Popular Search Engines That Don't Charge For Listings

[Brother Ivey]

Hi,
Are there any good SE's beside Yahoo and Google that will list sites like in the old days - with no fees. I'm getting some traffic from Yahoo and Google but it's pretty sparse, eventhough my site ranks very well on both for some very good keyword phrases. My current advertising budget is around zero dollars so adwords and overture and any other PPC programs are out of the question.

Any suggestions on driving traffic on a very low budget would be most welcomed.

Thanks in advance,
Bro. Ivey

[cbp]

All the search engines will list you without paying. You just need good links for them to find you.

Have you submitted to Directories?

CBP

[Brother Ivey]

CBP,
I have submitted to directories and SE's. I even paid submission-pro.com $90 to submit my site about 3 months ago- lot of good that did. I'm working hard to secure links to other sites, but as you know, that's a long process. From what I understand, if a site is not submitted directly to a SE, it could take years for their spiders to locate said site.
If continuing to pursue links is the key than I will have to work harder at it.

Bro. Ivey

[cbp]

Submission services may try to convince you that it takes a long time for a crawler based SE (eg Google, Inktomi etc) to find you without submitting. But thats not true. I have never known Google to take longer than a month to find and index a new site (usually it quicker) providing there are links to the site.

I have not submitted a new site to search engines for greater than a year.

CBP

[Brother Ivey]

CBP,

The submission company actually did submit my site, but it was as if they either only submitted to 2 or 3 of the 17 that they claimed to or the rest just ignored the submission. Looking back at the email I received, it says they would send monthly updates about the supposed submissions they are making on my behalf. Haven't had an email since the intial one months ago. Time to drop them a message.

Bro. Ivey

[Conficio]

Hi Brother Ivey,
I must congratulate you to your web-site. It looks clean and easy and you offer great pictures to identify the merchandise. I bet your customers do like this.

For my personal taste the site is a little too plain and clean. I'd like some great fishing pictures, instead of a ticking clock. But this is just my opinion and I'm not a fly fisher at all. Try to solicit some opinions from your customers.

I'd also suggest, you go for lots of content. Pamper your visitors with reports of current conditions of fishing places, reports from successful fishing trips, bragging about the biggest catch (with photo proof off course), unusual catches (something not expected in a particular area), places were fishing isn't what it was in the old times, places that improved after being out of favor, exotic places to go fishing, etc. I bet your visitors will like these and regard you as a trusted source. As well as w/o your effort people will link to your stories, from their web-sites.

And keep in touch with your customers (and other interested parties), via a news-letter. Have them sign up and send them the new stories together with the weekly / monthly offer. Remember, it is much less effort to get an existing customer to buy again, then to win a new customer. And send your link partners the news-letter too, so they know why they link to you.

I'm also missing some more aggressive selling. Today your Weekly special is empty and the section is hard to find anyway (see first paragraph). Give it another color, so it pop's out at you (red or orange).

My last but not least point is your unique selling proposition. You need to make clear to your visitor, why he should buy from you and not from another shop/web-site. Is it price, quality, service, personal attention, experience, free shipping, speed of delivery, ... ? This helps a lot to convert a visitor to a customer.

I know I'm off topic with your question, but I believe you are better served with some Marketing 101, then with a strait answer to your question. If you are looking for many tips to Marketing on a shoe string, read Conrad Levinson's books about Guerrilla Marketing.

Happy fishing

K<o>

[Brother Ivey]

Hi Conficio,
Thanks for the post. Actually, I've been practically begging people in the fly fishing newsgroups to give me ideas for what content they expect on a fly fishing site. Unfortunately, I got railed and accused of spamming because my site is retail (there was no mention of products in my post). Your suggestions are well received and reinforce the goals I've set for my site. Collecting the content I need is proving to be a challenge. I agree there is a lot of wide open space which I hope to fill soon. But I guess when you plant a seed, you can't have a tree the next day.
I'll keep hunting for content daily and eventually I'll have a content rich site.

As for my sales copy, it's non-existent and I probably will need help developing it. Writing is diffently not my strong point.
I guess the best way to tackle this project is one step at a time. I get overwhelmed when I look at everything at once - quite discouraging.

Thanks again,
Bro. Ivey

[Conficio]

Hi Brother Ivey,
I wish you luck and the energy it needs to get a business off the ground.

I understand you are working on a tight (zero is very tight) budget. Tab into resources that are free (or paid for by well wishing people or the society at large)!

Have you heard of SCORE - Counselors to America's Small Business? They are a group of retired executives, that are eager and willing to help small businesses. They work closely with SBA - the small business administration.

I'm sure you can make an appointment (if you are situated in the US) and find some experienced fellow who can critic your sales copy and help you through the process of using it and refining it. They also can help you in many other ways.

My prejudice would be, that many of them are not too versed in the Internet. But this might be totally wrong. However sales is the same on-line or off-line, so I see not harm there, unless you spoil the communication by pointing to the Internet too much.

I wish you the biggest catch imaginable.

K<o>

[ecobo]

Hi Brother Ivey!
Your site is nice. As a fisherman myself I do realy like it. But I think you need some good fishing photos on your home page or a taking header. Go on my site and take free fishing photos. Good luck!

[Brother Ivey]

Hi Conficio,
I heard about SCORE years ago, but it never came to mind while creating my business. I will diffently check into them today. This is a great idea! Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

Have a GREAT day!
Bro. Ivey