1. Advertising
    y u no do it?

    Advertising (learn more)

    Advertise virtually anything here, with CPM banner ads, CPM email ads and CPC contextual links. You can target relevant areas of the site and show ads based on geographical location of the user if you wish.

    Starts at just $1 per CPM or $0.10 per CPC.

Could somebody help me come up with a plan to get more visitors?

Discussion in 'General Marketing' started by kelp, Oct 1, 2005.

  1. #1
    I'm trying to come up with a plan to get as many visitors as I can for a month. After that month, I'll go from there. I get around 50 unique visitors a day at most, but they leave after viewing a couple of pages, and 150 visits from my site are from bots and such. I was getting a steady increasing stream of visitors, but I live in the southeast and Hurricane Katrina hit and knocked out all of my power so I couldn't update my site for three days. Most of the visitors thought the site was on hiatus or gone because I stopped updating. I usually update every day with a new deal. Now, I can't seem to get any more visitors.

    I've submitted to around a hundred directories and have SEO'd my page to death. My page's pagerank is 4, and since my site is about deals, each page specifically optimizes for the specific product. The product's name would be sprinkled at around 6 times in the page. I can't figure out what else to do. I'm on computer hardware forums and whenever someone asks for a case, psu, monitor, etc., I lead them to a link of a deal my site offers, but it doesn't seem to be too effective since they never come back. I'm trying to be persistent in replying to threads in the many hardware forums to get the name out.

    Most of the other deal sites don't want to be affiliated with me. They don't respond to my e-mails of trading links.

    I don't know what else I can do to get visitors. I've done the above techniques with low success.

    How else should I get a more steady, consistent stream of visitors?
     
    kelp, Oct 1, 2005 IP
  2. Crazy_Rob

    Crazy_Rob I seen't it!

    Messages:
    13,157
    Likes Received:
    1,366
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    360
    #2
    Adwords. :D
     
    Crazy_Rob, Oct 1, 2005 IP
  3. briandunning

    briandunning Active Member

    Messages:
    262
    Likes Received:
    32
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    98
    #3
    This sounds negative but I don't mean it that way: be a site that DESERVES a lot of traffic. If you're "just another site with deals" then why should I visit yours instead of any of a thousand others?

    If you have something to offer that's truly unique and valuable, then you just need to get the word out. There are great PR agencies you can hire to get you some press. It's expensive but it will generate interest very quickly - faster IMHO than blogs or other Internet word-of-mouth mechnisms.

    A site that's truly valuable doesn't need to do any SEO.
     
    briandunning, Oct 1, 2005 IP
    Blogmaster likes this.
  4. Will.Spencer

    Will.Spencer NetBuilder

    Messages:
    14,789
    Likes Received:
    1,040
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    375
    #4
    You want a plan? Try the SEO Optimization Checklist.

    You want to increase visitors? PM me and I'll tell 'ya how to get links from an authority site that gets 9k+ visitors a day. :)
     
    Will.Spencer, Oct 1, 2005 IP
  5. KingSEO

    KingSEO Peon

    Messages:
    295
    Likes Received:
    28
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #5
    Month 1-2: Construct and build quality website #1.
    Month 3-4: Construct and build quality website #2. Finetune website #1
    ...
    Month 11-12: Start earning an (real) income from website #1. Decide wheter to continue working on it.

    Almost all websites has an amount of static work involved (unless you're stupid enough to try to earn money as a "blogger".. which is only static work ;)). Try to automate as much as possible to limit the number of hours you have to put into the website every day.

    Continue building new websites until you have enough "static" per day to afford outsourcing the less complicated parts of it. Make sure outsourcing works successful and continue building new sites. (I wouldnt be able to give detailed specs for outsourcing as I'm not yet at this point - 3 yrs in the web buisness and I'm a master at automating things.. :)

    I'm seeing decent income from my oldest sites and it gives me great confidence knowing that I will earn even more money each month as older sites gets out of the sandbox. I have a organic growth in my network as well as new ways of traffic with every new site I release.

    Remember to keep an eye out for the continous growth, you should always have an organic growth for such things as mouth-to-mouth referrerals bookmarks etc. If you dont, something is awfully wrong with your website.

