The
Top Five Reasons For Posting In Online Guestbooks by: Keith
P. Stieneke
An online guest book is a log for
people to sign and sometimes leave brief messages when they visit someone’s
website.
Possibly you’ve posted to, or “signed”
one of these guest books at one time when you’ve visited someone’s website.
Maybe you’ve encountered one of these
guest books or a link to one and never taken the time to leave a brief
introduction or comment about the website. Was it just laziness or didn’t
you perceive any value in posting to the guest book?
Whatever the reason for not posting
or not clicking on the link to the guest book here are five reasons why
you should make posting to guestbooks a part of your marketing routine.
1. It will let the owner of the website
know that you’ve shown an interest in the website and it is a polite and
courteous method of letting them know you appreciate the website. This
reason for posting at a guestbook is simply done as a way to show that
you appreciate that the owner of the website set up a guest book for you
to sign.
2. You will be making your online
presence known as someone interested in whatever topic the website that
you are visiting is targeted at. This may cause you to get contacted by
some people promoting their business but it will also let people know that
you are in business or that you are looking to make contacts in the specific
targeted audience. If your targeted audience is composed of writers, then
proceed by doing the following. Do a search on Google.com
with the words writer site guestbooks. Go to these and post and let people
know of your interest in writing, etc. Please do not fall victim to attempts
to find software to post for you. The use of such software has made guestbooks
less effective than they used to be; however guestbooks still provide one
more place for you place your link.
3. People are interested in online
communities. The building of an online community is easily accomplished
through guestbooks in much the same way it can be accomplished through
forums. Where both a guestbook and a forum may be topic oriented it is
this writer’s opinion that a guesbook is more for the purpose of building
relationships and introducing yourself. With a forum you can engage in
various threaded discussions about many variations on one topic. Letting
people know you are out there is easily accomplished by posting at a guest
book.
4. Except for reason number one for
posting in a guest book all of the reasons here are in some attempt a form
of publicity if not advertising. So advertising is reason number four to
post in online guest books. Do not however post out right ads to a guestbook
as this can get your post easily removed. Some of the more advanced guestbooks
allow for a signature file that will either accompany your post or will
link to the signature file. Almost all online guest books allow for you
to put a link to your URL, and this is what takes us into reason number
five which I list here as the 5th most important reason for posting in
online guest books.
5. The 5th and most important reason
in my opinion to post in online guest books is as follows. On-line guest
books are often indexed by the search engines, and therefore can help you
by providing more links to your website. Including your URL gives one more
place that a link to your website will be found when doing a search on
the major search engines.
Yes, publicity can be accomplished
by posting in these guest books and it can also help the website owner
with knowledge about people visiting his or her website.
– Copyright 2004 by Keith P. Stieneke
Opportunity Assistance Business
Resource Center http://www.opportunityassistance.com
Your work at home and business opportunity
resource connection.
About The Author
Keith P. Stieneke is the webmaster
of the Opportunity Assistance Business Resource Center at http://www.opportunityassistance.com.
He provides an advanced guest book for his visitors at http://www.opportunityassistance.com/guestbook.
