I am a new site (3 days old in fact) starting from scratch on promotion. Can’t even smell a SE listing at this point. Webmasters are my target market, so I was thinking about creating a list of webmaster resources under my menu on the left side of my page. They would display then on every page. I don’t know if I can get any sites to reciprocate that or not.
Would this be about my best bet for jumpstarting things?
I’m also considering targeted e-mail, I just don’t want to shell out the cash before I have at least a few customers.
There are 4 major search engine submission points that generate the bulk of all search engine traffic, and they index very quickly:
Yahoo.com - about 50% of all search traffic. Use the business express service which costs $200, but is worth every penny. Provided you have a good site, you’ll get on in a week.
Looksmart.com - Their database is shared with MSN and dozens of smaller ISPs and engines. It works and costs the same as Yahoo. AltaVista and Excite also share some of the Looksmart database.
DMOZ.org - The Open Directory Project feed the search engine used by AOL, NetScape, Lycos and some other big engines (in whole or in part). This submission is free, but it’s often hard to get on.
GOTO.com - This is a pay-per-click engine that is partnered with about every other engine out there (except Yahoo). This can get expensive if you don’t watch your bids, we have some clients spending over $30,000 monthly. Just keep a close eye on your profit margin.
These 4 submission points will reach about 90%-95% of all the search engine potential, and FAST. Runners up are Inktomi (submit through Hotbot or canada.com), FindWhat.com (another pay-per-click) and Sprinks.com (About.com’s pay-per-click). But just getting on isn’t enough, you need to get on good. Make sure you have a key word in your web site title and the description you submit. Not just in the meta tags, but on the site itself!
I produce niche electronic music, and I’d decided I wanted to let the world hear my work, so I posted 4 Mp3s on a page,
they were available for free, I was subcribed to a couple of list discussions specialising in this music and I had built a mailing list of clubber who dance to this kind of music on a weekend.
I sent an email to everyone saying free unreleased psytrance mp3s for download
if you enjoy this music, please keep this album zen as fu^& by forwarding this email to all your friends.
I included a link and gave away the reproduction, remix, broadcasting, resell and distribution rights away.
the result. over 1500 downloads in 4 days, the files were between 6 and 14 Meg each…not a search engine listing in sight.
the 4 day period also included making the page to put the mp3s on.
The big mistake I made was that I should have collected the email addresses of everyone who downloaded the music…Doh!
But you live an learn, this was some 2 years ago.
My first successful viral marketing experience… now I’m obsessed…erm…pass it on!
I run several soccer sites and one of them is AC Milan Online, http://www.acmilan-online.com
I gotta say that in March this year I’ve joined the Soccer Alliance and it’s going great.
SA is a network of soccer sites, the best ones, and I’m a member of it. Therefor am receiving lots of traffic from there.
Then comes the partnerships [=exchenging buttons or links on the main page]. I have about 20 partners [check the freinds on my main page], 12 button exchanges and 7-8 links at the jump menu.
The thing is that the buttons are only given to the sites that get me the most traffic, and the rest [from position 13 and so on] are going at the jump box. That’s why I get loads of traffic from my partners.
In March I had 90 visitors per day. After I joined the SA I had 250 per day. In mid April I had about 400. In mid May about 600-700 and right now about 900.
The nice thing is that some of the lowest ranked sites from my partnerships [the one at the jump menu] are trying their best to increase my traffic and therefore get a button spot. And that’s COOL!
Moreover, I also be having special partnerships.
Right now I have one with soccergamer.com that has made a special section for my AC Milan menubars over at cmfaq.com in which they show them to the visitors, etc. And the thing is that the download rate practically jumped. And my URL in those menubars are everywhere. I’m practically the only AC Milan site who offers this service fo the fans!
What else can I say? Many people recommend my site. Competition is though, especially at the downloads area [esp. wallpapers] and people started to recommend my site to others in several forums. For example, a dude starts a thread about Championshim Manager and tells the rest of the dudes that he plays with Milan bla bla bla and so on and so forth. And then another dude comes and says to the thread starter: “Hey dude, I just got myself some great AC Milan Championship Manager from AC Milan Online. Go to their site and check them too.”
And this is GREAT!
Also, unique content and unique news items are boosting your traffic. For example if I had an exclusive report or an exclusive news item regarding a transfer or something, a visitor sees it and says to him: “Yo man, you know what, I heard Milan will buy Boskovic and Niculae!”. “Man, where did you heard that from?”. “From AC Milan Online. It kicks ***.” And so on.
The thing that has worked best for me is offering former clients (actually friends, family, anyone!) a 10% commission for any client they refer to me who signs a contract. I get clients on my own too, of course, but I no longer bother paying for advertising or spending my time out there hustling clients. They come to me.
