Advertizing new website

tameem

you need to submit your web to a lot of classified ads websites

competitionscafe

If your site is your username with .co.uk on the end then you are already indexed in Google with a pagerank (PR) of 2.

Your best bet is to get links from other relevant sites who are not direct competitors - get links slowly over time so that your backlinks increase in a natural way.

For low cost ads you can set a daily budget with Adwords, MSN etc - bid on very specific keyword phrases using exact match eg: [Thomas and Friends Alphabet Train] and seperate each group of keywords into seperate campaigns, using your keyword in the title and body of the ad. Make sure your destination url goes to the product page and not to your homepage. Track everything so you know which keywords convert and what your cost per conversion is.

There are sometimes offers of free adwords/msn credits for new accounts so you might even be able to start out for free. But set a daily spending limit to control costs.

Maybe do a little social media marketing too by setting up a twitter and facebook account. This will give you a link to your site too and you can offer exclusive discounts/offers to twitter and facebook users - even M&S does this.

You can get some good advice on online marketing and network with other small business owners at the UK business forums and they also allow a link to your site in your signature.
http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/

Be careful of where you are linked from - quality is far more important than quantity and some links may do you more harm than good if Google thinks they are spammy.

From an SEO point of view you need to have the product names eg: (My First Remote Control Thomas) in your page title of the relevant page - not just your site name.

From a 'customer' trust point of view I would add your trading name and a phone number to your site rather than just a contact us form. A nice personalised about us page would be good too.

Longer term you might consider an affiliate programme (see the site in my profile for UK affiliate networks) - this will also get you on cashback sites like topcashback, Quidco etc with access to their large membership bases.

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edit: doh! Just noticed the OP is from 29-06-2008. Tammeem why are you bumping up old threads with your generic replies?

DireStraits_2

There is no substitute for effort.
There is no easy way to do this.
Meta Keywords are not used by google
Meta Description & Title are much more important.
Pretty websites dont always make sales.

DO sign up for a Google Local Business Listing
DO get a XML sitemap
DO get a Google Webmaster account (submit sitemap!)

FreeIndex.com is a great site.
Findagoodone.com is a good site, may not be relevent?

Hotfrog, Gumtree, Vivastreet are worth a try

Be very careful when playing with PPC - you can spend a fortune and get nothing back!
Turn off content ads to start with. PLay when you understand more!
Limit geographical coverage - dont go nationwide, break it down (you'll understand why in due course)

You need to pick your keywords...carefully. They will ultimately be your salvation, although it takes time to reach this.
Each PPC ad needs to be focused to the keyword and to the content of the page its landing on (this improves your quality score and reduces the cost per click). Focus on 1-3 keywords max per page.
You will end up creating pages just for PPC stuff, dont fight it, just accept its part of the game and get on with it.
(I pay 40p for keywords I know others pay over £1 for)
It may not be relevent to create pages based on area (as I do - which helps me get top 5 rankings in google) .
PPC is like spinning plates, you have to keep refining until it works and then do more of that!

I generate 20-30 leads a month for about £40 spend. So this isnt theoretical waffle, its my real experience having started from scratch 12 months back.
My website is graphical naff, built from a template and costs me £8 a month all in btw, so looks & style arent everything !!

PS
Facebook PPC could be of interest to you - massive exposure and potential high costs for not much return. Apply Google PPC rules, limit areas, experiment first before going "big".

FrankieJ_2

If you sell any branded products, I would focus on these. In a competitive market place (which I assume toys are), most people searching the web are looking for a particular product rather that an blanket search term like "toys". So you need to ensure that need to have these in your meta description and titles.

I run a on-line jewellery web-site and have managed to get first page google exposure for all my branded items and my chosen search terms by ensuring I have got strong titles and descriptions.

I have been doing this for about 2 years and the resource I have used most on this subject is a book - "Search engine optimisation for Dummies"

digp

richt71 wrote: »

I agree with the above post. In addition I'd post an ad on craigslist wih your web address in it. Google likes criagslist. Also set-up a blog about your business. I'd also run an online press release ($19 via prweb.com). I'd consider making a video and uploading it to youtube with your url embedded into the video - use camtasia free trial.
If you have a offline shop change your reciepts to offering a discount if your customer registers on your website - you'll need an autoresponder to collect emails legally - aweber or getresponse work best.

how do you get prweb.com for $19

stevejjm

1) Do some social marketing. Websites such as facebook.com, squidoo.com and twitter.com are great websites with high social value.

2) Post videos at youtube.com that are relevant to your products, and put your link there. This may or may not work, but some webmasters has used this method with great success.