How do I market a new website

mr0bojangles

Hi everyone,

My friends and I have just launched a website called ratemytradesman.ie (rmt.ie) I guess it came about because they work in various trades and with the way things are going they wanted an online presence to improve business. I was asked to come on board because I'm involved in a few businesses and have experience in getting things off the ground. My problem is I have no experience with web based business so I'm really feeling my way in the dark here

The site itself is pretty self explanatory- a good old fashioned rate my site, but there is also a forum dedicated to FÁS apprentices that I'm excited about.

I was just wondering if anyone has any advice on how to promote and market start up websites. Also if anyone wants to take a look at the site I'm open to all constructive criticism. Again I feel like a duck out of water so if you have any advice please let me know.

Thanks

MrLuke

I discovered this myself last night;

http://website.grader.com/

It rates your site and gives some SEO suggestions. I'm also in the process of setting up a blog and trying to teach myself all this as I go and I found some useful tips in there on areas I'm lacking.

Interesting idea for a site btw. The firms listed under the 'Hall of Shame' dont seem to have any rateing is that by default or have they been rated at Zero? If its the former there maybe some annoyed companies unintentionally topping the hall of shame who shouldnt be!

As for marketing the site; your going to have to build up content to ensure that a visitor gets 'value' form the visit. You want to be hitting the same media that those seeking the services are; maybe small ad's in classified listings both online and offline with a creative/funny message so the ad doesnt look 'cheap' but clever.

Hit up local media for coverage, certainly local papers may print press releases. Look for both tradespeople to put up their service (its free advertising for them after all) and the public to review such services.

Get a website badge that the tradesman can download for their own site to promote their ranking/listing. After all nothing beats word of mouth and if a tradesman service gets a good rating they will want to promote it.

Look where the trades people & their customers look and see how you can get them to your site.

L1m1tless

Maybe ad some better keywords in your meta tags for a start.
your current ones are
tradesman builder carpenter electrician plumber plasterer trade build

You need to think what would people looking for a site like this type into a search engine?

"Reccomended plumbers" for example. you need to seperate the key words with a comma also

Getting links to your site is also a must. The OP had a great idea of having tradesmen put a link to your sit on theirs.

caminowebmaster

I think you have your work cut out. I market websites for a living and a first glance at your sites has me wondering how I would do it - and I don't have any easy answers.

Some sites need to get to a certain size to take off - like this forum - but getting there can be hard. It seems like it might be a good idea to think about offline marketing as well as online.

Not much help I know - but not all websites end up making money.

Edit - just watching TV while writing this and saw an an for gotomypc.ie - I think this product is a great idea and it is web based, though I would have no idea how to market it online - seems like they also think that way.

Robert Cooper

Go to 3r.ie.

Peter Lawless is the guy who runs this business - he's a major sales & marketing guru and has a real handle on SEO. Lets put it this way - I've met tons of web designers, etc but type in their major business discipline into Google and you don't find them on Page 1!

Type in sales and marketing and 3r is no1. I would suggest he's your man.

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

Drop me a PM with your email address and i'll send you a comprehensive guide from an industry authority that i was given recently. It'll be really helpful getting you off the starting blocks.

george007

Have a look at this site , www.bluetoothadvertising.ie . I had a man that called into my shop selling this . It basically sends a picture message to a persons phone within a 100m range . It looks very good . He is only starting it out and is doing the following deal in Dubln . For €100.oo you get 1 month advertising on the unit ( which has been installed into a taxi or he has another one in a shopping centre ) . You are also put on his website www.bestdublindeals.com . Seems to be great value for money

MrLuke

One of the things with bluetooth (and mobile)marketing is the relevance and timeing of the message being sent. A lot of consumers are protective of their phone and see it as a very personal medium. With that any unsolicited messages are seen as 'spam' and in turn associate this negativity with the company/brand advertising. So while it might seem cheap, this could backfire on the company associated with it. I've done a bit of research in this area and I have yet to find an independent study that indicates more than 1 in 11 people like unsolicited messages to their phone. Something to bear in mind.

piardog

Put a link to you website in all your posts! And post to every related forum

george007

I had a look on the Net about the Bluetooth Advertising , There seems to be more Companys using it . EG , Boots , VUE , Dundrum Shopping Centre , Jervis street

MrLuke

george007 wrote: »

I had a look on the Net about the Bluetooth Advertising , There seems to be more Companys using it . EG , Boots , VUE , Dundrum Shopping Centre , Jervis street

My point is if a message is sent out randomly to bluetooth enabled phones within the 100m radius how well targetted is the message?

I was about to write a 16,000 word thesis on the area (Mobile Marketing) but as I said I couldnt find any independent research to support consumers actually want this type of marketing. Consumers want targetted, relevent and solicited messages via mobile (if any mobile messages at all). This is kind of what I'm sure Vue, Boots & Dundrum are doing by offering promotions to customers actually within their premises as opposed to randomly sending messages out to mobile phones around Dublin.

I dont doubt more companies are going to be using it, but in this situation, to promote a website, I think there's better forms of advertising out there.

george007

The way I see it is a new way of advertising . He said that when the unit is running it will say on your phone " Do you want to accept a message from www.bestdublindeals.com" . So if you say yes you will get the customers add and also if they log onto www.bestdublindeals.com you will see more information about the customer . I have also read about the test that Jervis Street done and they were getting up to 40% acceptance

MrLuke

Fair enough. But I bet Jervis are promoting something within Jervis and as I said any independent academic research I have read regarding mobile marketing points to it being an annoyance for consumers, unless - its targeted, relevent & solicited.

