Zoltan’s Business News & Blog

Dave, from Importers.com claim in his post that Importers.com is the number 1 US B2B website. I did not quite understand his points, it is obvious that AliBaba.com has a lot more US visitors than Importers.com.

On that chart, AliBaba.com’s and GlobalSources.com’s ranking is obviously below Importers.com… They are ranked among the top 500 most visited sites in the US while Importers.com is ranked somewhere at position 100,000. So, it looks like David was wrong.

I checked the same data comparing 3 sites: Importers.com, BusyTrade.com (a Hong Kong based B2B website) and TradeHolding.com. Here are 2 charts:

What we see here?

• TradeHolding.com visitors views almost 12 pages / visit, the same value for Importers.com is 6.8 and for BusyTrade.com is 3.3
• Importers.com has 22,000 US visitors / month while TradeHolding.com has 15,000 uniques / month, but we can clearly see from the chart that TradeHolding.com has the fastest growing trend
• If we take into consideration that TradeHolding.com also has some cobranding deals with other B2B websites (including TradeBoss.com, 1stWorldTradePortal.com, DigitalExpo.biz, BeautyB2B.eu, Europe.BloomBiz.com, etc.), most probably we can say that TradeHolding.com B2B Network reaches more US visitors than the stated 15,000.

Why I took these 3 sites? Because there is no sense to compare our sites yet with AliBaba.com, they are far the most known B2B site.

Voi deschide azi o noua telenovela online, si anume legat de spam-ul practicat de cateva site-uri respectabile (?) care nu au gasit alta modalitate decat a-si promova serviciile cu Spam.

Azi, despre ClubAfaceri.ro site serios in care s-a investit mult pentru a ajunge la acest nivel, cel putin astea sunt aparentele. Si, iata ca un Spam trimis la probabil cateva zeci de mii de persoane poate transforma in rau tot binele facut in ultimii ani. Ca sa nu lungesc prea mult, in decursul ultimelor 24 de ore am primit cel putin 8 Spam-uri la diferite domenii pe care le avem (multe nefolosite de prin 2002-2003) si la adrese de e-mail care au fost folosite doar cand un utilizator s-a inscris la un anumit serviciu oferit de noi.

Am vazut pe un blog romanesc acum cateva zile un site de antispam din Romania, ar fi excelent daca cineva m-ar anunta care este acest site. Sper ca acest eveniment este unic la ClubAfaceri si echipa lor se va abtine pe viitor de la aceste tactici.

We just introduced a new feature on our B2B Network. I believe we are quite innovative here, as far as I know, no big B2B and Import Export website offers something similar. The problem with many B2B sites is that they offer an Enquiry Cart feature and you can actually send hundreds of canned messages to virtually any member no matter how targeted or untargeted is the message. So, I sell mobile phones, let’s just send my message to hundreds of other members no matter if they are dealing in agricultural products or chemicals. In my opinion, this is equivalent with spamming and in my opinion it is actually decreasing the response ratio. Members get saturated with unrelated offers and requests and soon quit.

Anyway, what we introduced is the so called AutoContact feature. We match Top Member sellwords with other member buywords and send a warm invitation to possible buyer in the name of the Top Member to review the Top Member’s Profile, Trade Leads and Products. It is a 100% targeted advertising, our initial testings shows that we can increase a lot the responses received by Top Members. I won’t tell you exact increase percentages, it is not relevant yet but I believe the increase will be significant.

So, actually, we do the job instead of Top Members, we invite in their name -using some personalized messages- relevant members to visit their Top Member profile. We save them time and money.

If you check my about page you will notice that I am running a free dating website: OneLoveNet.com. Well… it is quite new but already having lots of members and the traffic is growing day after day.

Well… I compared my site with some other dating sites. The strange thing I noticed that on many sites, the homepage contains photos with singles who look like fotomodels… Come on, is this the real life? Who do you try to fool? “Register now and meet this beautiful girl from…” or “Join now and chat online with Nicole… she is waiting for you.” The photos are usually professional photos that were made in a studio by the respective dating site… Come on, most of these profiles are fake profiles. Do you really think that a fotomodel will use a dating site to meet a guy??? To meet you??? Give me a break…

OK, let’s suppose they are real woman not just fake profiles, what are your chances of dating with them? There will be hundreds if not thousands of man who will want to date with her… Will you be the one?

