Desperately Trying to Promote

[luckydesign]

Hey guys and gals, I've got a HUGE project I've been working on for a while, and I could use some suggestions on what I should do Animator's Dream dot com is the site I'm promoting, you can read my full story there. I've done everything I can to promote it :

-emailed 500 web businesses for sponsorship (and I've got another 1700 nz emails of businesses) the emails were VERY hard to get
-Posted a digg tread Digg - Young kiwi wants to reach his dream
-added Google keywords
-registered with the Google database
-emailed 5 student magazines in New Zealand asking them if they can publish my stories
-posted links on my blog, forum and website

What else could I do? Any help would be FANTASTIC! Thanks!

[luckydesign]

I can't seem to find the edit button for some reason, so here's some updates
-added google adsence
-blog so people will think I'm a real person
-applied to Jayed.com and the Indie coffee house
-added alexa personal address , phone and such
There must be something big I'm missing! Any suggestions would be very helpful
edit:looks like i can edit the reply tho. Another question is I REALLY wanna make it more live, at the same time have it easily accessible. So far I've got 3 swfs set on flash player 6 so a lot more people can see them. Do you think i should add more and make it more interactive or stick with this?

[ctabuk]

From a SEO point of view, your keywords are 'all over the place' -What Brittney Spears has to do with getting you to Canada is neither here nor there. Simply place your real name along with 'animation student seeking sponsorship' Nothing else - scrap the rest.

Use your real name and that discription I have provided you with and blog it about.

I would try Flats to rent London, jobs in London, flatshare, free classified ads UK or the New Zealand equivelent.

Forum - Mods note - I originally quarantined this thread - but Chris and I (Chris in WPW admin) worked together for this young man and decided that here is an honest young guy looking for a hand. I wish him well - but those tags

[luckydesign]

haha I used google keyword generator to get the most popular searches XD Whatever drives traffic hehe
Well New Zealand only has 4 mil people, so it's not nearly as high as the UK. Advertising here costs a lot, unless it's a local paper, but only up to a thousand people would read it. My Marketing lecturer is trying to get me into pro design, a NZ payed mag, so if that pulls off I might get 10,000 view. I'm still not sure weather to target donators or sponsorors... 30000 donators = 10000+- sponsors
I still havent sent out emails to the massive bulk of nz firms I have in a document, I'm just not sure how to reword it so that it doesn't look like spam haha

Updates
-posted on craig's list
-posted on gumtree.com Young kiwi artist wants to reach his dream Artists theatre London
-ADDED A THANK YOU PAGE
THANK YOU!

[ctabuk]

Well I'll give you ten out of ten for originality - but making keywords that are hugely popular without a page title based on them is a bit like putting an ash tray on a formula one race car. Fix those tags

[luckydesign]

okay fixed, and the thank you page doesnt work for some reason, while i fix it the swf's at http://animatorsdream.com/thankyou.swf
submited to
- ezinearticles.com ( pending approval)
-reddit search: animators dream (reddit.com)
-stumbleupon.com
-posted a journal on my art blog SA . Animator's Dream/BIG project YOU can help with
another question haha, are requests pageviews?
reffering to this

I think I'm doing pretty good

[seostew]

Originally Posted by luckydesign

okay fixed, and the thank you page doesnt work for some reason, while i fix it the swf's at http://animatorsdream.com/thankyou.swf
submited to
- ezinearticles.com ( pending approval)
-reddit search: animators dream (reddit.com)
-stumbleupon.com
-posted a journal on my art blog SA . Animator's Dream/BIG project YOU can help with
another question haha, are requests pageviews?
reffering to this

I think I'm doing pretty good

Throw Google Analytics on your site. It is free, and much better than these stats. Sounds like some of those things you are doing are on track. You don't say on the homepage what your dream is. What is it? What are the relevant terms that you want to show up for? The "keywords" section of the Meta tags is useless and can actually hurt you if you put too many. Put your terms in your title, limit it though. Also include them in the text content talking about your dream.

I would take the ad space solicitation down for now until you can enough traffic to the site to even ask for it. You have an attractive site. Good luck!

[luckydesign]

Okay, I removed the google ads, and put up analytics However I found out that Dreamhost has been counting my emails as spam because they're over 50 which is their limit I think. I emailed customer support, so I hope the give me a bigger limit

[seostew]

Originally Posted by luckydesign

Okay, I removed the google ads, and put up analytics However I found out that Dreamhost has been counting my emails as spam because they're over 50 which is their limit I think. I emailed customer support, so I hope the give me a bigger limit

Adsense would be the least of the offenders. The big gaping hole saying "Help me Help you" is what I was talking about.

