Website promotion of a budget. Where are the deals?

April 24, 2006 6:33 PM

I've got two nickles to rub together, and like Charlie Bucket with a sweaty dollar coin going out to win the golden ticket, I too am looking for the ultimate bang for my website marketing buck.

So my question to you fellow mefi's is: what's the best deal out there for someone with limited funds, say $20-30, to promote a website?

posted by rinkjustice to Computers & Internet (17 answers total)

Depends entirely on your audience.

If it's a website that you're attempting to promote to everyone and anyone, your strategy will be significantly different from a niche market site, or a site that's very regional (say, a plumbing contractor.)

So who's your audience?
posted by davejay at 6:35 PM on April 24, 2006

I think you need to answer davejay before we can get too much farther here, but what about MeFi Projects?
posted by danb at 6:36 PM on April 24, 2006

Response by poster: Good point davejay. My market is anyone who wants to get in shape and even pack on some muscle, but the writing style and theme caters to the teen to thirtysomething age bracket.
posted by rinkjustice at 6:39 PM on April 24, 2006

Post to Craigslist, saying that you have $20 to give to a person that will give you the best answer about promoting your site. Be specific in the posting, but don't list the web site and it won't be spam.

Consider your $20 market research or beer money for a college student.
posted by bh at 6:41 PM on April 24, 2006

I assume this is a product that can be sold and shipped, then, rather than a regional thing like a health club? Again, that's the kind of info we need -- not the product itself, necessarily, but who you're selling to.

One more question: do you intend to make money through sales of a product, or by selling ads seen by site visitors?

sorry, all need to know info
posted by davejay at 6:42 PM on April 24, 2006

Response by poster: damb: the MeFi projects was done, and I was happily surprised at the volume of traffic.

P.S. I've been a Slashdot addict for years (98?) and I really didn't get "out much", so I was surprised at the popularity of MetaFilter, a website I hadn't even heard of until this year!
posted by rinkjustice at 6:45 PM on April 24, 2006

Is it something regional? Facebook has near total penetration of the college market, and you can run sidebar ads ("flyers") at individual schools for pretty cheap. The prices vary somewhat but it seems to be about 2500 views for $5.
posted by danb at 6:45 PM on April 24, 2006

Response by poster: davejay: One more question and I'm going to prostitute my website on MetaFilter! I mean it!

I'm selling an ebook via the site, and this is where I hope to generate revenue from (Google Adsense and Clickbank are a joke quite frankly).
posted by rinkjustice at 6:51 PM on April 24, 2006

In case it isn't obvious, the website is in his profile team.
posted by onalark at 9:45 PM on April 24, 2006

oddly enough I've seen that website twice. This time, and the last time this question was asked.

Also, maybe this time, too.
posted by fishfucker at 9:50 PM on April 24, 2006

Response by poster: It's a different question, and it may be a tiresome question to ask, but I'm sure others over time will find the answers as useful as I will.

But I feel you on this one fish. It's getting kinda lame and I won't ask this type of question again. Promise
posted by rinkjustice at 10:25 PM on April 24, 2006

I'd post this to MetaTalk but that would just get you more traffic. But I can't quite decide what category pseudo-repetitious spamesque groundwork would come under. Noise? Self Link? hmm...a dilemma.

I recommend looking here in the archives with intelligent search terms and then taking that offsite to a search engine for the internet. I could only think that there are a trillion site promotion ebook friendly, 'look at me' wow production and public masturbation assistant sites around. Go forth.
posted by peacay at 5:39 AM on April 25, 2006

Response by poster: I'll just use "promotion+ebook+friendly+'look at me'+wow+production+public+masturbation+assistant+site" as my search keywords.

Should come up with something good.
posted by rinkjustice at 10:30 AM on April 25, 2006

What you should do is put some actual, useful articles on your site that don't all end with asking people to buy the ebook. I don't know what crap 'e-marketing' books you've been reading, but that whole big-headline-and-emphasis format is really annoying -- you might as well be starting with "Dear Friend". Focus first on producing something useful, before you assault the reader with all that crap.
posted by reklaw at 10:40 AM on April 25, 2006

Consider the long-term benefits of your short term tactic ie. don't promote your site until it is optimized for search engine traffic. Once your site is optimized (links, content, keywords, usability etc.) then you stand a better chance of getting found and staying found in search engines and get more bang for the traffic generated by your $20
=> run a google search on SEO (search engine optimization) and/or read the free articles on my site.

Do the free stuff first: submit your site to google (site submit, google local and google base) and to yahoo ('suggest a site'). then submit to the free online directories. Participate in online discussions; position yourself as an expert (if you are an expert), use an email signature and link to your site. Try google adwords with a low daily budget and finely targeted ads. Request links from complementary businesses. Be generous. Write content that is sharp, solves people's problems, and is written in such a way that a site visitor will want to tell their friends. Have a newsletter, 'bookmark this site', 'email this article to a friend'.

Learn from your competitors. Look at their html metatags as an indication of what might work for your business. Run a test in google...type 'site:yourcompetitorsURL.com' to see how many pages are indexed then do the same for links 'link:yourcompetitorsURL.com' to check their links - request links from these place.

Monitor where your site traffic comes from then deploy your marketing dollars to the tactics that work best.

Good luck !
posted by johoney at 11:13 AM on April 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

Point taken, rink. Good luck with the business.
posted by fishfucker at 11:26 AM on April 25, 2006

Response by poster: reklaw: I usually listen to hard rock music when I work on the site, which comes out in the writing. I'm trying to project energy and urgency, but I guess some (like yourself) find it annoying. Maybe I need to tweak the angle I've been using... make it more comic book style perhaps (whatever that means).

As for the article content? My stuff is useful. People have told me so.

Thanks for your input reklaw and everyone else!
posted by rinkjustice at 2:26 PM on April 25, 2006