Real life and real dating is different. It doesn’t matter how you look or how professional is your photo, there has to be a spiritual connection between you and the one you want to date. At OneLoveNet.com, you can meet real singles locally with real photos who do not look like a fotomodel. We do not select good looking profiles to our homepage and we do not post fotomodel pictures to our site. Most of our singles are simple with a real life, trying to find the one. But, one of them can definitely become your fotomodel.

So, you probably know that there are hundreds and thousands of web directories and submitting your website to the right directories will help a lot your SEO. Unfortunately, there are many dead directories that are still live but apparently does not accept new websites. All they want is your backlink or they are not updated any more. I find it extremely bothering when I do not even receive a reject email for a directory submission.

So, I decided that I compile my blacklist of directories, again these directories might have a PR, but you do not get anything if you submit your site(s)…

Here are a few:

• Sphericom
• Oast
• Domaining.in
• Zorkk
• DotRig.com
• Submission4U

I have tried to add links to these directories and although placed a reciprocal link on the submitted sites, never heard from them after submission. More links will come later. If you know about web directories that seem to be dead or have some really bad practices (no response, not even a rejection email), please share it here.

And yes… I have not mentioned DMOZ in the list. We all know the story of DMOZ.

There is another bad practice: your listing is accepted but after a week or month your link can not be found. Here is an example: KingBloom.com.

If you see your directory above and have something to comment, you are also welcome.

Today, I will share with you how do we use our B2B environment to promote registered companies and their related products and trade leads. I will focus on Top Member promotion, because in every networking environment, paying members get more benefits than free members. This does not mean that free members can not get good results using our network, but obviously paying members are getting more responses.

So, how do we promote your products?

1. Top Member Companies, Trade Leads and Products are ranked higher in our databases.
2. Top Members with an active membership can post more products and more trade leads.
3. We promote by email Top Member Products to matching members.
Example:
You sell sugar and add your product to our database. A new “sugar” buyer joins our B2B Network. This sugar buyer will look for “sugar” trade leads and “sugar” products on our database and obviously he will see your offer and product on top positions and most probably an RFQ (request for quote) or buying request will be generated and sent to you.
Wait, this is not all! We also promote your “sugar” products to ALL “sugar” buyers by email periodically, so you can expect a constant flow of RFQs by e-mail! These emails are actually right on target because we send your products and pictures to members who are interested in your offer. So, a mobile phone buyer will never receive your sugar offer and vice versa.
4. Buy & Sell Alerts are sent out daily or weekly (based on member preference) to members who opted to receive these alerts. They are designed to keep members up-to-date with what is happening on their industry: sellers of products receive constant notifications with new buyers, buyers of products receive constant notifications with new sellers + links to trade leads posted on member’s industry. Obviously, Top Members have priority here as well, so your chances of being found by a potential buyer or seller are much higher.
5. Top Members can contact more members than free members.
6. We promote your memberwebsite mywebsite.bloombiz.com through our B2B Network.
7. You receive up to 25% discount on Targeted Trade Offer when you decide to send a mass offer or request to matching buyers or sellers.
8. Top Member Products and Companies are also appearing on the right column of some of our partner sites on certain site sections whenever a match between a searched word and a Top Member Product or Top Member sell or buyword exist.

Actually, I have to admit that many of these targeted promotion tactics were only introduced in the last 10-12 months but it increased Top Member response ratio by almost 90%!

And, just another personal opinion. Often, our members simply pay the membership fee and expect miracles. Let me tell you clear and in a public environment. A Top Membership worth nothing if you:

- do not have a company description

- do not provide sell and buy words

- do not add at least one trade lead and one product.

This will only generate you a number of totally unrelated requests and offers because other members will not know what you are selling or buying! So, please do not waste your money in becoming a Top Member if you have nothing to sell or buy.

