What'll it cost me?

[Chef]

Hi,
Doing a feasability study for a site. Have quotes for SEO, advertising, Adwords etc.

Any of you experts care to give an estimate as to how much marketing dollar it would cost me to jump from 2,500 visits per day (6000 uniques per month) to 25,000 uniques per month?

I could have a crack at my own SEO, but might contract it out to save time. Reckon Adwords is my first advertising port of call.

Anyone care to put a figure on it or outline the most cost-effective approach. Site topic is uk soccer.

Thanks in advance
Chef.

[pacres]

Hi Chef

I would suggest to take a crack at doing the seo yourself. There are many small thing that you would need to do, be not overly complex IMO. As far as adwords goes, knowing what you are trying to promote would be my first question.

Are you trying to bring in new members/ visitors, or are you looking to sell something?

Could you provide a link to your site via your sitepoint signature as well, that will give you a few free visitors.

[Chef]

Hi Chef

I would suggest to take a crack at doing the seo yourself. There are many small thing that you would need to do, be not overly complex IMO. As far as adwords goes, knowing what you are trying to promote would be my first question.

Are you trying to bring in new members/ visitors, or are you looking to sell something?

Could you provide a link to your site via your sitepoint signature as well, that will give you a few free visitors.

Cheers PACRES. Signature attached. Don't know why it wasn't last time. Not really looking to sell at the moment just drive traffic for advertising purposes. Targetting UK and Ireland in particular.

[maartenvr]

I reccomend doing your own SEO too for most people. But it does need some time and commitment. Also, do a lot of keyword research and watch your rankings so you can keep tweaking.
Depending on your budget and how competitive your website is, I would say if you hire a SEO and do adwords etc, you can be looking at maybe $1000 a month. (that only translates into $0.05 per visitor to increase by 19000!! so you could be looking at more)

[Protoss]

I third the self SEO. Spend an evening reading through and absoribing info from the gurus in the search engine forums here and on SEOchat.com, and you should be ready to rumble. Most of the principles are very straightforward and quite non-mysterious. You don't even really have to get caught up in the google algorithms and things of the like if you follow the advice from these sources.

[pacres]

Not really looking to sell at the moment just drive traffic for advertising purposes.

I'm not sure that you should pay for traffic to try to generate more revenues from advertizing, unless your getting a good return on it. Adwords can get expensive depending on keywords, cometition etc.

Another avenue of revenue you could explore would be to use some text links on your site. You have a nice 6PR, and could easily sell say 5-8 per month.

[Chef]

I'm not sure that you should pay for traffic to try to generate more revenues from advertizing, unless your getting a good return on it. Adwords can get expensive depending on keywords, cometition etc.

Another avenue of revenue you could explore would be to use some text links on your site. You have a nice 6PR, and could easily sell say 5-8 per month.

Thanks everyone. Pacres, I will be looking to flog a few text links alright shortly. Already selling a couple for 30 per month. Do you reckon 8 would be the max?

MSIRUIT, would 0.05 per visitor be a realistic cost of attracting visitors? Anyone know if there are any stats out there analysing this kind of metric. Just the kind of info I need for the feasability study.

[pacres]

The more you have, the less they are worth to advertizers. 8 is reasonable, but pushing it a bit IMO.

You might get away with 20 if your site is really popular.

[maartenvr]

It really depends on how competitive your business is and keywords you target.
With PPC $0.05 is extremely cheap. But if you add in SEO that you do yourself, It hink it is quite reasonable. You will however find that many people have very different results.

[Anat]

You really need to see how many pageviews are generated by each visitor refered by Google. Then, if you're using CPM based advertising you can try and estimate how much each visitor brings in in terms of revenue. Of course, there is the aspect of site stickiness. If visitors tend to return again and again they may be worth more in the long run.

I used Adwords to boost traffic to my cat sites but I stopped - figured it's just a bit too expensive. For me about 2-3 cents per targeted visitor would be the limit. 5 cents is not worth it right now.