Launching A New Website

Bugatti

I'll be launching a new website in early November. The site is only for the Irish market. Just wondering how others have launched websites? Do you do it through adverting on Facebook and with Adwords? Use social media to spread the word? Would you have a launch party and/or press release?

Any other advice you might have too would be greatly appreciated!

thecommander

Is it a hobby site, a brochure site, or is it going to try to take on Amazon?
Very hard to give info without knowing what you do.

Bugatti

It's a review website. Sorry for being vague, just don't want to post to much details publicly just yet!

Graham

Bugatti wrote: »

It's a review website. Sorry for being vague, just don't want to post to much details publicly just yet!

You're really going to get nothing useful being so vague.

If your site is reviewing shoes & handbags Facebook might work. If your site is reviewing deep water oil drilling machinery Facebook probably wouldn't.

Bugatti

Yeah I know its hard to give advice when Im being so vague! If any wants me to PM them more details I can. Its a review website aimed solely at the Irish market and would be relevant/useful to just under 30% of the population.

I guess since it is vague could anyone tell me if they have any general experiences of launching Irish websites and if so how did they do it?

tricky D

Being so vague is counterproductive and sends signals of weakness. It's at the start phase that you need more eyes to scrutinise your operation. You are far more likely to get mistakes and flaws identified and new ideas suggested than some one ripping off your idea (which is really so very rare). Most ideas are rarely original or worth a load anyway, the trick for greater success is to execute them well. Have a Google for 'keeping your idea secret is a bad idea' for some articles on this. And forget the PM route as feedback from that mode will get poor scrutiny. As for launch ideas, they can be very specific as opposed to general depending on what market you are in, which you are not telling us. So give us good info and you'll more likely get good info back as opposed to GIGO.

candytog

Bugatti wrote: »

I'll be launching a new website in early November. The site is only for the Irish market. Just wondering how others have launched websites? Do you do it through adverting on Facebook and with Adwords? Use social media to spread the word? Would you have a launch party and/or press release?

Any other advice you might have too would be greatly appreciated!

Oh it's simple.

1. Start Facebook Page
2. Pretend to give away an ipad

That seems to work for many Irish websites...

thecommander

You should do advertising thru Facebook and Adwords, use social media to spread the word, have a launch party and press release. Generic answer for a generic request.

Brendan Flowers

Since its a review website a launch party would be a good idea if you could get a venue with some computers. Get those who attend the party to also contribute to the site!

You could also look into creating a viral video to post online when you are launching.

Cianos

Bugatti wrote: »

I'll be launching a new website in early November. The site is only for the Irish market. Just wondering how others have launched websites? Do you do it through adverting on Facebook and with Adwords? Use social media to spread the word? Would you have a launch party and/or press release?

Any other advice you might have too would be greatly appreciated!

This is really the same as asking "how should I market my business?". Without any details of the website it's pointless to answer I'm afraid! As others have said, the advice of others is much more valuable than protecting the idea.

connundrum

candytog wrote: »

Oh it's simple.

1. Start Facebook Page
2. Pretend to give away an ipad

That seems to work for many Irish websites...

I laughed out loud at first, then thought about it and came to the conclusion that this is probably a good idea.

You'll have 80,000 followers in no time. Trick is to keep them thereafter.

Graham

connundrum wrote: »

I laughed out loud at first, then thought about it and came to the conclusion that this is probably a good idea.

You'll have 80,000 followers in no time. Trick is to keep them thereafter.

If you get paid for facebook followers, that's a great way to launch a web business. If you're reviewing self-propelling shipping containers it's probably pointless. We just don't know because the OP is keeping it secret.

Dymo

Here's a quick synopsis

It's all about getting a bigger footprint in the www.

Sign up the social media sites to correspond to your website

Buy 10,000 facebook likes, but a couple of thousand twitter followers, it's all about impression, it doesn't matter if there real people are more inclined to take note if they can see numbers.

Give your site some maturity, people want to know that this is an established website, put an older date on some blog posts or reviews.

Get a good lead generator on your site, even if it takes time, make sure it's a good one.

Set up autoresponders over 12 months, it doesn't matter if there once a month.

Then a bit of work on some landing pages and squeeze pages.

Don't forget the A/B testing that will have to be done, no point in bringing people there unless you know what works best.

When you have all that locked down, then you might consider some Adwords to drive ads but be a bit smart about in, there not cheap but it's all about the keywords and you can check you analytics for this.

Facebook advertising not so much but deep links work best.

That's just a start but your well on your way.

mneylon

As others have said - without details it's very hard to give any proper advice.

It'll all come down to market / vertical

Who are you targetting?

How will it make money?

Who is going to write the reviews?

If your niche is very small then it's going to be a lot harder and bear in mind that no matter how big (or small) your niche is the Irish market is small compared to other countries in the EU

Royallyon

Bugatti wrote: »

I'll be launching a new website in early November. The site is only for the Irish market. Just wondering how others have launched websites? Do you do it through adverting on Facebook and with Adwords? Use social media to spread the word? Would you have a launch party and/or press release?

Any other advice you might have too would be greatly appreciated!

It's too hard to advise without knowing anything about the business or market etc. Divulge a little more info and no doubt you will get the best free advice there is