    Keep your income diversed, do not become obsessed with just ONE site, you might have bad luck with the seasons algoritms in google, you might have missed an important update. Let time decide what ideas are good and which are not. Relax and enjoy working with what you love. Atleast thats what I'm doing.
     
    KingSEO, Oct 1, 2005 IP
  6. kelp

    kelp Peon

    Messages:
    306
    Likes Received:
    1
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #6
    I'm doing very poorly on my deal site, so I've decided against another site(I have many ideas) until I keep this site stable and "better". My deal site has been functioning since the beginning of June of this year. How would I "automate" a deal site? I usually have to find deals from fatwallet, slickdeals, etc., but perhaps I could syndicate ten deal sites together and in return they'll link to me? Some sites use RSS, and I could automate my deal sites by displaying their content on my own website.

    You're right, I myself can't find anything that separates my site from the tens of thousands of other deal sites. It is infact, quite "basic" compared to other deal sites. It is basically like a blog where I post deals I find on fatwallet/slickdeals forums.
     
    kelp, Oct 1, 2005 IP
  7. marketjunction

    marketjunction Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    3,779
    Likes Received:
    187
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    183
    #7
    I would emphasize what was said about "another deal site." When I am looking for a deal I go to either Amazon, Ebay or a price finder website (have a couple I use). Going elsewhere is simply a waste of time.

    Being another website in a group is not always a bad thing, but it is when your main leaders are well established and owned by large companies, which you will never compare with.

    For example, you could open a general book selling website. You main competitor would be Amazon. With each passing month their brand grows and your potential traffic/revenue shrinks. Why bother? A more productive approach would be to narrow your focus. For example, deal with specialty books in a specific topic area. Even then it may or may not be wise to continue.
     
    marketjunction, Oct 1, 2005 IP
  8. kelp

    kelp Peon

    Messages:
    306
    Likes Received:
    1
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #8
    I'm not going to lie about why I created my deal site. I mostly wanted the cash since a deal site seemed pretty easy. My mindset was cash + ease, but it's turning out a little different. My site's been up for 4 months, but my adsense earnings are around $2 a month. Not the cash flow I was quite expecting. Some people say to keep going, but maybe I threw myself out there trying to create a site competing with some heavy comanies with millions of dollars. If you look up deal site in Google, my site won't even be listed until the thousandth page.

    Should I move into a more specific group, like the best deals on games? I'm using a blogging system for my deal site so I create a new entry for each deal I post. Perhaps a site on laptop deals? Most of my Google traffic is from people searching up a specific laptop and it leads to my site.

    Edit: No videogame deal site :( There's already a popular one.
     
    kelp, Oct 1, 2005 IP
  9. Crazy_Rob

    Crazy_Rob I seen't it!

    Messages:
    13,157
    Likes Received:
    1,366
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    360
    #9
    I'm sure there's room for another one. :)
     
    Crazy_Rob, Oct 1, 2005 IP
  10. Crazy_Rob

    Crazy_Rob I seen't it!

    Messages:
    13,157
    Likes Received:
    1,366
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    360
    #10
    Looks pretty competitive. :D
     
    Crazy_Rob, Oct 1, 2005 IP
  11. marketjunction

    marketjunction Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    3,779
    Likes Received:
    187
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    183
    #11
    Only you know what you are capable of. As a photographer, I can tell you that I have set places I go for deal info. First I visit my "authority site" and talk to people there. This normally leads me where to go for deals. I some of the normal price grabber type sites to compare.

    You best bet is to think up an idea, like the digital camera site, and spend time finding all the related sites you can. Look to see if you can create something different. If you can't and there are thousands of the same type of site out there, understand you will be playing roulette to get traffic and profits.

    Ask yourself, who is my targeted audience and what are their characteristics?

    If you were out to create a new soda company and had to pick one type of soda to create, would you create a COLA flavor and try to tackle Coke and Pepsi's main soda or would you create a new flavor with little to no direct competition?

    Also you need to learn your market. For example, let us say you did some research and learned that 1,000,000 people look for widget deals each month. You also learned that there are two major widget deal websites and about 1000 others of various sizes. The two major websites claim to service about a combined 850,000 people monthly. If this is accurate, this leaves 150,000 to be divided among 1000 websites, which equates to 150 people monthly.

