Need ideas where to start marketing

I am relaunching a site I built last summer, but then never spent much time promoting it aside from it being on digg one day. The site in question is http://squurl.com its an ajax domain search tool. Since I built mine, a couple other sites offering similar scripts have popped up (note we weren't the first to do this, ours is all unique code though).

So my questions are, lets say I had $100 to spend marketing the site, where should I start? Should I build a blog into it that would talk about domain tips, etc? Should I use my existing blog (not very popular yet) to discuss building it, should I build some widgets for people to interface w/it on their sites (think I'm going to do this already).

any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

The $100 i would spend on low cost pay per click site like clicksor.

The blog is good idea. The widgets is a good idea also. You could also use press releases for the site.

 

rcj,
do you mean press releases on prweb or something free?

 

Blog is a good idea and can help build traffic for the site. Your blog must have unique ,fresh content , and must be related to your site. And then submit your blog to social bookmarking site and used the signature to forums. Press releases and articles writing is the good way to promote your site.

 

U can also try adwords.

 

i am thinking a blog might not be the best idea here though, as there are maybe 5-10 articles i can think of ever writing on this topic, and it'd end up being a mostly dead blog.

problem with adwords is that i think the keywords I am likely to be bidding for are expensive, and I need cheap traffic

 

I say keep the 100$ and get down to the dirty work: post press releases, push your widget (it's useful and people will respond well) to webmaster-oriented sites through e-mail and forums.
This is of course slower than just bursting 100 bucks out but will grant you long-term results whereas ppc usually dies out in about a month (if you're lucky).

That's a nice site, anyway. Keep up the good work.

 

actually i think make a back links do more SEOs are better than spent 100$ on pay per click. those will give you long term customers like the previous said. or even use 100$ as a prize for some competition to make traffic for your site. just a thought.

 

You can spend this money on adbrite and advertise on relevant websites.

 

It means lower quality traffic though..

You can use adwords instead.. just bid less $$ (Their quality of traffic is better since they are more relevant to the site)

 

I find if you write some good content then email similar blogs in the field asking if they could either feature your work or link exchange you get a good response.

 

There are many marketing strategies that require zero investment, such as bum marketing and others, I would look into those first. Take a look at my signature file and you will see what I am talking about.

Good Luck!

Ivan

 

Blogs and articles are a good start, why not try using video also. I am now using this.

 

hey everyone, thanks for the interesting responses.
not sure if bumvertising is going to reach my target audience. the widget is definitely the next step we're building.

maybe if i split the money, try out adbrite a bit, and then buy some links here and there. whats a good place for buying links? text-link-ads?

 

so writing articles for other blogs is smarter than setting up my own blog with very little readership right?