Visitors yes, listings nooooo

[damiun +]

Hi,

My site does have a lot of visitors , around 150 a day,
But hardly anybody places a listing.

Are their people out there with the same problem, or had the same problem. Or you just have some tips for me?

Because I really dont know how to do it anymore,
I have a greate templatecodes layout, pretty urls, pretty listing layout, livehelp, and i have a counter on the homepage which indicates which visitor you are, if you go to my website you can see which visitor you are.

I created the counter less than a week ago (to check see my earlier post about php including)

I have a google analystics account and this are the numbers from the rapport:

Bouncingrate: 86,01%
Average time on website: 00:01:56
page per visit: 2,47
new visitors: 70,36%

Redirected by:
other websites: 77,41%
none; direct url: 21,45%
Search engines: 1,14%

Pages visited:
Index : 42,94%
login.php?goto=usercheckout.php : 3,64%
...

Dominick - Damiun.nl

[Lhotch +]

You need to ask yourself the question "Why would anyone place an ad on my site?"

David and I have mentioned over and over on the forums, there is a LOT more to a successful site than bells and whistles. Your site itself is actual just a small fraction of whats needed for the site to be successful.

[shanedawg +]

Originally Posted by damiun

Bouncingrate: 86,01%
Average time on website: 00:01:56
page per visit: 2,47
new visitors: 70,36%

Redirected by:
other websites: 77,41%
none; direct url: 21,45%
Search engines: 1,14%

You have a high bounce rate, visitors don't view many pages per visit, 70% of your visitors are new visitors. Only 1% of your visitors are finding your site with search engines. All of these figures tell me that people just happen to be stumbling onto your site and/or clicking on your links out of curiosity. Once they get there, they find that it is not what they are looking for.

I don't know what your marketing strategy has been so far, but it sounds like it may not be targeted enough on the right audience.

Shane

[damiun +]

@Lhotch

"People would place a listing because A. they can add one for free, B they are helping charities, and C. their listing will be seen a lot of times.

And what can i do more to make my site succesful, the design is easy to understand, to join is easy, i am marketing it offline as well as online (via hyves, a kind of dutch facebookish thing)

@shanedawg

21,45% land on my page because of direct url, and i think that's because of my offline marketing. My marketing strategy is to promote a site which help charities where people can place an listing, they dont pay extra for the fact they are helping charities. I am targeting at the young families (flyers, posters at 25 supermarkets) and at the general audience by newspaper ads. (2 A5 page ads in 2 different newspapers)


And i am analysing competitors for the right keywords and description to get a higher google position

[Chaslie +]

You need to ask yourself the question "Why would anyone place an ad on my site?"

Couldn't agree more. That's what it's all about. Perhaps concentrate on given those who you would like to add a listing a better reason to do so than the promise that ex dollars goes to charity. If a site has ambitions to plough funds into charaties, that's great but that wont give me a reason to advertise at that site. I'll only advertise at that site if I think my goods/services will result in a sale. After that, if profits are going to charities, this 'may' engender loyality with some but certainly not all. Rather than concentrate on the charities, concentrate on what is required to get happy paying customers.

[Lhotch +]

Originally Posted by damiun

@Lhotch

"People would place a listing because A. they can add one for free, B they are helping charities, and C. their listing will be seen a lot of times.

Seen a lot of time? 150 hits a day is nothing. Since no one is placing ads, I think its safe to say you what you think are good reasons arent good enough.

[bowers01 +]

personally myslef i would place an ad on a site with only 10 ads.
Try and find someone to put on a few ads(local stores/businesses)

[damiun +]

Thanks to all,
From next week i'll start with a business promotion action so local business can create a store and get 20 listings for free. Hoping to have move listings, more listings means people will stay longer to browse them and i hope people will place an listing...

Thanks again,
Dominick

p.s. SEO book costs 300 usd a month, it takes a couple of months to learn..... i think its quite expensive (the value is high, yes ok, but the price is also high)

[seymourjames +]

Go and talk to people - take a laptop if you have one. Find some nice customers and get them to place adds. Emailing people and phoning them is never as good as "pressing the flesh". Find some dealers with 20 or 30 items to advertise. Estate agents, car dealers, etc,

[freeze2 +]

I'm not sure how large your target area is, but if you are focusing on a smaller trading area you can get creative and turn your classified site into a community portal. Some beneficial site ideas would be incorporating a business directory, job market, local weather, events and news.

Work it hard