My Marketing Suggestions Thread

how can i market an article directory

 

Thank you for your question. It's wonderful to see such a young self-starter. You're doing what many don't start until years later. You'll go far.

Keep expanding and trying to stay ahead of the curve. You've got a lot of competition, so if you're doing well in a tough niche, you should do super well in a new or less competitive niche. Your experience with these first sites will allow you to catapult into the next area with ease and decisiveness.

Ringtones would definitely be most popular with the 16-30 year old range.

• Take part in social bookmarking sites in which you can fairly casually show off your site. Don't be pushy or spam, as you could find yourself distrusted and/or banned.
• Affiliate sites are tough to market because many directories, press release sites, etc, don't like to mention them. Although I haven't seen your site, if it is harder to tell that you make your money via affiliate sales could help immensely.
• Possibly giving away something (like free ringtones or a Virgin Mobile phone/account) to draw people in, while at the same time showing them the nicer ones, which are you affiliates, could work.
• I would say to take part in technology forums, especially new or fun technology ones, could work, but I'm not sure that forums are all that popular with this crowd.
• Possibly do some advertising via Google Mobile to bring some more unique visitors to your site.

I'm curious what you're doing right now to market your site. Would you be willing to give us a few of your current marketing ideas?

 

That was some very good advice thank you very much.
As for current marketing I haven't really done any forum promotion or social bookmarking sites.
I do however use Adwords, Adbrite, and AdToll with my ringtones.
I also have partnerships with other traffic exchanges to share visitors between our exchanges.

 

A gambling affiliate site? That's a tough one, as I'm sure you know, because being a gambling related site or being an affiliate site are both not well loved by many, and you're both!

• Try to find gambling/card player/casino related bloggers to add you to their blogroll and do a post about your site.
• I did a little search, take a look at these: http://www.blogcatalog.com/search/gambling
• and a blog http://thegamblersblog.com/
• When you visit these blogs, take note of their blogroll and follow them from one to another gambling blog. Kindly ask them to write up something on your site.
• Take part in gambling forums and add your link to your sig. Here's some to try: http://www.totalgambler.com/forum and a nice list of related forums - http://www.gamblingplanet.org/forums.php
• Hire a good Word Press theme designer to design one for you, specifically about gambling.
• Write good, interesting articles on your gambling insights and present them on your site and you may still rank well on MSN (Live) and Yahoo, if you truly are in the Google Sandbox. You may get some traffic still.
• If you're willing to take the time to do so, keep a blog on gambling on Blogger.

• Write to various sports clubs and groups offering a discount or whatever you can think of to give them an incentive to come to your site.
• You could even include groups at the colleges. Try a search such as

  club site:.edu

  Code (markup):
  . You can change it to 'running club' or 'baseball team', etc.
• Advertise on Plentyoffish.com, if you can afford it.
• Do site specific Adwords advertising on sports sites/forums.
• Press Releases.
• Be an active, good member of social bookmarking sites, such as StumbleUpon. Join groups relating to sports and dating. Keep a blog on StumbleUpon and have a 'sticky post' (that stays at the top of your blog) with a link to your site. If you become a well liked member, you'd be surprised how much good traffic you could get. Don't abuse it though.

 

WoW! Reading this thread has helped me gain insight to a lot of marketing tricks and tips....

How would I market a student loans information website?

 

Awesome, thanks for your advice.

 

I'm glad to be helpful. Thanks for the compliments!

 

• Try to find college students that are blogging and see if they'd mention your site in a post or via a blogroll link. You could do a Google search of, let's say, "blog site:.edu"

  blog site:.edu

  Code (markup):
  . This will limit your search to just .edu sites. Otherwise, do a normal search via technorati and Google for blogs.
• You could try adding your link (assuming your site is informative) into Wikipedia. Use this to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_loan
• You could take part in social bookmarking sites that have a lot of college age and slightly older people. MySpace, Facebook, StumbleUpon, etc. Be a good, active member and carefully mention your site. Don't be pushy or spammy and you could get some good referrals.
• Take part in forums that have a lot of college age people, have your link in your sig. Possibly gaming forums too.
• You could also target parents of college age kids. Doing a search for parenting blogs or blogs that mention college kids could work too.
• Do Press Releases
• Take part in student loans forums (see this link and include your link in the sig.
• If it's relevant, advertise via Adwords, etc.

 

My website is in an EXTREMELY competetive market.

It's a poker forum and it needs to be different from the 1000s that are out there already! Please can you give a newbi your 2 cents

 

You're right, that is a tough one. On top of that many sites don't want to link to anything related to gambling or casinos.

• If you can, take an active part in those related forums and try to include your link in your sig. You may want to make a start page that includes helpful info, etc, so it doesn't look like you're trying to send people directly to your forum.
• Keep an informative blog (if the forums allow it, include an RSS feed of your blog)
• Take a good look at http://www.webtalkforums.com/, which includes a Fun Features option. In this option they have included a free casino and arcade. This addon (I think it is one) would be perfect for your forum. It's a great incentive to take part in your forum.
• Find poker bloggers via technorati, google, yahoo, etc and see if they'll blog about your site or add you to their blogroll.
• Hire a good template designer for WordPress, maybe even the forum that you're using and make it freely available (with your link at the bottom in the footer).
• Do Press Releases announcing big changes to your forum/site.
• Consider advertising.
• You could also advertise via YouTube by creating informative videos on Poker and related.
• If you can think of something clever, try linkbait (see sig link for some ideas).

