be the best material for sponsorships.   Topical segmenting helps.  Categories like breaking financial, sports or celebrity news may appeal to big local businesses that can use both local and national eyeballs.  (Consider capped and/or guaranteed impressions, in your terms.)  Ask sponsors to provide preapproved, periodically updated graphics for you to place in file, ready to serve.  You’re creating your own ad network with purposeful planning that doesn’t damage value.

 

3. Some local businesses can’t exist on local patronage alone. Segment your traffic for them.

Sell out-of-market Travel BT, from your everyday ad impressions stream, to a local off-airport parking franchise or a regional hotel.  Even if you estimate only 100,000 such impressions, that’s worth around $1800 at Behavioral Target rates.  The same impressions bring $100 or less from the networks!

 

Out-of-market obituary traffic may interest a local florist.  Local obits traffic may be of interest, too, but, by segregating impressions, the advertiser is able to make the choice and to craft the appropriate ad message for the eyeballs they reach.

 

High profile destination restaurants need business and leisure travelers.  If you publish an online dining guide, serve a banner to a few thousand out of market impressions to add value to a restaurant listing.  The feature makes the local listing more appealing to a restaurant aiming for its share of business expense accounts.  In what other categories could you enhance value of local listings by adding a small out-of-market banner?

 

Some local businesses sell regional products outside the market.  In DFW, they sell jalapeno jelly, cowboy duds and fine western furniture.  In Seattle, they sell smoked salmon, tribal art and coffee.  These local marketplaces may benefit more from out-of-market traffic than local, especially if it is BT targeted for shoppers.  Are you targeting out of market eyeballs for your regional product retailers?

 

Out-of-market college sports fans create a market for local retailers of college sports paraphernalia, especially if they sell on the Web.  They may want local traffic, too.  By segmenting your inventory, you manage better value for the advertiser, and the advertiser can manage the ad message for better results.  As popular as your sports coverage is, this might be an easy sale.

 

Seem like too much trouble?  It is simpler just to sell it to the networks.  But here’s the bottom line.  You can make more money by selling just a few out-of-market packages than the ad networks will pay you for the entirety of your remnant inventory each month.  Some goals are worth some pain to get there.  In my opinion, this is one of those.

 

What are your thoughts and ideas?  What ways have you found to better monetize your inventory and raise your average CPM?

 

Next week, I’m attending MediaXchange, in Vegas.  If you’re going, look me up.  I’ll talk with some of you about how you’re growing local traffic and post a list of ideas here – with live website examples – next Friday.  Other than that – what goes in Vegas, stays in Vegas!

Is Out of Market Worth it? – Part 2

Submitted for your approval: It’s the early 21^st century. A local web publisher looks at the numbers. Traffic is up. Average ad CPM is way down. The excitement of growth is tarnished, as hopes for a long growth cycle are dashed. We’ve entered the strange dimension of local web advertising, where out-of-market visitors increase site traffic & available ad inventory – and wreak havoc on local value. Inventory is sold for pennies, but they come with a penalty. It’s one of the web’s painful lessons… summarized here for you.

Out-of-Market Eyeballs Dilute Response to Local Ads.

Most local advertisers expect local folks to see local web ads and, then, to shop local brick and mortar stores. For most local stores, out-of-market-impressions are just wasted, damaging results. (A few years back, I wanted to serve only the out-of-market impressions to national advertisers at www.star-telegram.com , but they wanted local eyeballs, too.)Just about everybody wants local.

Targeting is the obvious tool to avoid the non-local in ad schedules. Behavioral targeting has a powerful favorable impact on ROI. (Think: Yahoo’s APT.) It’s a terrific value in local ad schedules. IF a Behavioral-Targeted ad is also geo-targeted, wasted impressions are virtually eliminated, and the advertiser gets what they paid for.

Weak Response Decreases Local Advertiser Demand.

If local ads aren’t at least geo-targeted to the local DMA, local advertisers who experience disappointing results may leave for greener ad pastures.That means local advertiser demand DECREASES as a result of the advertisers’ experiences on your Site.

In response to complaints about direct results, we old ad veterans sometimes focus on re-educating local advertisers to the benefits of branding. When an ad is targeted to the advertiser’s trade area, branding may be important. But for local ads served to out-of-market eyeballs, branding talk is a distraction from the real problem of too much waste.

When local advertisers are disappointed, they look elsewhere (spelled “g-o-o-g-l-e-a-d-w-o-r-d-s” – and the like). This experimentation drives down local demand for your ad inventory.

Burning through Advertisers Increases Unsold Inventory.

Decreasing local demand increases revenue pressure on publishers. Sales staffs try working deeper into their territories, calling on smaller businesses. They try to move more accounts from competing local media. These aren’t bad tactics, when you’re selling good value. But, absent solutions to produce reasonably good results, your staff merely burns through more dissatisfied LOCAL accounts. This shrinking local market will eventually add more unsold local inventory to be sold for pennies.

