Community Hints & Tips - Promotion & Marketing

[w3exit]

Try a listing in the last free mega directory on the net ... http://dmoz.org

The traffic is worth it.

[ahtram]

I know a local businessman (in Tucson, Arizona, USA) who runs a very successful website. He is also a tireless promoter of his site. Two things he does:

1. He won't leave the house without wearing some item of clothing with his site URL on it.

2. He drives around town in a car that has a very attractive custom paint job. The site URL is prominently featured on the car.

3. He buys advertising on bus stop benches. The URL is the star of these ads.

Hope this helps,
Martha Retallick

[Fuzzi]

WOW, thanks fluffykins for posting this very informative thread, so many things to try, so little time.

[Nerveman]

Great thread, thanks to everyone who has posted...

[thinkfuture]

Google Ad Words Select: The best venue hands down for promoting anything and everything. Cheap too, if you do it right.

[w3exit]

Originally posted by ahtram
I know a local businessman (in Tucson, Arizona, USA) who runs a very successful website. He is also a tireless promoter of his site. Two things he does:

1. He won't leave the house without wearing some item of clothing with his site URL on it.

2. He drives around town in a car that has a very attractive custom paint job. The site URL is prominently featured on the car.

3. He buys advertising on bus stop benches. The URL is the star of these ads.

Hope this helps,
Martha Retallick

Good advice! Especially for businesses with local cliente.

[andik]

Good thread

Thanks guys for many interesting ideas

[tltfaas]

This is a great thread. My two favorite promotion techniques are writing and submitting articles around the web and reciprocal link exchanges. I've used the article promotion for clients and for myself and it works great. The reciprocal linking must be targeted to businesses that compliment yours.

Bonnie Jo Davis

[Peter v/d R]

This thread has helped me a lot. I still find most of my visitors coming from signatures at (target-audience) forums. Also I try to add my site URL everywhere possible.

Try to partner with some good sites and/or write some articles (on your site) for them.

[Feudalism]

... from argentina. Long Live Feudalism.

[is300dotnet]

Great thread! I am going to try a few things listed here for sure.

I run a highly popular car enthusiast community site with over 8000 members. Suprisingly enough, there are still lots of people who have never heard of us.

Whenever I see the car which our site targets, I leave a promo business card in their window. It basically just says "You are invited to join our community." blah, blah and has the URL. Helps get new members to the site.

I know this doesn't exactly help everyone on here, but thought I would share.

[QuantumSoul]

This IS a great thread.
What has worked for me and my partners is a combination of things, each targeting a different market. Viral Marketing and Link Exchanges are pretty cost effective and consistently bring in new customers for us. Constantly new content brings them back.

We just started a new business model, not sure if it is going to work yet, but it is basically online shareware services. Our customers can use our online products (Database driven Link Pages, Image/Riddle/... Of The Day viral tools, etc) for free. After a period of time, a little "Please subscribe" starts to pester them and hopefully it will be enough to generate sales.

I'll let you know.

The beauty of shareware, is people try out your product, and if they like it, they tell friends...there's your viral.

The problem is, not all products can be "sharewared". Obviously if you sell "hard" items like books, etc, shareware isn't for you. But if you sell any type of subscription based service, it might very well work for your products. - As I say, I'll let you know.

[Josiah]

Originally posted by dethfire
Depending on your site, I think offline promotion is very underrated. ... I found a place that would make me 1000 pencils with our name and URL printed on them for a real cheap price. I also bought 500 buisness cards avertising the site and district. I handed them out to all the schools and placed them out during conferences. People gobbled them up like crazy and soon big things started to happen. We increased out hits from 300/d to 1500/d and got a few articles in the news. Thats all for now, maybe I'll post more later.

Excellent job! You took one of the most powerful forms of offline promotion and used it for your site. Promotional items, like your pencils, are a great way to generate traffic. I daresay, you will get more bang for your buck with a lot of items out there, than soaking up all your money in CPC. Of course, what works for one person may not work for the other.

Josiah Gallo
http://www.lazerdesigns.com
Personal, Professional, Passionate for your Promotion.
Unique promotional giveaways to increase your traffic!

[oskars]

One way to increase traffic is by submitting your web site in appropriate toplists.

Oskars

[Mord]

In your Opt-In e-mail sign up offer, DO NOT offer 7 day course or anything like that. Better off just give 2-3 free ebooks. It will be easier on you and easier on the prospect.

I started offering 3 ebooks free, one of them is by Terry Dean, and my e-mail opt-in list started growing.

Good luck.

