Link Swap Direct

Finding Sites

You can find sites useful to you in the same way that people would find your store: by hitting the search engines. Here is a quick list of search tips that will help you find sites that might link to you:

• First search for sites already linking to you. In Google’s search box, type in “link: http://www.MySite.com” (where “MySite” is your Web site name). This will return any sites linking to your home page. It’s a good first step. Some of the sites may have links to other sites in your theme or topic area, and you can put them on your list.
• Use Google’s backward links feature and visit your competitors’ sites. Chances are these other sites might be linked to sites of interest to you.
• Search for sites that cover your topic area, and put them on your list. Topics can be found not only with key words, but also with entire phrases encased in quotation marks. For example, instead of searching for wicker furniture, search for the phrase “wicker furniture” in quotes.
• Many people run blogs, which are mini-Web journals and newsletters, and they are a growing force on the Internet for news, information, and opinion. You can append the word “blog” to searches on Google to find sites, but there is also a special blog-centric search engine known as DayPop (http://www.daypop.com). You can also look at http://www.blogger.com, which has a search engine for people using their blogging tool. Rumor has it that Google will eventually launch a blog-only search tool.
• A daily search on news.google.com for topics and key words that relate to your store might turn up various Web-based media sources that provide coverage in your topic and theme areas.
• Don’t rely on Google alone to find sites; try some of the other search engines, too. One that sometimes provides great results is http://www.alltheweb.com. Try LookSmart.com, AltaVista.com, Teoma.com, FindWhat.com, Overture.com, Lycos.com, Hotbot.com, and AskJeeves.com as well.
• What you ultimately want to find are people that list other sites and links. Try appending to your topic search words or phrases like “link page,” “index,” “other sites,” and “stores,” to draw out pages that specifically list sites that people can check out for the given topic. You can also try appending the type of site you’re looking for. This would include phrases like “blog,” “newsletter,” “fan site,” “community,” or “zine.”
• The best way to find other sites is to look through good sites you initially find and follow links they may provide to others.
• Once on a site, look for contact information. It can usually be found in “About us" or “Contact Us” section, or at the bottom of the home page. If it’s not there, try the site’s privacy policy if it has one
• Usually it’s easy to find an email contact for a site, but if you have trouble locating an email for someone behind a certain site, try pulling the domain record for the site by doing a “whois” search at www.dnsstuff.com and typing in the name of the domain. Usually the administrative contact for the site has their correct email, mailing address and phone number posted here.
• If you can’t find any email contact, try emailing info@sitename.com, webmaster@sitename.com, or if there is a name on the site, their first initial plus last name (e.g., jsmith@sitename.com), and see whether that gets through to anyone

Once you’ve compiled a list of sites, it’s time to send an introductory email letter. It doesn’t need to be long. Here is a recommended boilerplate you can use:

Hi,

I wanted to see whether you could add my site to your list of links or other recommended sites. My site, located at http://www.MySite.com, is an online store devoted to [insert whatever it is here], and I thought that the readers of your site might want to know about it. I appreciate any interest you may have, and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Best,
Your Name

Most likely, the email will be ignored. For those who respond, some will want reciprocal links, and others will ask about affiliate campaigns, or even want cash to list your site. It is up to you to decide whether the listing is worth the price; some sites warrant spending the money to have a link. In the end, acquiring links boils down to you going after enough logical sites and soliciting them one at a time. If a site ignores you, try contacting it a couple more times over the following weeks, and then either cross it off your list or send a snail mail version of the letter to see whether you get any further.

TIP: In addition to just a link, you can also provide an entire list of useful tools to promote your store, including ad banners and graphical buttons. You should create these ahead of time and then provide links to them in your letter.

After you’ve completed the basics of search engine and link placement, the next major task for developing free publicity for your site is generating coverage in newspapers, magazines, newsletter, and other sites.