But, if you invest some time in following my advices, our network can become a valuable resource for your import export needs.

Join our European Business Marketplace if you are not a member yet and benefit from our import export marketing. And, as an addon, you still benefit from our 3 times more credits promotion by the end of February. If you are already a member, please login on the partner site where you signed up or through our general partner site: Market at TradeHolding.com.

I see a new pagerank update especially on some of my new sites:

• www.unitedwebsite.com/zoltan/, my personal blog has a PR3
• TradeHolding.org now has a PR4 (launched in September 2006)
• OneLoveNet.com now has a PR5 (launched in December 2006)
• Kugli.com now has a PR4 (although it is not launched yet, just promoted via a few links)

I see changes on new sites, but no changes on old sites. Also, none of the bigger search engine forums mention anything about a PR update. So, what am I seeing? An update or not?

I found this via John Chow: How Much can you make with AGLOCO. There is an interesting report, the Simmons Report that you should read about potential AGLOCO earnings.

The conclusion:

AGLOCO is in the advertising and sale/distribution business – somewhat similar gross profits of Yahoo and Google. Yahoo and Google both have valuations exceeding 35 times earnings. A 35 times profit per user would value AGLOCO at $350 to$1,400 per user. Yahoo has a value of 6 times revenue and Google has a value of 16 times revenue. Even at the lower estimate of $100 of annualized revenue per user at the end of the second year, the corresponding value of AGLOCO would be $600 per user.

With a $300 per user valuation and 2 million users, AGLOCO would have a total valuation of $600 million. A good range to be in for a fairly new public company.

Per the AGLOCO website statements, about half of the AGLOCO ownership is given directly to active users and about half is given to the referrers who build up the network. With a $300 per user valuation the average each regular user would have been given $150 worth of ownership in AGLOCO (of course people who started earlier would have more than average and people who started later less.)).

To summarize with my own words for those who do not want to read the entire article, after the ViewBar will be released your could earn between $0.50 - $1.50 / referred member / month + your shares value can be $30 / referred member.

You can join my AGLOCO network here.

Looks like this will be a year with many relaunchings. Yes, I have some dead projects that were already started in 2000 and promoted at least 1-2 years then put them aside. Why? Because of many new ventures I was involved in and maybe the sites did not get me the desired satisfaction.

These are usually database driven / user generated content sites and although I did not spend time on developements and changes they did get visits / visitors and were kept online. They have value, especially if we read Brett Tabke’s post on Webmasterworld about domain age: Domain Age one of the Biggest Factors: Most of us know that the age of a domain is one of the single most important criteria of the Google algo. I’d put it as a top ten - maybe top five - filter. It is a gate keeper.

I will soon reach 200 Agloco referrals. I now have 184 referrals: 152 direct referrals and 32 extended referrals. 2 of the Agloco Profis have 10,000+ (McCall) and 3,000+ (John Chow) referrals. However they built their network in different ways. McCall signed up only 73 direct referrals (0.73%) and their referrals made a very good job, while John Chow signed up 414 direct referrals (13.75%). Well, my direct / all ratio is quite different: 82.60%.

Let’s do some math: if my direct referrals would be like McCall’s direct referrals, I should have at least 20,000 people in my network. And if my direct referrals would be like Chow’s direct referrals, I could still have 750 people in my network.

What does this prove? My referrals do not promote their network quite intensively, they do not believe yet in the success of this system. They signed up but probably already forgot about Agloco, at least until the Viewbar will be launched. Maybe it would be a wise idea to see exactly who are your direct referrals and wake them up a little. This would be definitely an improvement and would help members better track their different promotion methods.

John Chow also talks about some ways to get people signup under your network. Well… I do not agree with all their promotion ideas but you should definitely try most of them: blogging, e-mailing your friends, opportunity shows and fairs. Personally, I would not spend money on PPC at least until I am sure that Agloco will be a success. But… we are not the same…

So, if you did not sign up yet, it is time to do it: Join My Network. If you are already a member, then try to build your network, remember, your best bet is to follow McCall’s example and build your network around a small number of direct referrals but make sure they are promoting their network and … yours…