[luckydesign]

Originally Posted by seostew

Adsense would be the least of the offenders. The big gaping hole saying "Help me Help you" is what I was talking about.

I'm not removing that, that's half the site! I just got my first company on it , they bought 4 spaces

[ctabuk]

I suggest you use gmail for your e-mails - play the Google game -if you need an invite let me know.

[luckydesign]

google game? And yep, i could use one, do they limit their mail sending?

[seostew]

Originally Posted by luckydesign

I'm not removing that, that's half the site! I just got my first company on it , they bought 4 spaces

Wow. Sounds like you are really building some buzz. Good job. Can you point me at one of your news articles? I want to know your story. I checked your blog, but I still don't know your goals. 30K US? This is fascinating.

[seostew]

Originally Posted by luckydesign

google game? And yep, i could use one, do they limit their mail sending?

You get 3000 meg of space (and going up) and can send emails with attachments of up to 20 meg.

Neil

[luckydesign]

Originally Posted by seostew

Wow. Sounds like you are really building some buzz. Good job. Can you point me at one of your news articles? I want to know your story. I checked your blog, but I still don't know your goals. 30K US? This is fascinating.

Well it costs 30,000 US for 3 years at the cheapest professional animation school in Canada, I did a LOT of research to try and figure out the best place. I want to go to Canada because I want to be able to study AND work in a professional environment. I worked at Flux, an animation studio for about 5-6 months when I was 16 as a flash animator so you can imagine how much competition there is around here. There are two big animation studios in the country, and that's just not enough for me :P I want competition, I want excitement!
Also I want to meet one of my animation heroes Bobby Chiu, who's motivated me enough to believe in myself and that its more about how much work you put into it rather than how much talent you were born with. I set up an Auckland sketchbook following his Torronto sketchbook group where I get together with other people and we sketch on the streets of Auckland! It's great fun You've read the rest of the story from my story page, but yeah I want to reach my dreams and northing's gonna stop me :]
Right now I'm on a scholarship for a graphic design school, so because I don't owe any money to the government right now, this is the best time to be working on my project !

Originally Posted by seostew

You get 3000 meg of space (and going up) and can send emails with attachments of up to 20 meg.

Neil

Well my host gives me unlimited size limits, well up to 20 gb that is :P I'm on dreamhost , it never disappoints me

[luckydesign]

Does anyone know any other places I could advertise? I cant seem to find any new free places. I'm prepared to invest some cash into it as long as it pays off, maybe I could offer a free $20 animation book every month
edit: oh and I changed the update list to a .xml list for a faster upload

[seostew]

Originally Posted by luckydesign

Well it costs 30,000 US for 3 years at the cheapest professional animation school in Canada, I did a LOT of research to try and figure out the best place. I want to go to Canada because I want to be able to study AND work in a professional environment. I worked at Flux, an animation studio for about 5-6 months when I was 16 as a flash animator so you can imagine how much competition there is around here. There are two big animation studios in the country, and that's just not enough for me :P I want competition, I want excitement!
Also I want to meet one of my animation heroes Bobby Chiu, who's motivated me enough to believe in myself and that its more about how much work you put into it rather than how much talent you were born with. I set up an Auckland sketchbook following his Torronto sketchbook group where I get together with other people and we sketch on the streets of Auckland! It's great fun You've read the rest of the story from my story page, but yeah I want to reach my dreams and northing's gonna stop me :]
Right now I'm on a scholarship for a graphic design school, so because I don't owe any money to the government right now, this is the best time to be working on my project !




Well my host gives me unlimited size limits, well up to 20 gb that is :P I'm on dreamhost , it never disappoints me

I understand now. That is a great dream. I used to recruit 3D animators here in Dallas, and we found many of them through Craigslist.org. In 1999, when the animation company made the Fox TV movie The Night of Headless Horseman and Master P's 3D animated music video Soujas , they got many of their animators from the Canadian school you spoke of. They used to be the only place that offered an excellent program. Now they get many from Art Institutes because they are closer. I wish you all the luck in the world for your dream. I think you will make it.

[luckydesign]

me to
Next sunday I'll be doing portraits in the mall and I'll put up a huge banner with markers and my site on it. That should bring some traffic I'll post some pics up