What your talking about is the equivilant to mobile spamming of people who come with 100m. Its lazy marketing and gives people reasons to be pi**ed off with marketers.

blue4ever

MrLuke wrote: »

My point is if a message is sent out randomly to bluetooth enabled phones within the 100m radius how well targetted is the message?

I was about to write a 16,000 word thesis on the area (Mobile Marketing) but as I said I couldnt find any independent research to support consumers actually want this type of marketing. Consumers want targetted, relevent and solicited messages via mobile (if any mobile messages at all). This is kind of what I'm sure Vue, Boots & Dundrum are doing by offering promotions to customers actually within their premises as opposed to randomly sending messages out to mobile phones around Dublin.

I dont doubt more companies are going to be using it, but in this situation, to promote a website, I think there's better forms of advertising out there.

Mr Luke is correct- it's all about 'permission based marketing' not spamming on the phone - 40% acceptance means that 40% of the people accepted to open and read the message - but what the fcuk did they do then - possibly cursed the €2 store that sent it out. Bluetooth, as an intrusive messing medium, is done/cooked. Bluetooth as a permission accepted medium has yet to reach its potential.

Huge amount of Europe wide music festivals use Bluetooth (by consent of the phone owner) on site to communicate with the punters, giving them maps, schedule updates, medical advice, unique downloads, video replay etc - mega in that respect - and all the messages received are sponsored. Ching Ching.

CamperMan

caminowebmaster wrote: »

I think you have your work cut out. I market websites for a living and a first glance at your sites has me wondering how I would do it - and I don't have any easy answers.

Some sites need to get to a certain size to take off - like this forum - but getting there can be hard. It seems like it might be a good idea to think about offline marketing as well as online.

Not much help I know - but not all websites end up making money.

.

if you market websites for a living, and you were wondering how to do it (the OP's site), you should have an easy answer!!


I have managed sites for years and consistently got my clients sites ranked on the first page of Google & Yahoo... no matter what their site is about.... I have had sites go from a few hundred visits a month to thousands a day, simply using search engines and no other method of advertising...

d-arke

Online Advertising?!

Tav

Fancy Dresser wrote: »

Drop me a PM with your email address and i'll send you a comprehensive guide from an industry authority that i was given recently. It'll be really helpful getting you off the starting blocks.

Hi Fancy Dresses,

Would you send the same thing to me as well?
(Don't want to spam inbox not invited to )

Tav

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

@Tav

Sure that offer is open to anyone here on the board that wants the knowledge. PM me e-mail addresses and i'll send it to who ever wants it.

Joey the lips

mr0bojangles wrote: »

Hi everyone,

My friends and I have just launched a website called ratemytradesman.ie (rmt.ie) I guess it came about because they work in various trades and with the way things are going they wanted an online presence to improve business. I was asked to come on board because I'm involved in a few businesses and have experience in getting things off the ground. My problem is I have no experience with web based business so I'm really feeling my way in the dark here

The site itself is pretty self explanatory- a good old fashioned rate my site, but there is also a forum dedicated to FÁS apprentices that I'm excited about.

I was just wondering if anyone has any advice on how to promote and market start up websites. Also if anyone wants to take a look at the site I'm open to all constructive criticism. Again I feel like a duck out of water so if you have any advice please let me know.

Thanks

Hi your effectivly rating it now but what you could also consider is

1. Speak to you supplier who set up the site. S/he will explain how it works on key word searches.

2. Despite the net most people still use the trad book and a lot stack books in a triangle config thats why golden pages has launched a local edit. So contact these and place an add in each trades man section, Plumbers, Electricians etc.

Lastly. Use evey form of adver avail. Produce tee shirts and get trades men to wear them. Assure them that it will bestow confidence in clients whno see them rated.

piardog

Put the name of your website on the sides of Dublin Buses!

Cringer

I think an important thing to note here is that although various devices are promoting a distance of 100m to send out messages, the end user still has to opt in to receive these messages, effectively narrowing down this 100m range. Having taken an interest in this as a marketing tool for my own business, I looked some more into it.

I spoke to a company before about implementing this who have done some work with car dealers and Subways around Dublin using location based advertising (not aff) and I spoke with them about this 100m range. The guy I spoke with said that people have to be close enough to the device to opt in. The phone pushes back a message to the device to say "Yes I want to receive the message", so essentially the phone has to have the power to throw back the opt in message, and from what he says, most phones on the market have the power to send a signal 10-12 metres in range, which would make the 100 metre claim useless.

I guess its a fair point... I use my bluetooth headset and I know if I left my phone lying down on a table, I certainly wouldnt be able to have a conversation with the headset bluetoothed to the phone 100 metres away!

It's refreshing to hear from companies that don't try to hard sell you, and also to give you the honest facts about claims, particularly in this current climate.

Anyone ever pull Tesco's up on their "If we price it wrong we give it to you for free?" Almost weekly my local tesco's make a mistake on their pricing, but ALWAYS refund me the price I paid for it AND i get to keep the goods. It's happened on several €9.99 bottles of wine, and once on a €20 box of wine. They get to keep my custom... for now.