Community Hints & Tips - Promotion & Marketing

[pregaming]

You've probably heard this before, and I realize it may not work for many sites (especially small biz) but I have found GOOGLE is the answer.

I'm not just going to advocate for Google but I can tell you it has worked for me. So the old school rule applies -- content is everything. This also may be because my web site contains over 10,000 pages.

For my small businesess (not content web sites) I have tried different approaches and unfourtunately have not met much success. I tried link exchanges, even channeling some of the traffic from my larger sites into my smaller ones.. but it wasn't very effective. Posting in user groups has met limited success but it just takes so much time... Non-internet marketing has has some limited success but again its expensive and you really have to network.

[someonewhois]

Wow, great thread!

Some ways I've learned to get traffic:

1. Have affiliate programs (ie. pay people for every new user they bring)
2. Have commission programs (ie. they get 10% of all sales that person has) - this works only when your site has products it's selling.

You should also try and get listed everywhere you can. Top Site Listings, Search Engines, and banner exchanges. All work well. Link exchanges are hard to get locked in with good sites, as they're big and you're small. But other than that, works well.

[someonewhois]

Oh, sorry to double post, but I just saw an awesome technique.

Have an off switch for ads! Ads don't look good, but they give you revenue. So add a little area "If you don't mind leaving ads on, we appreciate it, but if they really get in your way, please click _here_ to remove them" or something. Then it refreshes, without ads. Now allthough most people will do this, you'll attract more visitors to stay this way.

[jgsketch]

I sell hand made scented candles. I have had a good response by offering radio stations freebies. They usely will plug my business, especially if I write something humorous with it. Such as, here are some free candles to help you cover that bad smell from "Bob" the co host. They get a kick out of slamming each other on the air. Works good with the morning shows.

Offline marketing works ok. It will at the least, get your name out there. Car Signs or T-shirts with logos. I even rented space on the Parking Garage gate arm. Everone will see your sign then. You could give free T-shirts with your logo with a purchase of x amount, then other people will promote your site.

Have to be creative nowadays to get noticed.

[Trilliann]

Pop ups to advertise e-zines and other pertinent site features are a very good idea. I've had similar success using them. One thing to remember though is that people don't like pop-ups they've seen before. They tend to get annoying after seeing them once or twice. Try using a 'pop up only once' type Javascript which pops up the window then sets a cookie so a person never sees it again. (...)

I find pop ups annoying even when they're the 'pop up only once' type.

[njae]

My alltime favorite advertising has got to be writing articles. I even wrote an article about writing articles!! Basically, write an article about anything you know, and post it to all the article directories you can find. Remember to add a resource box (5-6 line ad/bio at the bottom of the article where you promote your stuff), and make the articles helpful and useful. There`s always lotsa places to post them, and lotsa publishers needing new content for their ezines/newsletters. Just think, your articles could circulate the net for years

anna

[aazevedo]

hi anna

can you show us your article about writing articles, i think this is interesting

tanks
aazevedo

[prairieweb]

http://annamarketing.com/9.html

[njae]

looks like prairieweb showed ya for me
Way cool, thanx!

anna

[aazevedo]

thanks

[digicam]

[QUOTE='pregaming']-- content is everything.
QUOTE]

Can someone explain a bit more what it means when you say content is everything as it relates to increasing traffic to a site?

thank you!

[Maher]

Since content is the reason of "Why?" the site came online at the first place... I believe that content is the most important thing, but not everything.

For example:
"Great Content" + "Bad Navigation" = No Customer!

[digicam]

You've probably heard this before, and I realize it may not work for many sites (especially small biz) but I have found GOOGLE is the answer.

I'm not just going to advocate for Google but I can tell you it has worked for me. So the old school rule applies -- content is everything. This also may be because my web site contains over 10,000 pages.

I certainly know if the content is lousy no one will stay at a site or wish to return.

I probably didn't ask my question correctly.

Above is the full quote. I thought pregaming meant that the size of the site itself, the 10K pages, had something to do with getting people to the site....that the large number of pages may have something to do with attracting spiders.

