An article I wrote in 1998 for the Internet Business Network.
An article I wrote in 1998 for the Internet Business Network.
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Promoting your Recruiting WebsiteJohn Blower© 1998/9 contents of this directory and site. All rights reserved. IntroductionAs the Web grows in size and reach, and company websites attain a level of ubiquity unimagineable even two years ago, so the successful Web Marketer's task becomes more difficult.Nobody knows the number of discrete Webpages - estimates vary from 200 to 300+ million. The well-respected Internet firm Nua Ltd estimates that there are over 131 million Internet users worldwide as of August 1998. But even they admit that the art of estimating is inexact at best. All we can say about the number of users, the number of pages and the number of Websites is that there are a "lot", and the numbers are increasing at a tremendous rate. Indeed, our best estimates of the number of recruitment-oriented websites is "in excess of 25,000". The task before the Web Marketer becomes one of cutting through the clutter. How can you ensure that your site attains a high level of visibility and attracts a high number of repeat visits from members of your target audience? There is a sense in which site promotion and marketing in the New Medium is no different from any other. The questions posed are often the same:
… What are the characteristics of my target audience? … How do I reach them? The Web, however, presents unique challenges, not least is the lack of accurate statistical information, and the speed of change. More importantly perhaps is the widespread misconception of the Web as "another broadcast medium". In fact, the Web is more like a telephone than a television, in the sense that a Wepage is simply a collection of "0"'s and "1"'s on a server until a visitor instructs her browser to retrieve that page. So how can you maximize the possibility that browsers will be pointed at your site rather than those of your competition? What's Your Domain?The protocol for summoning a webpage to a browser window is for the user to insert a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) into the "Location" box of her browser.URLs are fundamentally user-unfriendly. Any slip in syntax or spelling will generate a warning message - usually "404 Not found on this server" - which presents the user with no further instructions or help in locating the desired page. A successful site marketing campaign will start, therefore, with the selection of a memorable domain name, which is difficult to mis-spell. An obvious starting point is to check the availability of "yourcompanyname.com" at the InterNIC database. Don't despair if your company name has been taken. Your first step should be to contact the owner of the site and see if they are prepared to relinquish it for a reasonable sum. If this is unfeasible - due to price or just plain cussedness - consider the possibility of using an abbreviation of your company name, or initialization. No luck? Your next step should be to locate an unused domain name, and then consider renaming your company to conform with your "dot com". A drastic step? Perhaps, but one which is being resorted to by an increasing number of organizations both large and small. Remember, your objective is to make it as simple as possible for your audience, actual and potential, to reach your site. Consider your own behavior in this respect. Is it easier to type in www.barnesandnoble.com or www.bkstore.com/bu? In fact, both URLs refer to Barnes and Noble bookstores, the latter at Boston University. [Next - Design Supports Marketing]
795 Mammoth Road "Less is always more."
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