[guru4retirement]

The BEST technicque I have ever used is called: "Self Promoting"

A couple of links on your website such as "Tell a Friend" , "Send this picture to your friend"...etc. Would lead to new and fresh visitors where your site's visitors would be your promoters!

What are the mechanics of doing this? Are you using some sort of cgi script that allows the user to key in their friend's email address?

Thanks,
Scott

[Maher]

Yes, a cgi-script.

Create a form which send an invitation "signed with your name" to "your friend" asking him politely to visit that site.

What are the mechanics of doing this? Are you using some sort of cgi script that allows the user to key in their friend's email address?

Thanks,
Scott

[doniv]

first post by me

another tip I found on the net which has been used successfully to get traffic.

Advertise in internt radio stations. i mean not payed one

it could be something like requesting a song and with a the dj msg" this next song goes out to everyone frm the staff at "yoursite.com".

keep requesting couple of times a day on diff stations and some traffice oughtta trickle down.

most internet radio staions have a website whr an option for requests is thr

i have not tried as my clients are usually compnaies, but those who need general traffic could try and let me know if it works.
thanx

[doniv]

u can search Google for a list of internet radio stations first.

[jesifra]

1) I have redone my description to be shorter and more specific. The titles also are very specific. Here is the most important, make shure each page has their own title and own description if possible.

2) I have place a music section that generates a lot of traffic on my site

http://www.haitisurf.com

3) Here is one thing that I am ashamed of, but that works like a charm. I have placed a bikini section which has simple random images java script in it that randomly change the bikini pictures.
Wow this is very, very good, you will never know how much young people like to see good looking females. Females generate more traffic than anything I know of.



4) I have placed a top sites tool also that generate a code that I asked people to place on their site after adding their link on my site. My traffic has gone three fold so far.

5) Good content too is what will keep them coming.

6) I have redone the forum and place a much better forum.

7) I have redesigned y web site to make it look simple but professional.

8) I plan to put a scripts download section also which I am sure will help.

9) Now if you do that and still do not get traffic, well I do know.

[jstraathof]

I've got one promotion tip, try to get to your competitors stats, then see how they get their traffic, it works very good ! (You'll be amazed!)

[MG315]

i'm starting a design studio now (well i guess you could say its started, we have clients just no site, heh) and we are trying to decide how to promote ourselves. i was planning on firstly having a link in my sig at all the boards im at and then being a member of freelance marketplaces to build up a larger client base. but here are a few other ideas i had but im not sure if they'll work or how to do them.

1) newsletter. we are planning on having a newsletter to go with our site but i dont really know what to include (besides the obvious - site updates). the only real updates would be new work completed for clients. our target market would be prospective clients but im pretty sure some ppl interested in graphics would sign up too. so what i need to know is what are good things to include in an newsletter for this target market. I was thinking a few articles, tutorials (for graphic ppl), testimonials (for clients), and some more stuff. what else would be good for a newsletter of this kind?

2) business cards - this summer we'll each be targeting local business, and since we all live in different regions we should have a large client base. I was planning on cold caling a few small businesses (after researching) and asking to meet with them. then talk to them and leave a business card. i would also send about 10 business cards in a thank you letter to clients right after i finish a job so they can distribute them to friends/collegues.

3) google adwords - havent looked into this much but my partner recommended it. is it worth it?

4) visuals - adding a sticker to my car that has my url, and we'd have a few shirts that advertise for us. not only would we wear em but we would sell em too on the site.


anyone have any other ideas for a design studio starting out? we dont have much money to spend on advertising so we're trying to stick to the cheap ways.

[tamizhan]

I am sure everyone here might have heard of slashdot.org. One of the ways to get traffic is to include your site as part of signature when you comment there. The amount of traffic you get is pretty decent.

It takes a little bit of time and skill to write comments which get a good karma though .... One easy method is to make a joke about windows

[dazzleink]

My best leads have come from word-of-mouth. Relatives, friends, and former clients can all generate business for you if you leave them a couple of business cards and make it a point to ask them for referrals. Following up on any interest shown in your services is also important. Pay a referral fee if any leads turn into business, it's a great incentive for former clients and also for friends and family to send work your way.

[Majglow]

hmm...

So far, the best success I have had is with google. My website has a couple #1 spots for key phrases (dunno how). We get a 50-100 new visitors daily.

My site has the advantage of keeping people (85% of my traffic is return visitors).

Anyway, we are gonna print out business cards and try those. I want to print out fliers and give them to electronic music record stores & DJ equipment stores. See if that works.

I'm also gonna try to get featured in DJ magazines and such. Alot of my ideas have come from reading this thread, which I have read from beginning to end.

Anyway, wish me luck... If you have any ideas on how I can promote my site some more, please let me know.

-carl