For example, I was advised to add, at the very least, one page a day to my site. So I'm trying to get a handle on whether site size, in addition to other things, plays an important factor in getting people to a site.

thanks

[Maher]

I certainly know if the content is lousy no one will stay at a site or wish to return.

I probably didn't ask my question correctly.

Above is the full quote. I thought pregaming meant that the size of the site itself, the 10K pages, had something to do with getting people to the site....that the large number of pages may have something to do with attracting spiders.

For example, I was advised to add, at the very least, one page a day to my site. So I'm trying to get a handle on whether site size, in addition to other things, plays an important factor in getting people to a site.

thanks

There are several factors which have a great infleunce on your site's traffic, such as:

1. META Tags (Description & Keywords).
2. Quality of keywords.
3. Quality of description.
3. Density of content that matches the keywords.
4. Number of pages on the site linking to each other.
5. Name of files.
6. Name of folders.
7. Robots (text files which guides the spiders).
8. Links to other sites & Other sites linking back to yours.
9. How often your pages are getting indexed & refreshed on search engines.
10. Size of pages.
....etc.

All mentioned examples can attract spiders which in returns your pages are likely to take higher rank on the search engines and that means more visitors.

For the people who visited your site and you wish them to come back.. you need to keep your site's content (Interesting) and the site's design (Simple & Clear ) and the navigation (Consistent).

[digicam]

7. Robots (text files which guides the spiders).

9. How often your pages are getting indexed & refreshed on search engines.

Forgive my ignorance but I have a few questions about the items listed above.

RE: #7Robots file - if I understood the FAQ at Google Adsense correctly, it was better to not use a robots text. Is this correct?

# 9 - How do pages get indexed and refreshed? I thought, perhaps erroneously, that the spiders went out sort of randomly. I know key words, etc. are important when someone does a search but have they anything to do with getting a spider to your site?

Again, my thanks!

[Proscribed]

A good technique is to get some adwords at your site.Even if you don't receive too much revenue, you will have your website spidered by Google every time it changes. This way you can see instant result to your optimization efforts.

[KelliShaver]

There are two large annual festivels around my area. At each one, people come from all over to set up booths to sell their arts and crafts, as well as just about any other kind of items you could think of from clothing to cell phones, etc. I take a day and go around to each booth and talk to the booth owners, handing out business cards, answering questions, explaining about selling products online, etc. I generally get pretty good feedback and the cards get circulated around to a lot of different people from all around the region after these booth owners go home from the festivals, so my company name gets good exposure.

It takes two days out of the year and I get business trickling in from it for months afterward.

[RoadRash]

A good technique is to get some adwords at your site.Even if you don't receive too much revenue, you will have your website spidered by Google every time it changes. This way you can see instant result to your optimization efforts.

This is not correct, googlebot and mediapartners are two very different spiders by google. they do not talk to each other.

[say]

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!)

Would you mind being specific on this? How do I go along doing these?

[perry45]

You cannot get your competitor's stats. You can only guess, and, do a better job at reaching more readers than your competitors.

But, then again, if you are making decent money, and every day there are thousands of new Internet users, why bother? ... We don't.

Perry
ClickMagazine.NET

[SVTBlackLight01]

This is not correct, googlebot and mediapartners are two very different spiders by google. they do not talk to each other.

I think what was meant was running Adsense on your site will get it spidered more. This has been my experience since I started using Adsense. And this may be more of a benefit for sites with a lot of dynamic content such as forums, photo galleries, etc. New pages in my forums sometimes get spidered only minutes after they are created.

[virtual-logo]

The best marketing tip I have to share is this, offer people a reason to visit your site and they will, offer people a reason to return to your site and they will, offer people a reason to buy from you, right now and they will.

[M.Zeb Khan]

How are these Tips?
<promotion removed>

[s_spice113]

I think that the site is great. Thanks for putting it out there. As a newbie, I think that it will be a great resource for me. Keep up the good work.

[resurepus.com]

Link exchange is the key stone of bringing more visitors and improving your search engine rating. Though to attract more visitors from search engines you will need to have quality content which is SEOd at the same time and you need lots of it! Content is the essential part of online promotion.