Hello. I am looking for some advice on marketing my auction website, websitebids.net ... I have paid some money to have someone do some basic SEO for me thus far.. Is worth spending more money on having someone market the site? What else can i do to be more cost effective? I need more exposure.. just don't know where to go from here.. I started by offering users from DP advertizing banner space in exchange for their signing up.. How can i get authentic signups when the site looks dead to start?? I also realize that sites do take time to increase in popularity.. the waiting process is frustrating.. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks. Tim
Nice site bro, I love how it looks. It really does look like you just need some exposure to get things going... Have you tried running an Adwords campaign and going for some keywords? Sitepoint, website auctions, site auctions, etc. Check what keywords you're paying for that SEO guy to target and try doing an Adwords campaign for now to gain some traffic. This might sound a little wacky, but write an article about how WebsiteBids is better than Sitepoint or Digitalpoint for both setting up a site for auction and for buying one. If you flat out say that Sitepoint sucks / DP's marketplace sucks around here, you will get guaranteed traffic. You'll really shine if you can come up with a solid argument as to why people should switch over to WebsiteBids, though. And of course, you can run paid ads on selected sites for traffic. That's a given...try the idea above this one.
Thanks for the advice Ikaruga! I will try to put an argument together as you mentioned.. may i PM you down the road for further input? I always welcome the input of others.. T.
you can buy directory submission too at cheap rates on dp . Their are many webmasters on dp do websites buying and selling business .If site placed on bids on your website is your place them on digitalpoint for sale and when anyone show interest for further information you can provide you site link with details too .
Where do i go to ask for directory submission on DP? is there a specific moderator to ask?? Some direction would be much appreciated. Thanks. T.
I think that the two most powerful methods of getting traffic are generally article marketing and PPC. Article marketing works great for SEO (depending on the popularity of the site that you submit articles to), as well as driving people to your site directly from an author's bio link, etc. I can think of a few article themes for your site (which is cool, by the way). You could write about when it's a good time to put a site up for sale/auction, how to build a site for auctioning off, what to look for when purchasing a good website. These are all topics that would be pretty popular (I think) and would probably get you a bunch of traffic and biz.
I can totally sympathise - I have created a website along a similar theme at webchalkboard.com. It's been running about 6 months now and I've found I don't have the time needed to really promote it. You could try and buddy up with some people in the industry and get some exposure in forums - I guess like you are doing, but also banner ads on forums - I know people ignore them a lot of the time, but forum users are probably your/my target audience really... Perhaps we should swap links as well! I know we're supposed competition but I'm sure we could benefit from a bit of mutual visitor swapping. PM me if you'd interested. ps. I just tried signing up and the number of fields I had to fill in was a little off putting - Perhaps you should mark which ones are required... I tried to submit a form without a postcode and telelphone number and it didn't work and then I had to re fill out the email addresses and image confirmation, which is a bit annoying... Just a userability thing, don't want to put people off straight away
post in the following forums and you will definitely get the ball rolling: digital point wickedfire sitepoint the warrior forum just post your url and some sort of a presentation of your services in the appropriate sections, of course
Thanks for your replies everyone! Reverse, i hear you.. i will see if i can indicate which fields are not necessary to fill out.. easy IS better! and yes i wouldn't mind swapping links with you! A coordinating working relationship is better than competition.. PM me your banner link and i will add it.. once i receive your PM, i will send you mine ok? Tonyab, Ikaruga, i have taken your advice and have taken the time to write an article to submit and pass along to social networking sites.. i hope to see some sort of benefit! Let's see what happens shall we? Thanks again and if there is anything else to be suggested, i am listening! Tim.
Here is my article.. will be submitting shortly.. I submitted to digg.com and referred the story to this link: http://www.websitebids.net/content_pages.php?page=news&topic_id=47 May i get some input please? Tim