Alright, so i've got my web hosting and web development company established... it has been doing okay the last few months. However, I want to put in the time and effort into expanding it further. So far, my marketing strategy has almost totally relied on word of mouth. Like I said, thats fine, but I want to find other avenues to bring in people. Web hosting is a competitive market, almost everyone and their dog is offering it. The difference is, I am taking it quite seriously and trying to do it the right way. I am not overselling terribly like some of the kids who offer "too good to be true" packages. Anyhow, I haven't done Adwords because I am not experienced enough with it to really do it right I don't think. I found that much larger companies had much larger budgets as well... which meant for the more common keywords I am required to pay much more to get a single visitor. I've thought about using a directory submission service, but most people say that that doesn't really generate traffic. My current average is 25 unique visitors per day with 35% staying more than 30 seconds. EDIT: I also want to add that I am already advertising in several forums, including here at DP. Any opinions on how to possibly double this?
Spend some money on submissions to strong directories. You can find them in many member's signatures.
Directories are good for long term, which is something you want to do eventually. It will help a little bit for SEO (not much) and can bring in SOME traffic. You might want to hit up some web 2.0 sites though. Write some *great* articles on choosing the right host or something of that sort and start posting them on web2.0 sites, big ones. Squidoo would be a good one to start with. Make sure it's keyword rich, and you have a link to your hosting site at the bottom of the article.
Do you offer free transfer for existing websites? If not, that will get you more business. If so, PM me with details.
Sure, I think thats what seperates me from other hosts is I am willing to take the time to help out customers whereas other huge companies are unable to do so.