Expert Article
There are Some Lists You Just Don't Want to be On!

— by Stephen Mahaney

Recently we were asked about a specific link-building service that has clearly been successful in establishing links, building PageRank, and boosting rankings. It automates the process of exchanging links between sites, and it greatly simplifies the procedures of requesting, adding, and checking reciprocal links. The service has been highly recommended and the strategy itself is technically sound.

We found only one flaw...

There are some lists you just don't want to be on!

And, to us, that's a fatal flaw. It's a snake in the grass waiting to bite us in the ass the moment we feel comfortable enough to rest on our laurels.

You see, the service provides a published list of sites that are actively involved in this link exchange network. They list each URL. They even list the number of accepted and rejected link requests. This means that if YOU and I can see this information, then so can Google! ...or any other search engine.

You may be asking why this might be a problem. Here's why. Google's Quality Guidelines clearly states;

Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

So what do you think the chances are that Google will see this service as a "link scheme?" ...or that they'll view the whole network is a "bad neighborhood" and label the participants as "web spammers?" Our guess is somewhere between terrific and excellent. But, hey, we could be wrong (although for the past nine years we've called the trends almost perfectly—check our archives).

The rule we follow is this:

If Google can do it, and it makes sense for them to do so, they will do it.

And that rule has yet to fail us when predicting what's to come.

Here's what's likely going on and, please, take this as a warning. In spite of Google's latest update (Jagger) that penalized sites for mini-nets, link farms and certain kinds of reciprocal links, Google is still allowing some these reciprocal link schemes to succeed because doing so enables them to expand their list (though we doubt they're checking it twice).

Of course, Google holds all of the cards in the game. Ideally, they would like to identify all of these so-called spammers so they can marginalize them. In short, they want to lull as many pigs into the pen as they can before they slam the door shut and slaughter them.

Programs and services such as this make that task easier. By quietly observing the trough where the pigs come to feed, Google can identify and tag them all at once. So convenient. It even smells like a trap. We have no doubt that, at some future algorithm update, Google will yank the rankings of another large group of link-network spammers all at once. They may even crimp their ability to rank well forever.

By the way, there is no reason for Google to be in a hurry. In fact, the longer they wait to spring the trap the better for them. By waiting, they attract more ants to the poisoned honey (i.e., temporary good rankings). And, assuming their goal is to exterminate the ants, they let the ants enjoy the honey and tell others about it, in order to pull them out of their nest into unprotected territory.

The bottom line is this: If you are interested in the fast-buck and comparatively short-term success that such a link-network scheme is currently offering, then this can help you gain links and ranking success quickly. That appears to currently be a fact. If this serves your purpose, then go for it.

However, if you are looking to build a trusted, authoritative site that Google can reward with long term good rankings, and perhaps eventually even white-list, then don't even think about participating in such an easily identifiable link-network scheme ever. Once your site, company, or personal name becomes associated with web spamming, it isn't realistic to expect that Google will ever trust you again. Simple.

We're certain that, at some point, Google will yank the carpet out from under these easily identified ranking schemes and these sites will be severely penalized. Of course, we don't know when. It could be a year or two. It could be next month, but it will happen. And, when it does, nobody should cry about lost rankings after a major update. They should accept it as the day after the party ended and expect to clean up their own mess. (And, hopefully, they'll have banked some of those profits they made while the game was on.)

So there. You've been warned.

'Cause it's better to be Ranked than Yanked

Courtesy of Planet Ocean Communications, the top rated source of search engine marketing information.

Tips and Strategies
The Importance of Email Marketing Metrics

One of the great benefits of email marketing is that it delivers measurable metrics. To run a successful email marketing campaing, you need to monitor and understand email statistice such as Open Rate, Click-Through Rate (CTR), Bounce Back rate etc. Understanding these matrics will allow you to improve your email marketing campaing and achieve better results.

1. Basic Email Metrics you should evaluate in each email campaign:

Open Rate – that is the total number of emails opened (in HTML format) divided by total emails delivered/distributed.