Media List

Before you start generating coverage for your site, the first step is to figure out which publications and sites you’re going to target. This means compiling a media list. A media list is nothing more than a file of contacts from whom you can solicit news coverage. A good media list must do two things. First, it must be comprehensive, with entries for as many outlets as possible. Second, it should focus on the specifics relevant to your store. You need to not only find the Web sites and periodicals that fit your store, but also find the best contacts at each outlet who might cover your store.

TIP: You can purchase media lists, but they are never completely up-to-date, and usually are missing lots of smaller media like blogs and small Web sites. If you want to buy a media list anyway, Bacon’s MediaSource (http://www.bacons.com) provides some good products.

Press Releases

A press release is the standard, formal way to generate news coverage. Before you write a press release, consider that it is also possible to generate press coverage through simple emails under the right circumstances. A press release always opens with its status, which tells members of the press whether the release can go out right away or is embargoed until a certain time and date. An embargoed release would be used if you were going to say something live at an event later in the day, but you want to let the press know ahead of time about the remarks so that they can prepare their stories. Otherwise, you label a release as “For Immediate Release.” If no status is listed, immediate release will be assumed.

TIP: Embargoed releases are usually embargoed for no more than 24 hours. Although most major media outlets and trained journalists will respect embargoes, smaller Web sites and blogs don’t always have the highest journalistic ethics, so be careful. Also, don’t try to embargo something that doesn’t require it just to generate hype.

Following the status of the release is the contact information, which contains information about who the press should contact for follow-up on the news in the release. A sample contact might look like the following:

• Contact: Jane Doe
• 212-555-1212
• jdoe@bigstore.com

This is followed by the title and subtitle of the release. The title is like a book cover, and it is just as important. It should be something that draws in the reader, because you might not be able to get them to read much more. The subtitle usually provides more context regarding what might be a sensationalized title. Here’s a great example:

BigStore.com Announces Free Overnight Shipping Policy

Web Retailer Offers Free Overnight Shipping on All Orders Over $200 for Late Xmas Ordering.

After the title and subtitle, you start with the main text of the release, but in the opening paragraph you should lead with the date of the release and the city from which the release originates. Here is an example:

January 17, 2004 (Cincinnati, OH) – Today Bigstore.com announced that all orders over $200 qualify for…

Writing a press release is a fairly easy process once you know the basics. The release should be no more than a single page (less than 500 words). Press people won’t read much more. Keeping it simple is the name of the game. A strong, newsworthy quote should be included in the first paragraph, without being over the top. The rest of the text should provide some basic background and any further quotes that you can add to the release. It goes without saying that a release should be proofed as much as possible before it goes out.

End your press release with a code placed on a single line that lets journalists know there is no further information. This code can be either “-30-” or “X X X.

You have four options for distributing a press release. The first is to send it out directly via email to specific press contacts that you’ve identified on your media list. Put the subject line in the header, and put the release in the body of the email. (Don’t attach it as a Word document because that’s one more step for a journalist to take, and one more chance they won’t read any of it.) To send the release to all your media contacts at once, you can create a mailing list using BCC (blind carbon copy)-based mailing in your email client. Put all the press emails in the “BCC” email field, put your name in the “To” field, and email it. You also can distribute your press release on one of the major wire services. The biggest are PR Newswire (http://www.prnewswire.com) and Businesswire (http://www.businesswire.com). Most small stores would work well with PR Newswire. A release will cost anywhere from $400 to $1,000, depending on the distribution reach and total number of words. For smaller merchants trying to reach a specific audience, each wire service offers a variety of special media targets by industry and sector, as well as geographical regions like Northeast or Southwest. Both services also output to Google and Yahoo!’s news services, so you might pop up on general news sites as well when people search them and include wires in their searches. A smaller but cheaper service is Internet Wire (http://www.marketwire.com), which charges less but reaches fewer outlets. Many of Internet Wire’s outlets are smaller, Web-based news efforts. Your final two options for press releases are to fax them or to send them in the regular mail. Both of these are good ways to reach small community publications, as well as some magazines that may not be as time-sensitive about publishing news