Community Hints & Tips - Promotion & Marketing

**MrRadic** · Sep 28, 2006 07:41

Originally Posted by sharkrey

Hi Fluffykins,

I would have to say that my signature has been stronger for business than anything else I'm using.

I post it EVERYWHERE!

In the last three months it has generated one full design contract, two monthly maintenance contracts, plus several free lance quickies (CGI help, logo design, and a few others).

I take part in several Q&A message boards. I can answer a question and my next fifty hits come from the thread. It's amazing. Most just poke around, but as mentioned, there is business out there also.

I must agree with this! The signature definately bring in a lot of traffic.

**PhatGrrl** · Oct 2, 2006 16:52

I have a newish website and am finding it quite difficult to promote unlike one of my older sites, so this thread has come in handy with some fresh and excting new ideas I hadn't even thought of.

I just wanted to know (as a novice to the ins and outs of website promotion) if having a closed site (by this I mean you have to submit email and then log in) makes promotion harder? Is having to log into a site and become a member is a put off to most people? The site has a niche usergroup, but still has competition from the big boys (as it were). Just wondering if anyone else found it hard to promote their site if it's a members log in on the home page and what they may have done to find ways around it?

Hello by the way, new person onboard.

**Zantor** · Oct 16, 2006 01:52

I am attempting to create traffic through a contest at the moment. It seems to be working quite well. Not as well as I would've hoped, but it is early yet. People seem to love the opportunity to get something for nothing.

**bmcoll3278** · Oct 17, 2006 17:35

What I did to get traffic is install a safelist script and then ask a lot of the safelist submission services to ad me to the auto submission list.

This works for me because my list grows by about 5 a day and each email sent out has two very small ads of my own at the top.

I also use adtracking from my safelist to track each ad I send out either with my own list or by other means and that shows me what ads are working.
I have about 65 members and they email each other about 300 emails a day so you can do the math and see how many of my ads go out.

I also have my own banner exchange so I can rotate some of my own banners in that.
It lets me help my members to advertise thier stuff and mine at the same time.

These are ideas that are working for me. I would love to hear other ideas on getting traffic. I have enjoyed reading the cool ideas here on this thread. Thanks to every body that has added stuff.

**rdewsbury** · Oct 19, 2006 19:12

For the myspace crowd a quiz is always viral. My examples are the toilet test:

http://whirlpad.com/test/tq

and the poker face test:

http://gpokr.com/pokerface

**xoail** · Nov 1, 2006 16:58

Well I use to use only word of mouth as the best way to market my website. Nothing else worked great for me. But now I am a big fan of adwords!!!

**Moelman** · Nov 5, 2006 11:06

I think word of mouth is a great way to attract traffic, doing that and simple techniques like links in signatures is what works best for me so far.

**Bemmu** · Nov 14, 2006 01:42

I want to note on the prize draw suggestion that there are people who just enter their information to all available sweepstakes. They call themselves "sweepers" and use automated tools like roboform to do this, visiting every competition they can find and competing against other sweepers on how many prizes they manage to snatch. Sure it's traffic, but probably quite untargeted!

**Sandrax** · Nov 28, 2006 06:32

Advertising in newsletters is working really well I find. Not the megablasters and other superblasters but real onsite direct newsltter advertising to a targeted croud. Very targeted and not too expensive. I hope this helps.

Sandra.

**nickthrolson** · Dec 15, 2006 00:39

thanks sandra i will look in to news letters

Originally Posted by Sandrax

Advertising in newsletters is working really well I find. Not the megablasters and other superblasters but real onsite direct newsltter advertising to a targeted croud. Very targeted and not too expensive. I hope this helps.

Sandra.

**heretic-x** · Feb 16, 2007 13:54

I totally agree with you on this one. Posting on forums and including info about your site in your signature is great. I own a few sites and this technique has proven to be the best way for the types of sites I have.

**KeithMcL** · Mar 2, 2007 22:12

Originally Posted by KeithMcL

This thread has given me an idea

for my site(s).

If it turns out to be successful i'll post the idea on these forums.

I don't know what it is about my reply, but it seems to send me a visit every so often. Strange :/

**boognish** · May 11, 2007 16:33

I've just read through this entire thread and now I feel a bit dizzy

It's been a really big help, thanks to all who contributed!

