Marketing Dilemma for a Web Business

lacantina · #1 (**permalink**) 04-03-2006, 10:23 AM

Ciao everyone,

We’ve got to a point in our development and growth as a web business where we’re faced with a marketing strategy dilemma….

We’ve made enough of a profit to start investing some good money in core marketing activities, however which one??

These are the options we believe are best for us:

1. A high PR link from the Yahoo Directory (costs $250 a year right?) to greatly improve our natural search rankings and hence reduce our PPC spend

2. Banner Advertising on a targeted set of sites visited by our core audience (6 week campaign on 3-4 sites)

3. Offline Promotion – Flyering (Design plus distribution costs), press ads

4. Site improvements (in site search engine, site redesign)

We can only afford one of the above unfortunately and we’re really stuck as to which one to go for…! If you could share your experiences on the pros/cons of the above for a web business, it would greatly help us make a decision.

Thanks for you help!

lacantina

PS
link to our site is in my sig below...

sdrury · #2 (**permalink**) 04-06-2006, 06:59 PM

I provide web solutions to small/medium sized companies - and invariably tell them the same: you can never exhaust your options with organic marketing.

Pay a professional to improve your site, re-optimise it and conduct a link campaign. Create some fizz about your business through viral marketing - strive for constant improvement with your site. At the end of the day with PPC campaigns etc the only quick business fix is the marketing company taking money out of your hands.

Purely my perspective you understand !

Steve.

send2paul · #3 (**permalink**) 04-06-2006, 07:37 PM

For serious investment purposes?.... Yahoo Directory...

The Yahoo fee doesn’t guarantee insertion in the Yahoo directory. Payment gets someone from Yahoo!'s editorial staff to review your website, and to mull over your proposal to incorporate your website in their Yahoo directory, and to reply to you promptly. They will add or deny your website from the directory at this point.

If your website is denied inclusion in the Yahoo directory, you have the right to appeal and/or make changes to your website, (in a given timeframe), and you will be able to re-submit your website without paying an additional fee. If your website is accepted, you'll be charged the same annual fee the following year to keep your website in the Yahoo! directory.

Yahoo! has the Number 1 Alexa ranking. Yahoo gets more traffic than any other site on the Web. This is why you should have a Yahoo directory listing.

Being listed in Yahoo's elite, hand-picked directory is one of the top methods to ensure that Google's (Alexa rating = 5) crawls and picks up your website home page quickly. A link from Yahoo! will also improve your Google page rank. Eventually, Google will find your website, but if you want heaps of traffic quickly, a Yahoo! listing would be your best choice.

The other options in your list could still be done - web redesign, SEO - reasonably cheaply - if you have a friend who can help you out with it.
Offline promotion - unless you have a shop/premises where people can come and see the goods - isn't usually that effective.

You may also want to start a blog - linked to your website - that can also attract traffic.

I hope that helps a little in your decision making :)

Jeff Colburn · #4 (**permalink**) 04-06-2006, 11:48 PM

Hi,

Take a look at the list of articles on my site. There are several that talk about promotion, including "Website Promotion In A Nutshell." You can find my articles here http://www.creativecauldron.com/Webs...Articles.shtml

Have Fun,
Jeff

lacantina · #5 (**permalink**) 04-08-2006, 08:44 AM

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies!

I had no idea though that after paying $250, you are not even guaranteed to be listed in the Yahoo Directory...that raises a few concerns...

Therefore it looks like we should first concentrate on improving the quality of our site, to make sure we do indeed get accepted...!

So this brings me to my next point, the issues with our site. We have excessively slow loading times due to heavy graphics and messy HTML. We'd optimise these ourselves, but with so many other things to worry about (making the music, promoting the site etc.), don't have the time...!

How much do you reckon it would cost to get a web designer to optimise ALL the graphics and HTML on our site in order to make all our pages load in an acceptable amount of time? We need to get an idea of costs, as we currently cannot afford to spend more than $250 - $300...

Thanks again guys!

sdrury · #6 (**permalink**) 04-14-2006, 07:45 AM

I would suggest that site loading time essentially comes down to the server allocation from your host - might be worth discussing this with them.

Jeff Colburn · #7 (**permalink**) 04-14-2006, 10:18 PM

Hi,

Take a look at my article "Slow Loading Pages" at http://www.creativecauldron.com/webs...icleSlow.shtml and you'll see just how important it is to have fast loading pages.

As for the cost to optimize your graphics, you really don't have very many graphis. Your budget should easily cover the cost. Let me know if you would like me to do this for you.

Have Fun,
Jeff

lacantina · #8 (**permalink**) 04-15-2006, 07:28 AM

Hi Jeff, thanks for the offer. Would you be willing to tidy up our HTML as well?

If so, send us a quote to info @ lacantinaproductions.com

lacantina

etechsupport · #9 (**permalink**) 04-15-2006, 08:39 AM

I would suggest to redesign your site giving it a professional look and making it appealing too.

Entrpr · #10 (**permalink**) 04-17-2006, 05:54 AM

Cantina,

besides the design part, which is important, I second the yahoo directory listing. It doesnt guarantee but if you get that, things will naturally fall into place with abit of external link network building. Basically, Its a great place to start.

I'd also get off my ass on alternate days/weeks to do targeted offline marketing because nothing beats the finesse of social touches.

lacantina · #11 (**permalink**) 04-17-2006, 02:31 PM

Thanks for your comment entrpr. However, wouldn't it make more sense to tidy up our site before submitting to the Yahoo directory?

And btw, do you guys think we'd get accpeted the way we are? What are some reasons for which we could be rejected?

As for the offline side, we do already quite a bit of pr at hip hop events. But we'd like to invest in more "serious" activites such as press ads, flyers etc. but can't afford to do that, AND, submit to the yahoo directory. So it's not that we're lazy, just too poor to do both at the moment..! ;)