 

Thanks for the tips.

 

Any tips on marketing a 50 States Car Dealer Directory?

CarDealerByState_._com

 

What about a social networking site that allows people to talk about state/local/national politics and news that is aiming for the office worker who is bored and listens to local talk radio all day (I don't have the $$ for radio advertising).


Thank you for this!

 

I just wanted to say that this is an excellent post and what a kind and generous thing you are doing here- few people give anything for free these days- kudos, bless you!

 

• Well, that could be something in which you get advertising from local car dealers on the specific state pages.
• You could even have a rating system possibly.
• Advertising via Yahoo and Google local may be good.
• Take part in the various auto forums and include your link in your sig.
• Press Releases.
• Hire a designer to make WP Themes based on cars, with your link in the footer.
• Contact local car sites and get a deep link to the specific state's directory listing.
• Contact car enthusiast bloggers and website owners. If they have a regional emphasis, you could try to get deeplinks from them.
• You could advertise on the car enthusiast forums via site specific advertising to try to get visitors.
• Organic search engine traffic may be your best bet otherwise, and you have some hefty competition from the auto industry.

Another thing you could do would be to list rental car agencies. Advertise via Google Mobile and make the site viewable via mobile devices. Travelers (business especially) may really appreciate being able to search for rental car places via their phone, etc, as they're flying from place to place. Just a thought.

Is it something along the lines of Fark in terms of listing articles and commenting on them?

• Take part in business and political forums, include sig link. Be helpful and active. Here's a few to look at.
• Take part in the blogs that are sometimes available on these political sites (you may be able to keep your own blog too).
• Have you looked at Google audio and print advertising? It may be surprisingly affordable.
• Advertise on political forums and sites, if affordable.
• Try to come up with some fun or interesting linkbait.
• If you haven't already, create a button or widget to be able to add articles or blog posts to your social bookmarking site.
• Advertise on political news sites.
• Write good, thoughtful comments on political blogs. If they are interesting comments, you may be surprised at how much traffic you actually get from an active blog.
• Write to politics clubs and groups, especially at colleges. Maybe you could offer them something. They may link to your site and possibly even take part in it.
• Use other social media sites to promote your site. Do not spam or be unhelpful. It is very important!
• Try to carefully play into the division between the various political groups. It may incite some really good debate and your notoriety may grow from it. If you're really fortunate, you may even get some mention on some political tv show or something.

Thank you!

 

ok usasportstraining,

how's about...

1) a job search site
2) a general social network

=)

 

How should I market my arcade website - www.abigarcade.com? Thanks.

 

Please only one at a time.

I'll go with the job search site.

I'm now realizing more and more the apparent importance in advertising via Adwords for your targeted keywords, such as 'job search' in being part of ranking in the SERPs.

• Advertise via MSN, Yahoo, and most importantly, Google. Advertise for both job seekers and job providers.
• Take part in job search forums, provide your link in your sig, if allowed.
• Take part in Meetup.com's job search and networking groups.
• Search for personal resume pages and sites. Contact them for a possible backlink to your site. Offer to provide featured listing of their resume or whatever you can.
• Maintain a blog(s) on resume writing, job searching, networking, etc.
• Hire or create a well designed WordPress theme about a personal resume.
• Contact temp agencies and job headhunters to offer them something, such as a discount or free advertising on your site.
• Make sure your site looks very professional to attract job seekers and providers and instill confidence and a sense that listing there is worthwhile.
• If your job search site is niche specific, contact and advertise toward that specific niche.

• Take part in gaming forums, include your sig and/or logo.
• Create or hire someone to make well designed templates or themes for arcade/gaming. WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc.
• If you're good at graphics, make sig logos for gamers and guilds, as they are often the ones that use logos. Either host the logos on your server or provide a tiny blurb in the graphic with your url.
• Take part in social bookmarking sites, but do not spam or be annoying. Be active in or start groups, such as on StumbleUpon. Blog about your site and others on StumbleUpon.
• Create and actively maintain a few Squidoo pages. Make one about how to create an arcade site or tips on it. Make another about tips on playing certain games. Another on arcade rankings, most popular, etc. Join their groups too. Try to get favorited and ratings for your pages. The links on these pages count as backlinks too, so they are worth actively maintaining. If your pages are popular, you may be surprised by how much traffic you get.
• Try to encourage competition and maybe even give away awards or prizes.

 

I have a new bidding directory at www.shoutlinks.com

It has the pagerank in place so people will get links, but now it needs the traffic. I can spend as much as the submissions bring in, so far it has been $30 in two days (since it opened).

Thanks, rep left.

 

• Traffic is hard to come by for directories. However, you can always mention your directory in places like: Solicitations and Announcements and on other forums, such as WebTalkForums, etc.
• You could do the same in the "for sale" sections of similar forums.
• Create some Squidoo pages on maintaining a directory, SEO, linkbuilding, etc. Then join the various groups, including the SEO group.
• Take part in other social bookmarking sites, such as StumbleUpon and join the SEO and webmaster groups. Don't spam though.

*Be careful and possibly mention that people are not "buying links" and that this is paying for the webhosting and maintaining your site, and doesn't guarantee the inclusion of the link, etc, etc. I'm sure you know how Google penalizes "paid directories".