    If you are a run of the mill site with limited ability and resources, 150 people monthly might be your target market share. Should you possess decent ability and resources, perhaps more. The main point would be that two major companies control 85% of the market and that is unlikely to change, especially to your benefit, unless you have a better product or service.

    Does all this mean we should look for a small industry only and that many competitors is bad? No. It just means that you should know your industry and what to expect.

    Spend your time wisely.
     
    marketjunction, Oct 1, 2005 IP
  12. kelp

    kelp Peon

    Messages:
    306
    Likes Received:
    1
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #12
    I just thought about my camera deals idea and I'm very wary that I have the ability to succeed with it. It seems the sites that have to do with digital camera deals also have to do with the "general deals" idea I was using before.

    Do you think someone looking to buy a digital camera would look in a third party site dedicated for digital camera deals or a general deals site such as the fatwallet forums, nextag, pricegrabber, etc.? Most of the deal sites have digital camera deals, plus many other kinds of electronics.

    I'm scoping out digital camera forums looking for "something" that will give me an idea to differ from the other deal sites. Even though the site would be more specific, people would most likely go to the major sites.

    My general idea would be to offer digital camera and storage media deals, but it seems most consumers would spend time on the already established sites.

    I'm guessing every deal site has a bunch of competition :)

    I'm a penny pincher and already bought my $5 domain with the word deal in the url, so I'm not going to give up on it.

    I've already come up with the promotion plans, submit an article about picking a digital camera to those hundreds of article directories, participate in the digicam forums and mention the site when someone's in the market for a camera, and maybe have a contest for a cheap 512 sd card for the person who sends in the best photo of them putting my url on a building or something.

    It would be hard as crap to get on the first serp for "digital camera deals" though or "<digital camera name> deal".
     
    kelp, Oct 1, 2005 IP
  13. Crazy_Rob

    Crazy_Rob I seen't it!

    Messages:
    13,157
    Likes Received:
    1,366
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    360
    #13
    Do not let that be the reason you make a deals site. Seriously, if you screw up, that $5 "investment" could end up costing you a whole lot more.


    Have you typed "deal" into the Overture keyword suggestion tool yet?

    http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
     
    Crazy_Rob, Oct 1, 2005 IP
  14. marketjunction

    marketjunction Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    3,779
    Likes Received:
    187
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    183
    #14
    The camera community is divided into a couple main categories of users:

    1. Consumer
    2. Pro (or pro oriented)

    I am in category number 2. I spend a lot of money on photography equipment and before I buy anything, I congregate with fellow photographers. The websites that I visit to talk with other Cat 2 type photographers have links to deals and they can be easily located.

    I would recommend that you target consumers in group #1. These people are less likely to be part of a photography community.

    No matter what you do there will be competition.

    Mac and Windows are both operating systems. Macs, in my opinion, are better overall. At worst, both operating systems are even, yet Microsoft owns about 95% of the market.

    Why? Marketing.

    The point is this. No matter what you open up, you will need to market very well or your website will be a blip on the map.

    Keeping on the digital camera theme. You should find all the photography message boards and information websites on the planet. So what if there is some other deal site advertised. Market yourself well and keep hammering. Keep pushing your website to the target market.
     
    marketjunction, Oct 1, 2005 IP
  15. Broberts

    Broberts Guest

    Messages:
    2
    Likes Received:
    0
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #15
    I just had a good thread going all about Pixel based micro-ads that generally cost $100 per micro-ad and the ad stays up for 5 years. The site (like www.pixelbay.org, or milliondollarhomepage) is responsible for driving traffic to the site. I am hearing that many advertisers are getting 30-50 visitors a day (uniques).
     
    Broberts, Oct 1, 2005 IP
  16. kelp

    kelp Peon

    Messages:
    306
    Likes Received:
    1
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #16
    Do you think I'll have luck with a more "not so mainstream" site idea? I was thinking of a site for a specific type of houseplant called an African Violet. I looked up the word african violet on Google and all the sites are crappy(no offense if someone owns one of those sites). Most of the webmasters that own an African Violet site seem to know nothing about SEO. They'd probably be more than willing to link to my site.

    I might sound greedy, but I want to make some money off ads. That's the only thing that'll keep me dedicated to updating the site.

    My targetted audience will be middle-aged women, I guess. Perhaps that means more adsense clicks?

