One thing I love about DP is that you can go search for anything and everything here related to something about a website. I'm starting this thread to see if we can get a minicompilation together to help one another out. To start: I've marketed my various sites by using some of these techniques- -100+ directory submissions -140+ article directory submissions -Press releases -Traded links with webmasters in my various niches -Banner advertising on websites and forums that are relative to the site I'm promoting -At times I've made tshirts and bumperstickers to promote sites -forum signatures (my own and paid people to include mine in theirs) -Adwords to jump start several forums back in the day (complete waste of money) -Email signatures -and most importantly, in my view, i've included alot of unique content on my sites to drive, drive, DRIVE traffic from search engine result pages. How about you?
I think one of the most important marketing avenues is word of mouth. No advertising has greater value than one person suggesting a product or service to another.
Word of mouth definitely goes a long way. Using a ‘tell a friend’ script on your page can help with that, although it isn't suitable for all websites... Newsletter advertising is a great way to get traffic as well. Some newsletters have 1000's of members reading the newsletter regularly, and if it's directly related to your website content, they are likely to check out your site when it shows up in something they are reading.
You can use Moto's Method: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=55730&highlight=google+whore
Word of mouth is my strategy. If you build something that's better than anything else out there, or something completely new, people will spread the word for you.
My marketing strategies are: -Promote flash games on myspace - word of mouth, telling my friends. - Trading links with related sites. - Submitting site to directories. - Optimizing my site for better keywords. - Having a link to my site in my signatures.
You know, Shawn, I've got something under works right now that fits that bill All i'm going to say is that it's a "game" of sorts that webmasters play and is a take off on a very old, popular board game
I find a very good way of getting a site noticed is by building your own games and then giving them away to free gaming sites. Miniclip and Freeonlinegames do it and then stats are just rallying. I was planning on doing the same thing, but I just don't know where I can buy games from or where to get people to make them for me, and how much it is likely to cost per game.
However, just because it's free doesn't mean people will like it. Never try to give away crap for free, it just dissapoints people. Junk, ok maybe, cause it's free... But if it's really CRAP, then you won't be making much headway.
"-Adwords to jump start several forums back in the day (complete waste of money)" Completely agree oh my!
Alot of people like games though. I have added free to play games on most of my sites. Just I would prefer if I was making my own games a giving them away.
I'm planning on getting people to sign up to my newsletter by offering over 500 free ebooks to the first 200 subscribers. Soon I'm going to start link trading and eventually I'm going to start a few PPC campaigns.
I was actually amazed when I found out that miniclip was giving away free games just a month ago - but then realised how much pull potential this free offering was! Miniclip keeps all branding rights when they distribute their games... The interesting thing is how they monetize their traffic. You will find that the some games that are constantly in the top 10 have "add ons", full versions or more features added on for a price. Very smart marketing to get traffic to their site!
Thats what I want to do. I want to market games like Miniclip. I had a little money when I wanted to do it a few months ago, but I have now put the money into another part of the site. As I don't know how to programme games, I don't really know where I can get some programmers from that will do it for me for some money. I have tried learning it myself, but it is near impossible when trying to update and improve my current sites.
Try those websites that offer contracting out work. The concept is that you write down a description of what you want, people make offers for it, you iinspect the offers and then contract someone to complete the job. I forgot what the URLs are but if someone may enlighten us with the info that would be great.
Elance.com The best thing since sliced bread. They have every kind of freelancer you can imagine. I can't wait for the day I can afford to use some of the application and website programmers. Heck, even the professional sales copywriters who charge over $1,500 for 1 website sales letter that you just /know/ will convert given half a decent product you paid someone off elance to make. Pete
I have sometimes looks at them sort of sites, but never got round to putting down something as I think that I might aswells do it as it will take me longer trying to get someone than what it would take for me to actually do the job.
It's not that difficult John269: Elance looks complicated at first but it's really not. You could have your project brief posted up within half an hour with little effort. Then all you need to do is watch the bids come in from the freelancers and check out their past work and resumes and choose the one you think can do the job best for the price they're offering to do it for. The good thing is - once you have done a few deals like this over elance, you have direct contact with the freelancers via e-mail or instant messaging, and by using PayPal and direct contact it makes things so much easier in the future when you have more or similar work. Elance is a /very/ powerful out-sourcing tool. Well worth checking out. Pete