Failure to Sell Locally Pressures All CPMs Downward.

Buildup of the inventory your local staff can’t sell increases your reliance on house ads, remnant ads and ad networks. Using house promo ads may show you believe in your own site, but too much of it says: “Attention: Cheap Ad Space Sold Here”. Covering unsold inventory with remnant ads, unless tactics are carefully crafted, proves it’s so. Low ad network CPMs amplify the negative trends. All of this obviously cheap inventory can be a powerful counter-force, working against your forecasted gains in local online ads.

How do you manage your traffic & ad inventory to best serve your local market?

Targeting isn’t the whole solution, but it’s a powerful offset to many of the concerns stated here – and to declining CPMs, in general. The combination of behavioral and geo-targeting proves great value for local online advertisers. For the more complete solution, we need to work out the whole equation of how local traffic + out-of-market traffic = increasing value. By sharing solutions, those who aren’t so quick with answers aren’t forever confined to selling impressions for penalty pennies in this strange dimension of the web called local advertising.

Late next week, I’ll share more ideas on the topic, including links to some current industry examples, to encourage more local traffic and to better monetize out-of-market and total unsold ad inventory. And, yes, I will drop the twilight zone references. Rod Serling, RIP.

Is Out of Market Worth it?

Here’s a little story, a sort of twilight zone dilemma.

Picture, if you will, that I’m a buyer and you’re the seller.  You have some things I want.  Half of what you have isn’t worth much, but the other half is worth quite a bit. I’m interested to buy the half that isn’t worth much.

I offer you a penny, each, for the virtually worthless things, but the payment comes with a penalty.  By taking the pennies today, there’s a high probability that the other half (the things worth quite a bit) will begin to decline in value.  The value may continue to decline for the foreseeable future. Will you take the pennies – or will you pass?

Admittedly, it’s an absurd example, because a penny is virtually worthless.  Why would anyone even consider such an arrangement – even if desperate?

That’s what I’m asking myself about the outrageously small money that publishers are getting for the website ad inventory your local sales staffs haven’t been able to sell.  This roll of pennies from the remnant/ad networks is chump change, and I believe those pennies come with penalties.

In the world of online advertising, the true story starts with out-of-market traffic on local websites.  Certainly, your website attracts ample local traffic, too.  But out-of-market traffic boosts your total page views.  Everyone wants to claim the prize of a big audience – a common measure of popularity and success.  National wire service stories, big breaking local news stories, search engine results, obituaries, university alumni, national sports teams (and the like) drive up your page views, local and not.  The “not” local part can amount to a big percent of your monthly traffic – and ad impressions.

More traffic creates more ad impressions to sell, and you sell the leftovers to the ad networks for a weak revenue stream.  Some money is better than no money – especially these days.  I hear that a lot.  But, lately, I’m also hearing growing concerns about local value. I believe that growing geographically local traffic is the key value-driver on local media websites.  But, some people doubt that “local” exists on the Web.  it’s another dimension, they say.  Submitted for your approval (or not): This Business Week article http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2009/tc20090213_028329.htm claims “there is no here, here” on local Sites.   I disagree.

What can you share?

• What good is out of market traffic?
• How do you get more local traffic?
• If you’ve found good links & commentary on this topic, please share the links.

Next post,  we’ll continue our strange journey through the local web dimension, where getting more sometimes leads to much less than we need.

Let’s work together to win in local markets!

Welcome to the Share Velocity blog about making effective changes at America’s best local media websites. The ideas are compiled for and, in part, gathered from people like you: the most proactive business and sales development executives in the industry.

The best and brightest workers at local media websites are not throwing pity parties about the state of the industry. You are too busy working on ways to make money and to build local audience.

You don’t have time to review every tool or widget or platform for the handful that will make a significant impact on your business goals this year. Yet, you want to be on top of the ideas behind all those products and services. The best of them are designed to solve needs and objectives that may be on your priority list.

You don’t want your plans derailed by changes that you didn’t see coming. But you do want to consider solutions that may hand you a breakthrough success in this grizzly bear of a year. You can perform at your best by staying in command of your options. Share Velocity can help, acting as an extra set of eyes and ears – that you don’t have to add to your payroll.

Share Velocity and its contractors make representation agreements with some of the top vendors to web publishers. We do our homework in making agreements, and we’re unabashedly enthusiastic about our clients.

Our posts will be driven by the needs and challenges of the industry, but the same focus drives us in our choices of clients and products to represent. When this blog covers our clients’ markets, you can expect full disclosure.

The Share Velocity mission is to stay on top of the best web vendor and affiliate programs that will help you achieve your objectives within your local market – the kind that will make the greatest impact on your business and your own career.

By talking and working together, we will find the courage and smarts to meet today’s challenges and to move forward, with excited anticipation, into the great new era of local media on the web. When we work together, we make good things happen faster!

Let’s go!

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