Traffic Generation

[Member88 +]

Hi,
I'm new to this but have experience in sales and marketing. I was just wondering what other people are doing to drive traffic to their site and what seems to work best.

I notice just about everybody offering "All Ads Free" for at least a limited time if not permanently. But how are you getting surfers to your site to know you're offering free ads in the first place? Also, what's your method of generating cash flow if ads are free?

I read the other posts about using a press release but I'm having a bit of a problem coming up with a newsworthy hook to get it published.

Has anyone tried telemarketing to sell ads on their site? If so, how did it work out? I think carsoup.com is doing a great job with television cable advertising (reaches a large audience quickly) but I don't have quite that big of a budget for this project yet.

In the spirit of giving back I'll offer the following low cost promotional system. Have printed or print on your computer business card sized ads highlighting the best features on your site. (I printed my ads on plain paper. I then took this to the local copy shop and made copies on Astrobrite paper and paid a few bucks to have them cut them for me. Only 8 cents per sheet of 8 ads. Much cheaper then actual business cards!) I post a few at a time on bulletin boards in local markets, cars I see for sale in people's yards, etc. Hope this helps .

.

[Lhotch +]

Classifieds site are a bit unlike other sites because we need ads to draw traffic and we need traffic to draw in ad poster. Lets face it no one wants to spend money to put an ad on a site no one sees and the reverse also holds true. No one wants to visit a site with no content.

So, in my opinion anyway the first nature of business should be to get your site in some search engines. Its paramount to have as many people link to your site as possible because most search engines use these links heavily to determine your sites worth and in turn its ranking.

One method of getting links is to find sites that compliment your own without competing and offer to exhancge links. Another method is to include a link to your website in the signature of posts you make on forums. Often times this is against the rules BUT if you wanted to push your luck, you could create a 1x1 pixel image and place that in your sig as a link. That way no one will notice it but the search engines will still see it as a link

As for making money, my goal is to have sponsors pay monthly dues. They will get unlimited free ads and a banner ad that rotates on the system. Of course before I can lure in sponsors I need to get some traffic, which means I need some ads, which will also help in the rankings.

I was planning an a direct mailer also to target certain businesses and offer them an unlimite number of ads for 90 days to help build content.

Locally we have a huge car show every month and my friend owns a performance shop. In the past he does some of the heavier work on my car and I set up his online store ets and help him with that kind of stuff. Usually a bunch of us friends and car nuts get together and all goto this 3 day show. We all have my friends shops windsheild banners and such and we line our radiator shrouds with his business cards for people to take. This year we will be using business cards with his info on one side and mine on the other.

Another thing to consider besides ads is additional content thats constantly updated. Something to help encourage people to come back. Sure they may not always want to buy something BUT if you furnish them with additional info to draw them back it will help. It can also help your rankings in search engines.

Right now I am in the process of adding some RSS feeds to my landing page and since my site targets ford/lincoln/murcury vehicles and parts I have kind of targetted the performance enthusiast so I plan to offer free related club and event listings.

[quickbiz +]

Originally Posted by Member88

Hi,
I'm new to this but have experience in sales and marketing. I was just wondering what other people are doing to drive traffic to their site and what seems to work best.

I notice just about everybody offering "All Ads Free" for at least a limited time if not permanently. But how are you getting surfers to your site to know you're offering free ads in the first place? Also, what's your method of generating cash flow if ads are free?

I read the other posts about using a press release but I'm having a bit of a problem coming up with a newsworthy hook to get it published.

Has anyone tried telemarketing to sell ads on their site? If so, how did it work out? I think carsoup.com is doing a great job with television cable advertising (reaches a large audience quickly) but I don't have quite that big of a budget for this project yet.

In the spirit of giving back I'll offer the following low cost promotional system. Have printed or print on your computer business card sized ads highlighting the best features on your site. (I printed my ads on plain paper. I then took this to the local copy shop and made copies on Astrobrite paper and paid a few bucks to have them cut them for me. Only 8 cents per sheet of 8 ads. Much cheaper then actual business cards!) I post a few at a time on bulletin boards in local markets, cars I see for sale in people's yards, etc. Hope this helps .

.

Hi

This will work.
I have copied about 5000 ads paper so far and are puting them in the mailboxes in my town and in villages around the town. Using google to now
Hard work but its working.

Regards

//Bosse

[civ +]

Also don't forget that with Google AdWords you can target geographically. We are targeting the 3 county area we serve with one of our sites. This allows you to target high-dollar keywords without spending big bucks because you are narrowing down the people to whom your ads will show.

[free2take +]

I found that dropping the site name/url into as many forums as you can also helps..

[Member88 +]

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and ideas so far.

Civ - I didn't know that bit about geographical targeting with AdWords, thanks.

Bosse - Glad it's working for you. Best of luck with it!

[zman78 +]

Hey everyone,
I am running a brand new classifieds ads site "first 100 ads free" at www.jamestownclassifieds.com . Since I am targeting a smaller geographic area, Jamestown, NY and surrounding towns, I have opted to start advertising my site on the local radio stations. I have a 3 month campaign mon - wed -fri //30 second commercial during the morning show///sponsored news//sponsored weather /// with all live reads by the dj's too. = 50 a week! Wish me luck...
I will report the progress to you.

Zack

[Lhotch +]

Thats a great price Zack, id probably give that a whirl if I could get it that cheap here.

[munky20]

that is an awesome price! maybe i should advertise in jamestown too lol... here in Memphis im sure radio advertising is up the arse. Im still gonna check into it though

[gregbatch +]

In my market, I couldn't even get one :30 spot for that.