Here are some unusual web marketing ideas that you might like to exploit. They're all original ideas that have flown through my mind over the last few months. If you don't think they're practical, maybe they will at least get you thinking.

Search Engine Marketing
Why don't companies allocate at least one member of staff to concentrate on boosting their search engine rankings? I have never worked this out. I accept that not everyone can feasibly do this, but there are many companies who can afford to do this who still don't.

Wouldn't the benefits outweigh the cost? If you could improve your ranking, and subsequently, traffic from the search engines by 10, 20 or even 50%, surely the increased traffic and sales would be worth it? Someone please explain this dilemma to me!

Background Image Marketing
I've seen many websites that use only the left hand side of the screen, so the right hand section of the page is left blank. If you use 640x480 resolution or less, you probably don't notice the blank part of the page on your monitor. But since prices of monitors are dropping like bricks, more and more people are upgrading to larger monitors and subsequently switching to an 800x600 resolution or greater.

The question is, why don't these websites get the blank part of the background sponsored? It would simply be brand marketing. Don't forget that institutional, or brand marketing, is a major part of marketing. Over here in the UK, when we watch a footballer (soccer player, for you Americans) being interviewed after a match, we always see logos of major sponsors on the backboard.

Why not have the same thing on a webpage?

There won't be a link, as it would be a background image. It wouldn't have to be too bold an image, either. You could probably use a light shade of grey. The background image would also download pretty quickly. So, I don't see any negative aspects of this form of marketing.

For example, if your website offers information on cars, why not get Ford or Toyota to sponsor it with a background graphic? If you sell designer clothes in your website, why not Gucci or Armani?

Cross Promotion Marketing
I have purchased many products and services on the web. They always send you a receipt and usually an email thank you. Why don't these companies add a back-end sales offer to the receipts or thank you notes that they send out?

For example, if you sell a CGI script, why not promote a different kind of CGI script by another company. If I were only interested in the one script from your company, I would still be an ideal prospect for other useful scripts that you're promoting for your partner site. You can get the other company to promote your scripts in return, in the receipts or thank you notes that they send out to their customers.

You both win from this form of cross-promotion. Your partnering company will get more sales and you get a small commission from them, plus you get added exposure for your products.

Newsletter Cross-Promotion Marketing
Similar to the idea above, why don't newsletters do the same? I know some cross-promote in this fashion, but those who do are still few and far between.

Usually, when you subscribe to a newsletter, you will receive a welcome email. Why not promote a number of other similar newsletters in this email and have your partners do the same for yours?

Client Side Marketing
Have you noticed many sites who display a small logo of the designers of the site? Well, I have always wondered why the designers don't offer an incentive for the website owners to actively promote them.

If the designers offered a commission for each referral, they are more likely to put more effort into promoting the designers.

And instead of simply linking to the designer's website, why not link to a testimonial page, either within the client's or the designer's website? A testimonial would be far more effective than just a link to the designer's homepage.

The same system would also work for web hosting companies. For example, my last host, hiway.com, boasts over 100,000 client accounts. They have a reseller account, but why not have all their client's sites link to their site? That would mean over 100,000 affiliate sites advertising their services.

I actually inquired about their reseller program once, but I found it so confusing that I gave up. Can you imagine how many potential customers I could have referred to them?

Compact Reciprocal Links Marketing
Instead of exchanging banner, button or long text links with other sites, why not exchange small text links?

Simply add the heading "Partners" to your site and list a few links underneath. The links would simply be the web addresses of the partner sites, e.g. "eBoz.com." People are always curious where links lead to and will often click on them.

I agree that this is not as effective as a banner, button or long descriptive text link. But it takes up very little room, is quick to download, looks neat and tidy, and can be placed at the bottom or side of every page on your site.

Don't make it a long list. Just find a few sites with traffic similar to yours to ensure a fair exchange.

Signature Back-End Marketing
If you promote another company's product or service in your site, why not add a link and short description, or better still, a testimonial, to a program that you're promoting in your signature file?

You should still keep your usual signature promoting your own site but just add a couple of lines underneath it to promote another program.

But don't add too many. I've seen some emails that include half a dozen links which will totally overwhelm the recipient. One link would stand out a lot more and would probably generate a much better response. You can change it every so often to keep it fresh.

Another tip is to add a "PS" to the link, as tests have shown that it is the second most read part of a letter/article (the first being the headline).

Quick Tip
Here's a tip for those of you who use your banner tracking program to track text links.

Place your text links near the top of the page. Usually, you use a small transparent GIF to track the number of impressions, but if your text link is placed at the bottom of the page, the link might be clicked on before the transparent GIF has had time to download, thereby losing you an impression.

I hope these ideas have gotten you thinking. I will present more in future issues.