If this will help anyone I've summarized the majority of points. Sorry if its a bit disjointed. I've also added a few of my own techniques not mentioned.

Here's my notes:

email marketting

corporate staionary

virals

trendy business cards people talk about

reciprocal link exchange

pay-for-placement search engines (ad words)

classified ads

Partnerships - Provide content regularly for ad placements, send out newsletters.

Offering former clients/friends/family, anyone 10% commission for contracts

Recommendations

screensavers, Wallpapers.

newsletter sign up

tell a friend - offer incentives

Post in Forums using signatures

articles and submit to relevant websites

Targeted ezine advertising. www.ezinearticles.com, www.goarticles.com, www.isnare.com

Put articles on your site

Write a Press Release and submit it all over the free ones and relavent Blog sites

get listed in the major directories, submitted to dmoz, considering yahoo

print directories

yell.com £360 per year or £2 per day

Newspapers

Magazines

ads at bus stop benches

offering 3 ebooks free

code to ask someone to add a link to their site once they added to mine

telesales

door to door of companies, focusing on primary markets

flyers

**MunkyDesigns** · May 22, 2007 08:59

i needed a thread like this!

my new site http://erant.co.uk isn't taking off as I hoped. This is my first site that I want to do well, and so I am making an effort to promote it, but I am stuck. We have search engine rankings, and I have spammed it about some forums.

I have just given it a myspace page (http://myspace.com/erantuk ), and I am currently just adding friends, posting blogs and commenting etc. I am also tihnking of maybe adding a blog to accompany the site, get that into some rss feeds etc.

Apart from that, I am not sure what to do. I may post flyers around my Uni (even though it is the end of the year, so most people are heading home, D'oh!).

any other advice

**spence_noodle** · May 27, 2007 02:57

I've just started a new small website design business and was looking (as you do) to promote for free.

I stumbled across this free UK business directory called Freeindex (.co.uk). It does require for you to place either a text or small graphic link onto your website, then tell (refer) a friend to activate the stats area, but you can add all your details about your company, logo, products and services (with pictures or photos). The site also includes a map to where your based and a customer review section and request by email.

Not a bad site, but be prepared, you might get phone calls from other advertising services.

One more, without going into much detail, try gumtree which is also free.

**kma221** · May 30, 2007 17:51

some very good experiences are mentioned in this thread hopefully i'l be able to share some good promo soon

**fitzpatrickbrett** · Jun 9, 2007 08:11

I have to agree with the gumtree tip, it is great for generating visitors for my German/English translation site. My site is 6 months old and it is the #1 for me so far. If your German is OK then the German language equivalent is Kijiji, another great site for generating visitors and business (although I cant get the links to become active, people seem to type or copy in the url).

**dougadam** · Jun 14, 2007 15:01

Pinging my blog after each post has worked for me.

**qlrt** · Aug 22, 2007 17:33

What do you mean, Doug?

**susan12** · Aug 23, 2007 08:57

KeywordSpy.com a try for a keyword research tool, with results actually reflecting what advertisers are using at the current time.

**abhishekj** · Sep 6, 2007 09:05

Till now i am mostly using article submission,forum signatures and blogging .They have got me traffic.
I think i will also be using the tops given here

**AudiS2** · Sep 16, 2007 02:28

Congrats on great work boognish

Long threads need a summary

**Briano** · Sep 20, 2007 13:28

As many people have already said, forum/blog signatures are really helpful. More than that though (and again, already said, but this can't be stressed enough!) unique, INTERESTING blog posts. Forget the formulas to trick google...get good stuff in there covering your topic in a variety of ways. Make something that people will link to or show their friends--works wonders!

**Bannaz** · Sep 30, 2007 01:41

My favourite promotion technique has to be banner advertising. If you get a really 'attractive banner advert' (this is a must) that sells exactly what you are trying to sell, in the right way, to your target customer, you are onto a winner.

Find the area on the web that attracts your ideal audience, and begin advertising!

It works!

**MichelleDc** · Oct 12, 2007 07:30

I prefer www.keywordspy.com for efficient keywords. You can give keywordspy a try. KeywordSpy.com is a Keyword Research Tool that helps identify what keywords competitors use, with results actually reflecting what advertisers are using at the current time.