Visitors yes, listings nooooo

[guillopuig]

Hey Damiun;

I might be an oddball when it comes to working on the page, codes, and most of the things you guys now a lot about, but i do know a bit or two about marketing.

Ive managed to get 3,300 visits in just 16 days. The average time on the page is about 5:08 and the pages/visit is 8 with a total of 25K page views.

I would be more than glad to give you some pointers if you need.

let me know.

[damiun]

@guillopuig

Its not the visitors (i started the counter last monday (its almost friday now) and i had 7502 visitors,
So its not the visitors whats the problem, its the no placing lisings....

Seymourjames pointed out a few tips and for me to improve and i am working on that,

And i think marketing is different in certain countries,
My goal is to get people from google,
So my entire site is seo optimized, incl. the forum and soonm also the selfservice helpdesk.

And my site has for 98 percent pretty urls so i am happy with my site and like i said, its not the visitors, its the lack of listings

[guillopuig]

A couple of things I did to improve the posting of ads:

1. Asked all my friends and family to post some ads- People usually will only post to pages that are already busy. If they see little to no ads they will assume the page is not effective.

2. Visit the local real estate association and offered them the service. They in turn emailed all the realtors belonging to that association.

3. Create Flyers and distribute them to local businesses offering the free service.

4. Have a couple of clients give you testimonials about the effectiveness of your page AND POST THEM IN THE HOME PAGE on a place where they are easily viewed by visitors.

5. Offer some sort of statistics, like: published ads ion our page often receive X amount of views per day, etc...

Its all about creativity.

I've done many more things... but the trick to this is show them why they should post.

[Lhotch]

Originally Posted by damiun

And my site has for 98 percent pretty urls so i am happy with my site and like i said, its not the visitors, its the lack of listings

I beg to differ, it is about visitors. Your conversion rate is horrible likely because the people visiting your site have no incentive to place an ad OR they are simply not the proper audience for your site.

Relying on google for the majority of your traffic is a recipe for disaster.

[damiun]

@Lhotch,

I think its comlicated because i think kinda the same as you but the visitors went to the site after they heard about the site via our flyer promotion, which was clear.

I held a small questionnaire ans asked a few question and it became clear that people dont place a listing because the site is too small.
And i think it is a good goal to focus allso on google...

[Lhotch]

Originally Posted by damiun

And i think it is a good goal to focus allso on google...

The problem with this logic is that everyone else thinks that way too so you are always in a struggle trying to keep or get search engine placement which if you ask me is a waste of time.

Secondly you then tie your success to the fickle beast known as google. Putting all your eggs in one basket is a bad idea but its your site, think and do what you please.

[guillopuig]

I too concur with Larry... You need content on the page. Therefore, get everyone you can to post 2 or 3 ads... Once you have content, visitors will start posting.

Also, after just optimizing a little, the content on the site will help you score better on google.

PLACE AS MANY ADS AS YOU CAN.

[seymourjames]

The site contains content and is very nicely put together. Using google or not is a question of marketing strategy and that is all. Some sites need search engine traffic and some don't. It depends on what you are doing.

The reality is this - PERCEIVED VALUE = ADS

What you need to discover is what value are you offering and to whom. Then how do you communicate that value to your buyers and sellers by whatever means is available to you and is cost effective.

Think of it like this. You own the market place. Why will people want to pitch stalls in your market place and why will people want to come to your market place to take a look around. If you tell me it is because people wish to support charities then my opinion is that this is a weak strategy. Sellers want to sell and buyers want value (whatever that is). The result is just extra - get to the core - you got 100,000 hits a day from buyers and advertisers will bite your hands off. That is the name of the game - that is why it is expensive to advertise on television as compared to the local newspaper.