Hey guys, I am sort of indecisive on this so I thought I would get your take on it. If you have multiple sites (which some of you do), do you focus on marketing one website at a time, or do you complete a website and immediately move onto the next one and leave marketing all of them at once to the end? I hope you understand what I mean lol
I work on backlinks first and then I work on marketing. I am fairly disorganized in my approach and sort of promote the sites as I get ideas for them. I buy links and ads when I see a good price in a category that is bang-on for one of my sites.
My thought is that you should start marketing even before a site is complete (by working out a marketing plan, doing market research, and even generating pre-release buzz). Marketing is a neverending task. You can't really save it for later, and once you start, you really shouldn't stop. Jenn
yeah, I think that you should have a plan for each site before you even make them....I'm new to this, but my plan is to develop a marketing plan and promote it, even when the site is not finished...
The problem I have with that is people will visit the site and it will be in its "under construction" stage, and I know whenever I visit a site like that, I never return. No? And how important are backlinks to your search engine ranking?
Jenn is right. Its a never ending process..this also applies to websites. Trends always change, and you need to part of that change too. The marketing technique that you applied yesterday might not be effective tomorrow.
backlinks are very imporant to SERP, I would agree that a marketing plan is good. Try not to have your site look like it is under construction and if it is have a frequently updated home page news section that folks can look at to see if new content has been added and when certain sections and features will go 'live'.
haha. same dilemma I have. presently, I am using sort of "hit and run" approach i.e. get the site up quickly with basic content/tools and basic SEO/ marketing (submit to search engines, sitemap, press release, articles....) and then I quickly move on to do another site. 2 reasons for that approach: 1) I have short attention span like ADD 2) Google sandbox and site ageing. Need the site to slowly bloom. After I get more sites up, I will come back and go around site by site to "tend and water" the sites.
I too am sort of skitzo on building then jumping to another project. Then as I learn somthing new i go back and apply it to some of my sites to improve them. Then work on link building (mainly directory submissions) for a few sites at a time. Only been at this for a little over a year, part-time. First sites were just a matter of throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. Focusing on content sites to pull search traffic with adsense and aff programs for revenues. learning SEO as i go. Some of my early sites i have given up on and dont bother updating or do link building. Now a clearer picture is emerging of what it takes. Newer sites are more planned out with a plan of how they should evolve over time as they grow traffic. One big project in the works with a broad online and offline marketing plan, and attempting to carve out a unique niche in a larger market.
proceed with all of them at the same time... divide your time like day 1 for one site 2 for 2nd site then day 3 ageing for 1 st site and like this.. thats what my numerology says..
One of the most common tips you'll hear from the major marketers and agencies is that you need to work on marketing every single day. Whether it's reaching out to a few prospective clients, posting in forums related to your business w/ your link in your sig, or even working on planning, the key is to just keep doing it. Even five minutes to make a few posts or jot down ideas is worth it. Developing a marketing plan doesn't mean people will be visiting your site. No one really sees it but you, unless it's a part of your bigger biz plan and you're trying to get financing or something with it. But you can definitely generate a buzz about anything from a product to a site before it's launched. Think of some way to have a "teaser" on the site until you launch. You could set up some kind of count down with an angle that works for the site's topic. You see movie trailers all the time before a film is released. Try to find a way to get that same effect of building anticipation and making people curious, and push the release date really hard, so people will remember it. Make your site's launch feel like an actual event, and not just another day. Jenn
I'm doing a complete revision of my first "made-for-adsense" site. Therefore, I'm reviewing everything I did right and EVERYTHING I did wrong. I messed up in two primary areas. 1.) Continuing to build content. 2.) Continuous marketing. As I'm developing verion 2 of the site on my computer, I'm focusing more on my internal content for improved keyword search results. I'm also looking into how I SHOULD be marketing the site. If I was creating a brand new site, knowing what I know now, I'd start marketing before the site was created. Here's an example. Let's say I want a web site on golf course turf. While I'm still in the design phase of the site, I"ll start posting on related forums where members are allowed signatures. This might be forums on golf course design, lawn maintenance, soil quality, grass seed, any forum that is related. Once the site is up, I'd add it to my signature. This way, I've developed a reputation on those forums and THEN added the link so people don't view me as a troll or spammer. Next, I'd continue posting in those forums. The better posts, the more likely people will click the link in your signature. Also, make some of thsoe posts into blog posting or articles on your site if you can. This is just one way for marketing it. DON'T put up "under construction" words or graphics. Each site has standard stuff; newletter/mini-course, disclaimer, contact, sitemap, resources, home page, blog, and articles pages. Build all of these and start the site off with 5-10 articles. Then slowly build the content witha new article per week (or day or whatever is good for you.) The important part is that your site is seen as growing.
It basically means another website linking to your website - thus a backlink - a link back to your site.
I always get my domain listed and get some backlinks before my website goes live. I run 4 sites at present soon to be 5
well I DO have a PS3 site, that is a "pre-site" (if that is a word) since the PS3 hasn't been launched yet, right? I could do some marketing there, let's say, gaming forums?