The Worst Marketing Strategy You Can Use

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THE VICTORY LAP
by Charles Davidson

Today's Track:
The Worst Marketing Strategy You Can Use

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Hi there! Welcome to another issue of The Victory Lap. Here at
the Victory Lap, you'll learn how to kick your business into
overdrive.

There's no hype or fluff here. Just down and dirty, white
knuckle advice to steer you toward the fast track. No
advertising. No gimmicks. No shameless promotions. Just the
stuff you really need. Plus a kick in the seat to get you to
shift into high gear.

Sit down . . . buckle up . . . here we go . . .

HEY, SMALL BUSINESS OWNER, TAKE A LOOK AT THIS!

"Submit your website to 104,287 search engines and websites.
Before you know it, your website will be seen by everyone on
Planet Earth and you'll have more money in your pockets than you
know what to do with. Isn't that worth the small one-time fee
of $34.95?"

OK. Maybe I made that quote up.

Sounds tempting, though, doesn't it?

It's so easy and effortless. You know how hard it is to list
your website with search engines. It takes time and lots of
typing.

If you could only type all of that information once and then
send it to all of those websites with the click of a button.
Isn't that what your computer is supposed to do, anyway? Make
things easier for you?

The scenario is probably familiar to you. You've stumbled on a
web page that promises thousands of search engines submissions
with relatively little effort. All you have to do is buy their
software or subscribe to their service.

All your marketing problems will be solved before you can say,
"Your credit card has been charged."

There is only one minor drawback. It doesn't work.

I know. They make it sound so convincing. They make it sound
so easy. They make it sound so effective.

Welcome to the world of marketing hype.

Let's take a look at what happens behind the scenes . . .

FEELING A LITTLE OVERWHELMED?

First of all, these marketing systems want you to believe that
there are thousands or hundreds of thousands of search engines
on the web that you can submit your website to.

Let's assume you're brand-new to the world of Internet
marketing. If you heard about a service that offered to submit
your website to 104,287 search engines, you would probably be
thinking . . .

"Wow, that's a lot of search engines I have to visit and enter
my website information into!"

and probably also . . .

"I've gotta get me some help."

These marketers want you to think that the job of posting your
information to search engines is overwhelming. Otherwise there
would be no market for their useless products.

But come back to the real world for a moment and think about ir
for a second.

HOW DO YOU SEARCH FOR INFORMATION?

When you want to find something on the Internet, where is the
first place you go?

Do you automatically surf over to "Bob's Quaint Little Seach
Engine" at http://www.bobsplace.com/~search/ffasubmit.html

Is "Andy's Free For All Page" your first choice to find anything
and everything you need online.

I bet not.

If my hunch is correct, you probably use something like Dogpile
or Google or AltaVista. If you are like me, you might even have
Yahoo! set as your browser home page.

The point here is that there are only a few dozen search engines
that are worth your marketing time, effort, or money.

You'll either want to stick with the big names that everyone
uses, or search out those specialty search engines that cater to
your business specialty or niche.

If you are focusing your marketing efforts on the top 86,037
search engines out there, your marketing efforts are way too
scattered. You need to narrow down your possibilities by 80,000
or so.

So, what is really being advertised in these marketing products?

These search engine submission programs are really focusing
their efforts on something called free-for-all pages.

FFA PROGRAMS REVEALED

A free-for-all page is a page set up by someone to list links on
their website. Most of them accept between 100 and 1000 links
at a time. As new links are added, the oldest links on the page
are dropped.

The problem with this is that there are thousands of services
and software programs that submit to each of these FFA pages on
a daily basis.

You link, once posted, has an average shelf life of about 4
minutes. After that, it's moved off the page into Internet
oblivion.

And remember that no one ever visits these pages, anyway, so
even if your link lasted a very long time - say 8 minutes - the
chances are very good that no one will ever see it.

SO, HOW COME THERE ARE SO MANY FFA PAGES?

FFA pages are still a popular marketing method. But not for any
reason you would think.

Website owners put up FFA pages because it's a way for them to
collect the names and email addresses of people for their own
marketing.

When you use a software program or a submission service to
submit your links, you will immediately be blasted with hundreds
or thousands of emails containing offers to sell other products
or services. Most come disguised with a subject that reads like
this: "Please confirm your FFA submission."

Don't be fooled. You're link has probably already been
displayed and removed by the time you get to that message.

For the host of an FFA page, anyone who submits their web page
is a prospect. You can expect to receive email from that person
from the rest of your life or until you email provider shuts
down your account because you haven't cleared out our inbox in
three weeks.

BOTTOM LINE

FFA pages are a waste of time. So are services that promise to
submit your website to thousands of search engines. Next time
you're tempted by this kind of an offer, think about how many
search engines you actually use yourself.

You'd be much more effetive if you focused on those dozen or so
that are the most popular. You may kill an hour or two of time
writing search engine descriptions, but you'll still have your
$34.95 and a nearly empty inbox.

SHIFT TO HIGH GEAR

You'll get nothing if you do nothing!

Here's are your Victory Lap action steps to help you shift your
business into high gear . . .

DECIDE that you are never going to waste your time and money on FFA and search engine submission sites.

FOCUS your marketing efforts on the dozen or so most popular search engines and any search engines that primarily focus on your niche or business specialty.

EMAIL ME to let me know you've done it! Let me know you're
taking the steps to kick your business into high gear. Maybe we
can even talk about some joint ventures.

mailto:victory-lap@rapidbizsuccess.com?subject=FFA-sucks