How should I spend our cash?

I have a directory findtheneedle .co.uk

It has just started to hit profit and I want to know how best to spend our hard earned cash! (obviously a holiday would be nice but..........)

The way the directory works at the moment is:

We offer a company by telephone a six week free trial on the site with a premium listing, after 6 weeks we then try to persuade them to pay us money to continue for a year.

I do not want just hits to the homepage, I want hits to the companies that are paying us money and free trials that potentially will pay us money.

I am considering a google adwords campaign.

Spend x amount between 10 companies on a free trial. And then x amount on the ones that sign up for a year.

Any other ideas or is adwords the way forward?

 

Try the pixel hype. These homepages are making very traffic due to mouth-to-mouth buzz.

If the Million Dollar Page is very expensive for you ($100 minimum) try the www.million-cent-homepage.com You can have your 10x10 pixel ad from $1 I've used with 2 of my sites.

Good luck with your promotion

 

I've seen those they are a bit gimicky, its not clicks I'm after, but genuine traffic.

 

This is a tough one. One of your customers may make
widgets. What you need to do is to persuade people that are looking for widgets to look for widgets on your directory
rather than Google.

What is your edge over Google? Local coverage for local
widget makers? If so local print, direct mail, billboards, etc.

I think it is going to be hard for you to use internet ads
to get your directry going, though that is how Google
started.

 

I'm not trying to outdo google.

Its not a local directory.

Paper advertising is no good - I do not want just hits to the homepage I need hits to the actual companies listings (I cannot put on a billboard go to findtheneedle.co.uk/listing.aspx?company_id=12345)

People are looking for a widget, they type that into google or whichever search engine. The companies entry on our directory comes up they then contact that company and tell them they found them via findtheneedle.

 

Try studio traffic. give you some free traffic and money also.

 

I see this happening lately. I go to google and look for
dual-flanged widgets, since I am into the rare and unusual.
Only a few pages are found and most of them are not
dual-flanged widget manufacturers, but directories of companies, one of which makes dual flanged-widgets.

Then, even more bizarre, a couple of the pages will be from
web sites that did a search on Google for dual-flanged widgets
and put the results on their web page.

Of course, not so bizarre, it is a simple way to get content,
and therefore traffic, and display google-ads to the masses.

Now this is the point. This might be a clever way to generate
content and traffic, but it is worse than useless to me, since
I can search Google myself and get more relevant results,
since Google is going to be more current than they are.

So I am sure that Google and his sisters are working on a
way to eliminate these useless results. This may damage
your web page if you are not careful.

best regards
wiz

 

This statement is in direct conflict with the rest of your post.

In addition, according to the Google design principles, the reason a manufacturer would rank highly in the SERPS is due to all of those directories linking to them.

This is true.

I would combine this strategy with using an AdSense tracker or AdSense URL channels to determine which pages on your site are making the most revenue for you.

Odds are that 1% of your pages are making 20% of your revenue. Focus on those.

 

Lets says you are looking for a blue widget

Yes my directory has details of the blue widget

Yes you could have gone straight to company A that makes the blue widget

But my directory has details of 5 companies that sell blue widgets, you may then get quotes from all of them, or find out who has the best blue widget

You then want to buy an orange widget and comany A does not sell it, but one of the other companies on my directory does.

Add my directory to your favourites, next time you are looking for a widget, go there first instead of trawling through google??????

From all of your post I don't know if anyones actually looked at my site too closely, I don't make money from adsense in fact there are no banners no adverts or any click thru money making systems.

The site has over 100,000 companies basic details.

A few hundred paying us a yearly fee to have a full enhanced listing

So I know who are the ones I want more traffic to.

I'm just trying to work out how best to do it to individual pages and I am thinking adwords is the only sensible route?

 

Yah, sure......

er get of the crack and then post, once you can decide if Google has relevant results or useless results!!!

 

http://findtheneedle.co.uk/latest_showcase.aspx
Not a very good page title

Either is this one -

Nice spamming.

People, view the html and also do a ctrl-a on the home page (or any page) - notice the tiny text at the top?

He's stuffing keywords into H1 and alt tags as well.
To make it worse, your H1 tags are hidden text.

h1 {font-family: Verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1px; color: #FFFFFF;

I hope google find you and punish you.
Might go report it myself.

 

I've had loads of differences of opinion on the SEO on my site, from brilliant to awful, can never get anyone to decide and don't think there is a definitive answer, know one really really knows how google works apart from google (and even they probably don't know.

All I know is, before SEO we were no where in google

After SEO we perform well.

I am sure some titles etc could be improved upon, but is not where I'm at, as you can see fromt he original qestion which no one has answered yet!!!

 

why would anyone want to answer your question?

You're using illegal black hat techniques to manipulate the search engines.

Well you've been caught now. And google will be finding out shortly, if they haven't already.

And don't bother deleting all that stuff now, its too late. Google has cached versions of your site

Spam report successfully submitted

Thank you for submitting this information. Your report has been received and will be investigated.
We appreciate your help in improving the quality of our search results.

 

What a pleasant chap you are.

I come to this site for some help and advice and what do I get?

I am not an internet expert and don't claim to be, I paid someone to SEO my site and you are now telling me it is illegal, no one else has ever told me this, how am I meant to know?

The only way I can know is by coming to places like this to be attacked by idiots like you!!!

 

ok then

 

Ok then what?

 

You're in the wrong here, not me

And Im certain others will back me up when they see this thread.

Nothing more to say here.

 

How am I in the wrong?

I employ someone to SEO my site - if what you say is true - is it not them that are in the wrong?

What have I ever done to upset you, what is your problem?

Oh yes, are you a cricket fan?

 

It's your site, you should employ ethical people.

And no, I hate cricket.