One former client has sent me two new clients in the last 90 days. I’m presented as an affiliate of his company. Typically he knows the people he refers to me quite well. It’s a win-win deal. The clients I get this way are wonderful to work with and are already inclined to hire me before we even speak because of the recommendation they’ve received. Love it!
You have many interesting ideas. I got some new ideas from reading this thread that I will try soon.
Many things I have tried have been successful (searchengines, e-mailing magazines…) but there is one promotion method that has been superior to the others.
When I started www.liscreensavers.com a couple of months ago I released 10 free screensavers and two screensavers that you could order. I didn´t know where to start the promotion of my new site (SE, link-exchange…). Finally I decided to send the free screensavers to download sites. At some download-places I was added directly (one was 3dfiles.com). The next day I visited 3dfiles to see if i had any downloads…
The two screensavers I had submitted the day before had now been downloaded 10000 times over one night.
I recived many vistors from that since my url is in the logo that appears when you start the screensaver.
My latest screensaver (MIR Reentry) was downloaded 20000 times the first day at 3dfiles. (Download.com has also given a huge amounts of downloads.) In MIR Reentry a text appears in the screensavers telling the users about the screensavers they can order from my site. This is working very well.
Wow, such good ideas! I’m blown away!
I think i’m gonna try:
*pop-up subscription page
*creating free screensavers =)
*some other ideas but i don’t hav etime this second…g2g!!
Hi! My site is my first and really new - just live one month - so I’ve got a lot to learn which is why I try to keep up on these forums.
One thing I did see from following advice to search for and develop reciprocal links is that it makes a big difference who you link to. Four of the sites I contacted linked back to me within a few days. Three of them average sending 1 or 2 visitors a day to my site. The fourth one sends over 150 visitors a day (over 900 each of the first few days).
I’m still learning how to interpret the reports, but with returning visitors, it looks like traffic went from under 50 visitors a day to 1000+ overnight.
The lesson is get links to sites with lots of traffic. That sounds so obvious now that I’ve written it, but it was a lesson I had to learn.
Paul, i’m Nicola from Italy.
I’m setting up a personal website to trying selling my music, as you did. I’d like to share ideas about promoting a music website, and expecially tips on selling CDs.
the idea of this website is to try selling “real” CDs (not Mp3s).
I’m a musician and i’m usually selling CDs at gigs, concerts, etc etc (in “real” world :-).
So, the idea is to put on the site information on my music, and give visitors a chance to buy them, thru direct request or by Credit Card (i’m also looking for a CC account, like CcNow.com).
My music is instrumental, kind of jazz, newage and fusion music.
I can put MP3 to download, but just for a small sample… i dont want to duplicate my mp3.com pages
I’m not subscribed to any music mailing list at this moment.
>
Is there anything stopping you from becoming a Zen warrior,
ie. Song writers, performers, label, publishers?
>
What you mean? Please tell in other words (i’m not english, man!
Ever since I added a pop up with a cookie that expires
in 24 hours I’ve seen our newsletter subscriber base
increase quite nicely.
I also participate in many forums and discussion
lists a few of which have brought us new clients.
One e-mail discussion list has brought us a new partner
to resell our SEO services from India. We’ve already started
work on the first client from them.
Another place we got a client from recently was www.infomarkets.com.
This is a site where experts answer questions and get paid doing it.
A client went to the site searched for online marketing which my profile
can up under, visited our site then chatted with us live via Human Click then
called us on our toll free number and a few weeks later we had a check from
them.
We’re also a member of the BBB which I think helps instill trust. All those little
things helped us land that client.
I’ve also placed a sticker on the rear window of my car. I don’t
think it’s working very well yet but it’s still early. It’s only been a few
weeks since I’ve had it on there.
I dont have an opt-in list.
Do you think it might interest to anyone? It is a personal site, so what can i offer to my subscribers? News about my activities?
Guys, I appreciate you’re trying to help eachother out here and that’s great. But this thread is designed to be a collection of hints & tips on promoting a site. Private discussions like the one you’re having may best be kept to PMs or e-mail.
If you submit your site to Google, and get accepted (which is pretty easy) your site will most likely end up on Yahoo! because Google’s search results feed into them. So you don’t have to do what SharpNET said about paying $200 to get reviewed by Yahoo!
Also, Matt Mickiewicz said that he paid the $200 to get into Yahoo! and never got his site reviewed.
One of my friends, Harmony Major, has writen an article (located here) about how to get into Yahoo! directly without paying the $200.
And that’s COOL! 
