Hello Gooders
As a website owner I understand the frustration at having a site and
wishing that more people would visit it. You have already overcome
the first hurdle in identifying you have a problem and have decided to
tackle it with more advertising which is a wise move for a commercial
site. I will try to highlight a few areas where you can get your site
more exposure, those marked with a (*) are ones I have had success
with, some are free and some will mean spending your budget.
Make your site useful (*)
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Make sure that your site offers information that other sites do not,
this will mean people will return and also recommend others.
Viral marketing (*)
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Give people an option on your site to tell others about your site.
Make it as easy as possible for people to recommend your site to
others by giving them a link to click on.
Increase the number of pages on your site (*)
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If your site has 50 pages full of searchable text you are likely to
get more hits than a site that has only 10. Remember also if the data
is pulled from a database that this may not be searchable by spiders,
provide static urls wherever possible.
email marketing (*)
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Do all the emails you send have the name and address of your email at
the bottom of the text? If not, change your email style to include
this you will be surprised at how many times emails are forwarded or
replied and exposure to your website address is what you are after
here. Many people click on links just to see what is there and the
site subconsiously sticks in their minds.
This method is free and one I would highly recommend just to increase
exposure. In a similar vein try to help people out by making
recommendations through online forums and newsgroups, each time you
make a post in one of these forums ensure that your website and email
are visible. A quick search on Google or in Google Groups will reveal
a number of possible places you could start to do this. Many people
are looking for quick and simple advice and you can provide this for
free. Another possibility is to start to host your own forum on your
website where you can answer questions.
If you send out newsletters ensure your site is clearly visible in the
text. If you don't send them out, why not? They are another good way
of getting past customers to revisit your site.
Similarly ensure that all of your marketing material and letters you
send to customers have your website address on them, it is sometimes
overlooked.
Search engine optimisation (*)
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Make sure you use the correct titles and descriptions in your website
code. Do not be afraid to experiment. You can discover the words
that people are using to find your site the most often by looking
through your web server log, these words should be targetted. If
their are obvious omissions from this list try to think why they are
missing.
Include the keyword on each page in the title and description.
Research by the Nielsen groups has shown that users were nearly 50%
more likely to click on listings in which the keyword was included in
both the title and description (this rose to 60% when the first word
was the keyword). Write titles and descriptions that are tailored,
clear and factual.
Avoid superlatives as users tend to view them with suspicion.
Remember simple things and avoid using & and 1,2 or 3 when you can use
and, one, two or three.
This is perhaps one of the areas that I would definitely spend some of
your budget on. Getting the keywords right ensures better placements
for free in the major search engines. I would also recommend finding
a qualified professional to do this and beware of the many offers on
the internet saying they can do this for you. You need to be involved
in this process as you are the person who knows the business best.
Alternative domain names (*)
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Your website name is not the easiest to remember for an english
speaking person (unless they have knowledge of french). This isn't a
criticism but merely notice that people may spell it wrong when
looking for it. Spend some of your budget on buying the spelling
mistakes of your domain and redirect visitors to the proper site. All
of the major websites catch their customers using this technique!
Search engines (*)
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As already alluded to if you have a good placement in the search
engines you will automatically get more visitors. Ensure that your
site is spidered by all the main search engines - Google, Yahoo,
Webcrawler, Altavista etc.
Magazines and traditional methods
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Advertising in magazines and newspapers is not as expensive as some
people think. Try to target travel magazines or magazines with travel
sections. Often magazines are looking for websites to review - try to
get on their lists for review by emailing or writing to the editors of
the magazines.
Traditional private ads or ads at the ends of magazines also work very
well but ensure that your domain name is again highly visible. Often
buying a few months adverts at a time will get you a discounted price
and do not be afraid to bargain with them by telling them this is your
first time as an advertiser to that magazine or publishing house.
Competitions (*)
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Everybody enjoys a freebie and if people have to visit your site to
get answers to a question or fill in a competition it means more
visitors to your site. Work closely with local newspapers or national
magazines to promote the competition (they like to give these things
away too as it gives their readers some interest). As you have a
budget why not try giving away a free weekend away? Magazines can
also build up your list of mailing list customers by collecting the
data of people who have entered the competition (just make sure you
abide by the Data Protection Act!).
Pop-up or Pop-under advertising
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Never use this as it just annoys users. Many software packages also
now block these by default and are not worth wasting your money on.
Google Adwords
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I have had some experience in this area in hosting of the adverts but
not in actually buying them for my site. Judging by the volume of
sites that host Google Adwords adverts you will increase the exposure
of your site but bear in mind you will be competing with other similar
sites for the same keywords. I would also favour this method of
exposure over the other online ad companies mainly because of the
Google name, the majority of surfers go directly to Google when
looking for something and it is then only a click away to your site.
https://adwords.google.com/select/success.html
https://adwords.google.com/select/comparison.html
https://adwords.google.com/select/advantages.html
https://adwords.google.com/select/index.html
Overture
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Overture have been around in a number of guises for years and have a
strong following in the advertising world. One of their main
strengths is the help they give you in targeting your visitors
something Google is a little lit upon in my opinion.
Overture Premium listings will also enable you to get exposure in the
MSN, Yahoo and Altavista search engines (although beware that
Microsoft are rumoured to be launching their own new search engine
shortly which may have differing advertising models).
http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/ac/oyr.jhtml
http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/ac/nl/sep03nao.jhtml?ref=ac
Ask Jeeves
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One of my favoured search engines has undergone a radical facelook
since it was first launched and is now in my opinion has a little too
much advertising on it so you are competing more and more to get to
the top of the list. As an advertiser I would prefer to see fewer
adverts on a page.
http://static.wc.ask.com/docs/advertise/paidinc/index.html
http://static.wc.ask.com/docs/advertise/advertising.html
http://static.wc.ask.com/docs/advertise/keymet.html
If possible try to discover what people search for on the different
search engines - for instance 16% of searches on Ask.com are for
travel information which may suggest it is better for a site like
yours.
If I was to recommend any online paid for advertising I would
recommend giving them all a trial first. See which one gives the best
results and which you find the easiest to deal with. Each has its own
foibles which may or may not be to your liking or your customers.
For all online advertisers remember these rules:
1) Premium Listings - get the most exposure you can for your money by
getting listed in the best sites.
2) Buy as many search terms as is relevant to your site.
3) Spend as much as you can afford but do not try to outbid people for
better placements if you think it is getting too expensive.
4) Ensure your site is ready to go and has the correct keywords set up
before buying any adverts
5) Make sure your site is available 24/7. Get a good webhost.
My final pieces of advice would be to ensure that whatever you decide
to do make sure you know how people got to your site.
Use tracking cookies or additions to your url that allow you to see
where the user came from. By doing this you will know what methods
have worked. If something does not work the first time, try it again
but tweak it a little bit first.
I hope this helps you decide how to spend your budget. If you have
any questions on this please ask for clarification and I will try my
best to help. |
