Hello lordcyberdotcom,
It sounds like you've already started submitting to the main search
engines and other venues the online guides recommend, so I'll just
include some links for that at the end of my response. What's
important to you is getting the attention of people who are interested
in what you have to offer them. For the purpose of particulars, I'm
going to assume that the site you're referring to is lordcyber.com,
but even if it's not the same ideas apply.
Most business is done through relationships, and there's probably
nowhere that's more true than the Internet. At lordcyber.com you're
providing a service and a community to people with a technical focus
interested in learning more about their profession or trying to
undersand a new concept. You also provide something fairly unique in
this industry with several hours worth of video content. So, you know
your market and you have something different to offer them...but you
don't have any way for people to find out about you. To get that,
you're going to need partners who offer complementary content or
services - people in your industry who attract the same market, but
don't have the content offering you can provide.
Your "competition" already has the traffic - the people searching for
what you provide have had to go somewhere up to now. You need to
identify those sites with the most traffic and content relevant to
your own (you know the industry better than I do, and I think it's
beyond the scope of the question for me to find the best online
education sites on the net), and approach them with a proposal share
things you have to offer: your content, advertising space,
recommendations and links in exchange for the same types of things on
their site. Why would they do this? Because you have some very rich
content that they don't have, you're offering them a reciprocal deal
that may even be sweetened for them in terms of the amount of exposure
on your own site, and maybe even some kind of exclusivity within the
subject section on your site. E.g. only post ads for
4guysfromrolla.com in the VB.NET section of your site. In your case,
you may even be able to integrate your content with their existing
site and just share revenues with them on the donations they accept
for the training. This may be more appealing to larger operations, and
is easier on you in administrative costs as well as technology costs.
Remember that your silver bullet is the fact that you have something
to offer that's unique. If you're trying to enter an already flooded
market with a service that's already been done 100 times, then you
aren't attractive to the larger players, and you're just going to
troll for hits by hoping someone picks you up on the 6th page back on
a search engine. Many search networks, including Google, add the
number of linking sites to their search ranking criteria, so without
some help from places with high traffic and high visibility, it's
extremely hard to build up your own in the "mature" Internet
environment that exists today.
It takes guts to approach these companies with what you have to offer,
but message boards and clicking on search engine forms will never get
you real exposure. You've got to stick it out there and talk to real
people just like a real business and get yourself noticed.
And now for the links:
Google's Directory listing on website promotion
http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Promotion/?tc=1
Yahoo's Version
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_Web/Site_Announcement_and_Promotion/
There should be more than enough submission and directory listings
there to keep you busy with the free and commercial options listed on
these two sites.
I hope this helps. Please let me know if I can clarify anything for
you.
boxcar |
Clarification of Answer by
boxcar-ga
on
23 May 2002 13:23 PDT
Hi lordcyberdotcom,
If you want to increase by 10 hits, then keep doing what you're doing
with the free listings and postings - you'll get what you pay for. I
think tlspiegel has done a good job laying some of these options out
for you as well. If you are trying to make this site a success, then
don't you think you need to work at it a little bit? There is no holy
grail that will get 10 more people every day to come look at what you
have to offer, and there's definitely not a free one. You have to
compete for people's attention, and just being out there on the web
doesn't entitle you to that.
I think I was also quite specific in what you should do: go identify
the major players in each of the technologies that you offer training
in, talk to them, and try to work some kind of partnering arrangement
out. You're going to get a lot more than 10 hits if you're on a site
with thousands of visitors every day.
Good luck with it lordcyber.
boxcar
|
