Well I hope I am not beating a dead horse. I have an understand how to build up a regular site but now this seems a little special. Any tips on marketing an auction site? It's the second link in my sig. I want real sellers and buyers and not digg traffic or something like that. I have spent the last 2 months really building it up. Now I need to start making an extra push. Maybe this will yield a little something. I am racking my brain, and I am not trying to build pr or anything. I just want to get lots and lots of eyes and interest in this site. People (anyone) can buy or sell anything from web domains to leather jackets. It's all free but now the hard part is connecting with all those people. Anyways, let me know what you think. Adam
Well, there are a few different routes you can take and they will vary largely based on what kind of budget you have. If you don't have a budget, I would try and push this using traditional online marketing and link building methods. Do press releases, link building, etc... Social media might be an option, but your site doesn't really lend itself to the social media/web2.0 crowd. The better option would be if you have enough of a budget to do some real paid advertising. I'd start small with Yahoo Search Marketing's pay per click ads. They are easier to use and convert better than AdWords for this kind of thing. Also, you might want to run a contest or something, but either way you're going to have a tough time stealing customers from eBay. They have the best system out there period. Even Yahoo Auctions didn't stand a chance against eBay. Good luck with your site, but you are going to have to do a lot more than just put up yet another generic auction site to find success.
OK, fews ideas are below: 1. Forget about dig and other social network sites, as you can see yourself they generate a lot of traffic, not sales. 2. Think about creating special actions or niche-oriented auctions. Create pages rich with keywords. 3. Use article marketing (can use my email in signature as a guide) to drive targeted visitors. 4. Track your results. With this algorithm people will not only visit your site, but would use it. I'm sure someone will be happy to link to your niche-oriented pages and recommend it to other. In this way you will have traffic and links in a natural ways.
Thanks for giving me some ideas. I am doing the best I can and it's always nice to do some additional brainstorming with some DP'ers. I will keep ticking a long working on articles.
Another option might be advertising or a free press release in the written media, like (local)newspapers, and related magazines.
I have been working on everyone's suggestions plus some other ideas and I have to say everything is going very well. My traffic is about 300-800 hits a day, 1300 hits UV from May 1-8. So things are on the up and up. Another thing i am trying to do is bring in different sellers. I am trying to lure in people that sell SEO stuff, domains, eBooks or anything else. I want a well rounded auction house. How would I go about marketing to these people?