What I decided to do was to give away a free branded pen to people who signed up to my free newsletter, and importantly allow me to pass on their information. This is important as the way I structured the giveaway was to only make the pen available to users who ticked a box allowing me to pass on their details. I also asked a number of questions in the signup form that will be of interest to potential newsletter clients who I can sell the data to.
The pens were sourced from Argon Promotions who have a huge range of promotional products you can either have branded with your logo or leave blank. They cost me about 20p each, I could have got some cheaper pens but wanted something a bit different so went for flip pens instead. Of course you have to factor in the costs of sending these pens out too. In this case they go in a normal envelope with a second class stamp. I then paid a family member a nominal amount to send them out for me.
When I launched the site the only bit of PR/link building I did was to create a press release and then submit it to a couple of online PR sites. I also bought a couple of text links, but have since let them expire. From there I found that 1 or 2 of the popular freebie sites and forums picked up on it. From there it just seemed to snowball and tons of other sites started linking to me. Within a week, my traffic levels were that of a well established site and the backlinks were pouring in, as were the subscribers.
The site has been live for over a year now and as I mentioned above despite doing almost no SEO whatsoever it is number 8 in Google for a very lucrative term.
So just to recap, here are the benefits of this type of promotion:
1. Inbound links - I've received hundreds of valuable links without asking.
2. Increase in traffic - some of the established freebie sites that featured my offer have huge amounts of users.
3. Increase in registered users - Users had to register their details with me to receive the free pen.
4. Database of users I can market to and sell - Another provision of getting the pen was that I can pass my users' information on (for a price) to marketing companies.
I can't stress how successful this has been for my site. If anyone is looking for something a little different when it comes to building traffic, links and users for a site then I can wholeheartedly recommend using this method.
What I'm listening to right now: Eve – TambourineEasy method of gaining quality backlinks and building a database of users
One of the most important aspects of getting your site ranked highly in the search engines is from backlinks from other sites. To do this you can email webmasters and ask them to put a link on their site in turn for a reciprocal link, you can submit articles containing your link to specialist article directories and your site URL to other online directories. All of these methods are good and work, but they are very time consuming.
A somewhat different way to do things is to encourage users to link from your site by offering their readers something for free - in this case a free pen. This is exactly what I did on my bingo site which is currently sitting at number 8 in Google for the very competitive term "bingo".
What I decided to do was to give away a free branded pen to people who signed up to my free newsletter, and importantly allow me to pass on their information. This is important as the way I structured the giveaway was to only make the pen available to users who ticked a box allowing me to pass on their details. I also asked a number of questions in the signup form that will be of interest to potential newsletter clients who I can sell the data to.
The pens were sourced from Argon Promotions who have a huge range of promotional products you can either have branded with your logo or leave blank. They cost me about 20p each, I could have got some cheaper pens but wanted something a bit different so went for flip pens instead. Of course you have to factor in the costs of sending these pens out too. In this case they go in a normal envelope with a second class stamp. I then paid a family member a nominal amount to send them out for me.
When I launched the site the only bit of PR/link building I did was to create a press release and then submit it to a couple of online PR sites. I also bought a couple of text links, but have since let them expire. From there I found that 1 or 2 of the popular freebie sites and forums picked up on it. From there it just seemed to snowball and tons of other sites started linking to me. Within a week, my traffic levels were that of a well established site and the backlinks were pouring in, as were the subscribers.
The site has been live for over a year now and as I mentioned above despite doing almost no SEO whatsoever it is number 8 in Google for a very lucrative term.
So just to recap, here are the benefits of this type of promotion:
1. Inbound links - I've received hundreds of valuable links without asking.
2. Increase in traffic - some of the established freebie sites that featured my offer have huge amounts of users.
3. Increase in registered users - Users had to register their details with me to receive the free pen.
4. Database of users I can market to and sell - Another provision of getting the pen was that I can pass my users' information on (for a price) to marketing companies.
I can't stress how successful this has been for my site. If anyone is looking for something a little different when it comes to building traffic, links and users for a site then I can wholeheartedly recommend using this method.
What I'm listening to right now: Eve – Tambourine
What I decided to do was to give away a free branded pen to people who signed up to my free newsletter, and importantly allow me to pass on their information. This is important as the way I structured the giveaway was to only make the pen available to users who ticked a box allowing me to pass on their details. I also asked a number of questions in the signup form that will be of interest to potential newsletter clients who I can sell the data to.
The pens were sourced from Argon Promotions who have a huge range of promotional products you can either have branded with your logo or leave blank. They cost me about 20p each, I could have got some cheaper pens but wanted something a bit different so went for flip pens instead. Of course you have to factor in the costs of sending these pens out too. In this case they go in a normal envelope with a second class stamp. I then paid a family member a nominal amount to send them out for me.
When I launched the site the only bit of PR/link building I did was to create a press release and then submit it to a couple of online PR sites. I also bought a couple of text links, but have since let them expire. From there I found that 1 or 2 of the popular freebie sites and forums picked up on it. From there it just seemed to snowball and tons of other sites started linking to me. Within a week, my traffic levels were that of a well established site and the backlinks were pouring in, as were the subscribers.