Click-Thru Rate (CTR) – calculated as the number of unique clicks on links in the email divided by the number of emails opened. It basically means how many people interacted with your email.

Bounce Rate – represents the total number of emails that were not delivered and bounced back. There are several reason why the email was rejected such as the email address is no longer valid, a server filtered the email out, or the recipient’s mailbox was full and over quota.

Based on your unique email marketing campaigns objectives, you can measure more advanced statistics such as:

• Number of Emails Open based on Region/Country
• Number of Click-Thru based on Region/Country
• Number of Sales based on Region/Country/referring URL
• Conversion (Click to Sales) Rate
• Total Revenue per campaign
• Return on Investment (ROI) per campaign

2. What metrics you should focus on?

Well, this really depends on your campaigns objectives. Open rate is a very important indicator to some extent however to get a better picture of your campaign performance, it should be analysed in combination with other metrics - such as click through rate (CTR) and click to action rate (conversion rate).

Why is that? Because CTR and conversion rate are able to tell you how many recipients took an action you wanted them to take, such as purchased your product, signed up to your newsletter, downloaded the whitepaper etc. Whereas the open rate will only tell you how many people read your email. So in order to measure the effectiveness of your message, you need to go beyond the open rate down to the action level.

3. How to boost the Click-Through Rate (CTR)?

Savvy email marketers not only want to get the email opened and read but also want to know how many people clicked through (measured by CTR) and they want this number to be as high as possible. There are few key points in each email you should review because they critically influence the open rate and CTR. Those are:

Subject Line and Greeting:
Make you subject line attractive. Subject line is one of the most important factors that may effect your email campaign results. However, please do not over "optimize" your subject line otherwise it may look like spam email and the client could delete it without opening it. Keep the subject line short and specific, and if possible address the subscriber by his/her name.

Compelling Offer:
It should be obvious from the first paragraph what you offer as well as why the offer is important to the recipient and how he/she can benefit from it. The first paragraph should grab the attention so don't write it too long. Include your offer on top of your email and make your offer attractive to the recepient (discount and free offers usually make users to click).

Call-for-action:
Always include "call-for-action" button or link to instruct the user to click for more details.

Spam issue:
"Spam" issue may affect your successful open rate tremendously. Most of the ISP and hosting companies have implemented the "spam filter" that can filter out suspected spam emails. Please try to avoid using any common suspected spam words such as "free offer", "money", "30 day guarantee", "free trial".

Message Design and Structure:
Use same colours and images in your emails; this will help people recognize your brand. When you have a lengthy message, try to include interactive links so people can access more information through your website. Also, very few people read the email word by word, most of readers just scanning the message to quickly find out what's in it for them. Keep this in mind and structure your email - include headings to separate the message and use bullets so the reader can easily see listed features or benefits.

Today's readers are busy people and it usually takes them just few seconds to decide whether to read your message or delete it. So construct your message carefully and monitor your email statistics to find out what works best for your business.

Learn how you can easily track your email marketing campaigns with Email Tracker

Featured Promotion
Mail Communicator: New Email Tracking Feature

How many emails were delivered and bounced back? How many people opened my email? How many people clicked on the links? Where (country and region) the recipients come from and when did they open the email? How many people took an action such as purchased your product, signed up for your service, downloaded a white list, etc? What's the ROI of your email campaigns?

Literally with one button click. It is so easy to use and set up that you'll be amazed. All you need to do is to open your Email Tracker account and once done, just hit a button to enable email tracking for your campaign, then everything is done. For further information on the set-up please refer to our knowledgebase page or contact me to discuss.

Email Tracker is a part of Mail Communicator (top selling email marketing and management software) If you are an existing user of Mail Communicator please simply download the new updated version to enable Email Tracker function. Then click on the "Mail Tracking" button on the Menu bar to set up your Email Tracker account. If you are not a user of Mail Communicator, you can get the Email Tracker simply by downloading Mail Communicator software from our website. Both, Mail Communicator and Email Tracker come with a FREE 30-Day test-drive so you have nothing to lose.