    But seriously, if you search african violets in Google and look at all the first couple of links, they seem like they're ten years old. I don't want to underestimate them, though. That's what I did with my deals website. I thought it would be way easier until I found all these established deal sites with big communities. It seems very niche, though. I don't know if that means it'll be good or bad.

    I think I'll still work on my deal website, but I might open up an african violet site, also.
     
    kelp, Oct 1, 2005 IP
  17. marketjunction

    marketjunction Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    3,779
    Likes Received:
    187
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    183
    #17
    There is nothing wrong with wanting to make money lol

    Also, there is nothing wrong with calling a site what it is--as long as you can do better. If you are concerned about other people's feelings, just say that the websites in general don't appear to be beyond your ability.

    As far as traffic goes, it is it is quality that counts, not numbers. You could go buy some forced view ads for next to nothing, get 1000s of hits per day, and not make one cent.

    As to the houseplant, I would ask these questions to start with:

    1. How many people buy houseplants annually?
    2. How popular is the African Violet?
    3. What is my angle to make money from this information (IE will I see the plants, be an authority type site, or simple a traffic director).
    4. Is the estimate revenue worth my time.

    If you don't want to dive into industry research, simply looking up the number of people looking for these items on say Overture can provide you with a clue.

    There is no law saying you must run one website. A better plan might be to open up a few, water them and see what grows.
     
    marketjunction, Oct 1, 2005 IP
  18. soul-healer

    soul-healer Peon

    Messages:
    1,459
    Likes Received:
    145
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #18
    I want to add few thoughts of mine as i am seeking market place myself for my new born site, things i learn so far i want to share might helps you.

    As the time passes and domain industry is growing day by day competition is also increasing but as the competition increases your audience is also increasing hear come the credibility of the site, a person who buy deals online in my opinion is well educated by internet and knows well which site is credible and from where he should purchase. For this comes the marketing point how well you market your site for this few suggestions:

    1. Starts Threads on forums (which you did) keep threads alive.
    2. Start Blog manage them this will them ranking in google in term of keywords.
    3. Yahoo/MSN groups is a good source where consumer most likely to listen to live person msg rather than believing a website prewritten content.

    The Point is make credibility they people when research for your site want to see that how many people used to buy deals from the site they will see alot of forums threads, group messages and blog that are discussing about the deals that purchased from your site.

    Don’t scared of the competition make sure that your site is credible in terms when some searches for your site they found alot of discussion regarding your site on different sites. This give consumer a confidence and he/she is willing to buy if they say that many people already discussing it that the human psychology in my opinion.

    Few last words all i said is based on my experience, i am still learning from gurus here on DP forums if i said some thing wrong please correct me. I really want to learn and will improve myself.

    Regards
     
    soul-healer, Oct 2, 2005 IP
  19. kelp

    kelp Peon

    Messages:
    306
    Likes Received:
    1
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #19
    African Violets seem to be extremely popular these days and it seems like it's growing. They have a magazine dedicated to it. It seems very niche gathering around 15,000 searches a month. I don't think a CPM affiliate would fair well an african violet site, maybe just adsense.

    One way I received my some of my unique visitors that return, I'd spam in disguise some computer hardware forums posting a thread "Should I buy this <insertproductname>, the rebates and coupons make the price $40 less than newegg's price" and I'd link to my site that offers the site with the lower priced product. Of course, I'd post 5 posts to give back to that community.

    Do you think I'm thinking too ahead about an African Violets website? Should I try to stabilitize my deals site first?
     
    kelp, Oct 2, 2005 IP
  20. marketjunction

    marketjunction Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    3,779
    Likes Received:
    187
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    183
    #20
    Generally, if you have to ask about whether you should do a business or not, it means you need to do more research.

    Write down your findings on paper. If you are trying to decide which of two ideas to devote the majority of your time to, do a side by side comparison.

    As to the industry growing as the Internet growing, yes it does daily, but so does the brand and grip of the top players in that particular industry.

    I am not one to condone spamming anything. I don't care for people who just post spams in a community--while contributing nothing. Perhaps a better way is to actually get involved in the community.

    You really have to look at your profit points and levels with each business. Sometimes a smaller piece of a large market is much better than a large piece of a small market.
     
    marketjunction, Oct 2, 2005 IP