The site has been live for over a year now and as I mentioned above despite doing almost no SEO whatsoever it is number 8 in Google for a very lucrative term.
So just to recap, here are the benefits of this type of promotion:
1. Inbound links - I've received hundreds of valuable links without asking.
2. Increase in traffic - some of the established freebie sites that featured my offer have huge amounts of users.
3. Increase in registered users - Users had to register their details with me to receive the free pen.
4. Database of users I can market to and sell - Another provision of getting the pen was that I can pass my users' information on (for a price) to marketing companies.
I can't stress how successful this has been for my site. If anyone is looking for something a little different when it comes to building traffic, links and users for a site then I can wholeheartedly recommend using this method.
What I'm listening to right now: Eve – Tambourine27 Responses to Easy method of gaining quality backlinks and building a database of users
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about me
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I am the founder of ShareMyPlaylists.com, ContentNow.co.uk and some other stuff. I have no idea why I'm blue on this photo though but I like it!
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Hi Kieron, interesting read and sounds like a very good tip, may give this or something along that lines a punt in the not so distant future on a site or two.
I agree with Clarke, so long as the value of the backlinks and the subscribers is greater than the pens, which coupled with a fair CPA rate for Bingo sites is almost definitely true.
I like the idea of getting the user to agree to sharing their data. I presume that this is done through affiliate type networks. Are you able to divulge a bit more about where affiliates can go to investigate this sort of arrangement further?
Hi David, the data I capture from registered users is mine to use how I want. There are loads of companies out there who want to either (a) buy your users or (b) pay you to send out an email on your behalf. Not affiliate networks but more specialised lead generation companies.
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It’s slightly depressing that there’s people out there who will give away their privacy (in terms of knowingly signing up for years of junkmail and targeted marketing) for a 20p pen.
I have previously offered worthless crap like this for taking a survey on our site, and it always amazed me the amount of traffic I got from freebie sites (survey responses that I then had to junk, as these vultures only wanted a free pen, so their responses could not be trusted).
Hi Kieron,
That’s a great idea.
Cheers
Keep smiling
Kevin
http://www.football-gossip.com
UK
That’s a great idea!
Hi Kieron,
“A somewhat different way to do things is to encourage users to link from your site by offering their readers something for free – in this case a free pen”
Am I missing something? How does giving away a free pen increase your backlinks – and who from? Do you simply mean to create a stir that encourages people to link to “that guy who’s giving away a free pen”?
Nice blog, by the way!
Paul, did you actually read my post? lol.
Especially this bit:
“I found that 1 or 2 of the popular freebie sites and forums picked up on it. From there it just seemed to snowball and tons of other sites started linking to me. Within a week, my traffic levels were that of a well established site and the backlinks were pouring in, as were the subscribers.”
Cheeky!
I did in fact read the whole post but thought that your press release, PR site submission and text link purchases made your snowball. Do you think that those freebie sites and forums were linking to you simply because you were giving away a free pen? I wouldn’t have thought giving away such a small gift would attract a deluge of links, but maybe it did.
I’ll certainly bear in mind your experiences next time I’m promoting, though. Thanks for the tips.
LOL, Paul the only reason the freebie sites etc. linked to me was because I was giving away a free pen. The PR and text links only played a tiny part – and to be honest I didn’t send any press released to freebie sites or forums. All it took was one to pick up on the free pen then they all did.
Personally a small pen does not motivate me to sign up for anything but you wouldn’t believe the amount of freebie hunters that are out there. Some people even submitted 4 email addresses for 1 address!
Hi Kieron,
True this stuff does attract a lot of interest. On a different of freebies, my company (Hitachi) are giving away a 42″ plasma TV, the competition has been live for about 6 months and has received over 75,000 sign ups.
Zinc
Freebies are a good idea, but do need to be managed carefully, especially if you’re on a tight budget. For example you may go and order a few thousand pens and before you know it they’ve all been acquired.
That leaves you with a start, but what if those users don’t offer much in initial revenues? Aren’t actually interested in what your site is about? Or what if you can’t sell the data you’ve acquired as it’s “freebie hunters”?
You send out some of your freebies – but suddenly there’s nowt in the coffers for more? Suddenly the goodwill you’ve received is gone and that’s tough to get back.
So, yes good ideas here Kieron, but do think you should include some potential pitfalls.
Zinc – tell Hitachi to send me a TV for linking to them
I think reading the success of this I may try something similar, Ive snapped up the name DiscountHotels.org.uk and hope to get it on the first page of google.
I have little SEO skills but am learning and trying not to rely on PPC all the time.
Max
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As everyone has been saying, this is great idea, very gimmicky but still good. I’m going to be posting a link to your site so people can read this for themselves.
Wolf
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great post kieron. seems like a very good method.
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I am impressed! Firstly with your “outside the box” thinking, and secondly that you are happy to share such a gem on the internet. Great tip. Ben
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Think this is a great idea – not something I have ever done before but I am definately going to give it a try – just need to think of something nice and unique now!!
Need to give those PR sites a good try
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