Now I suppose it would happen more often if I had more free time just to surf around, but if you're like me, which I assume you are, any free time you have you spend offline.
Anyway... an email friend of mine, Keith Boynton, wrote and told me he had his website ready for visitors. He invited me to stop in and have a look around. I gave him some advice a few months back, and he has taken it, (along with the input from many others) and developed a site designed to help us in the antiques and collectibles industry promote our sites.
It's called Collectibles Top 25 - "The Best Collectibles Website on the Net." He is based in the U.K., so some of his spelling makes it obvious he drives on the left side of the road, but don't let that discourage you. It is a "world wide web," after all!
He has one of those sites where you have to register first to make the most use of it. (You can check everything out first before you do.) I was pleased right away when I did because I got a link on the home page, right from the start. As more people register their sites, my site will drop off, but it was fun for a while.
The primary benefit the site offers is a free listing and link to your site. You can choose a primary keyword to classify your inventory, and also list your site in as many of their "filtered lists" as you want. You can be listed in the Action figures list, Porcelain list, etc. You can improve your rankings in the various lists by linking back to their site. The more traffic you send them, the higher your position on the list.
Once you have your site listed and categorized, you can then showcase 20 of your best items. Choose each item’s name and description carefully because the showcase section is indexed regularly by Alexa, Google, MSN and other major search engines as well as their internal search feature. Using thumbnails will make your items stand out and give you an opportunity of getting them displayed on their homepage. The interface is easy to use.
What a great opportunity for free promotion!
Now don't tell everyone, but if you mention me when you register, Keith will allow you to put up to 100 items in the showcase section for 6 months. Some deal, huh? This offer is only for a limited time, but he says he may run some different offers later.
In addition to your free site listing, you can also get exposure on the main page:
Top Reviewed Websites - Visitors to the site have an opportunity to browse through your site and submit a review. The sites with the highest rating are offered a prominent link. You may want to have your best customers stop in and help you out!
Spotlight Website - Each Wednesday they choose a new website to "spotlight." It may be your big break you've been looking for to get your business started.
Recommended Websites - They provide special links to sites which provide friendly, reliable and efficient services. Email Keith directly to see how to get listed here.
If you are seeking warm leads, you have the option of signing up for their enquiry forwarding service. Visitors to the site looking for specific items or information can email all the sites in the various lists. Respond to people you can help. You may just make a new friend, and hopefully a customer.
If you want to spend a little money, you can also get even more exposure by using their busier Traffic Lists. These are the first lists their visitors see. Sites are ranked by the volume of their daily traffic instead of votes. You can customize the amount you spend and experiment with their effectiveness. They also offer relatively low costs banner ads, especially when you consider the targeted nature of the traffic they provide.
Keith is putting in the hours adding even more content into Collectibles Top 25 to help you promote your site. I know he has plans to publish member's articles and is in the development stages of creating targeted newsletters.
As a member, they supply you with full historic performance reports for your activity, including votes for the Vote Lists and requests for the Traffic Lists. You can see your performance over time in bar chart format and measure your success.
The search optimization experts all agree that link popularity is now a major factor in getting listed higher in the various engines. I encourage you to at least visit Collectibles Top 25 and consider adding their link to your site. Quality free promotion is hard to find. I feel this will be a valuable resource for us all, and will only improve over time as more and more sites register.