Let Your Visitors Recommend Your Website
Making it easy for your visitors to recommend your web site can increase the number of folks who visit. It can be very effective or not, depending on how you present it. Set it up once and the rest is automatic.
Just think about it. Folks who have a site recommended to them by someone they know and trust will almost certainly come take a look. These are targeted visitors, too, because their friend pre-screened their interest for you. They are also more likely to recommend your site to their own friends. It can have a snowball effect.
It works.
Fourteen months ago, one of our web sites averaged about 20 unique visitors and under 50 page views per day. They were mostly visitors from search engine results. Then, MasterRecommend was installed with the buttons plainly visible on all pages. Today, that web site averages about 275 unique visitors and 1400+ page views per day.
First, I'll tell you how it came about and how to get it. Then, how to get the best results from it:
Way back in April of 1998 (okay, somebody tell me how many Internet years ago that is!), I happened upon a site which provided the means for your visitors to recommend web sites to their friends. The site is http://recommend-it.com/
"Wow," I thought, "What a wonderful idea!"
The only drawback was the recommend form had to be on their web site.
The solution would be to install a script on our own web site. But a search of the CGI resource web sites I was familiar with yielded nothing I could use. Looked like the form would either be on someone else's web site or I would build a script.
I built one. And called it MasterRecommend. The emails are sent from plain text files. You have full control over what is sent. Just change the files when you want to change the emails.
You can personalize the emails, too. Wherever you want their name to appear, just type in the code [name]. Wherever you want their email address, just type [email]. It's that simple to change the emails. (Actually, the files are called templates.)
MasterRecommend even does a rudimentary check for obscenity and possibly offensive slurs.
I believe it is the first free CGI program of its kind.
Since April 13, 1998, MasterRecommend has enjoyed 4300+ measured downloads. You can get your own copy at /master/recommend/
It is very easy to install. The instructions are clear for most. Less than 1% of the downloads ask for clarification or help with installation.
If you don't have your own CGI, or your web site is not on a Unix server, do give the folks at http://recommend-it.com/ a try. They've been around long enough so you know they'll stay a while. And I've never heard any negative comments about them.
Here is how to get great results:
Two things are required --
(1) Either a script and form on your own web site or access to a form on someone else's web site.
(2) Graphic or text links which are visible and noticed whenever someone would recommend your site.
The last one may require a bit of experimenting.
The web site mentioned above, with the visitor and page view count increases, has both text and a prominent graphic link following the principal content, positioned so it is unlikely to be missed -- ON EVERY PAGE. The web site averages 5+ page views per visitor. Each page has good, valuable content. After appreciating the content, the visitor spots the opportunity to recommend the web site to their friends.
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Will Bontrager
©1999 Bontrager Connection, LLC
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