Advertising on a small budget....do these work?

earley15

Hi Lee - So does that mean I can put the product link in this code? Also you right about the front page and I will change that in the next couple of days.

Currently I have a full page advert in the england basketball news letter. Thats a good idea about sponsering the local team. I do currently have monsterkicks as a fan on facebook. So if you want to become fans of monsterkicks your more than welcome.

I use a website provider called webs.com and thats how I make my website.

paulwf

earley15 wrote: »

Don't worry I don't take anything as critcism. Defnitley some good points and I am working on a a new header. The problem of linking to the product, is that the code I am giving in the banners track whether anyone has come through my website. I would link to the actual product but dunno if this would affect the trackers as such.

There is defnitley a market for this. I am just trying to figure the best way of getting it across. Due to is being a small business I don't have the money to get the website how I want it yet. So currently can't search by product or price etc. But I hope to make it better the more the site develops.

A site I use a reasonable amount is http://www.bikepimp.co.uk/ . It is a price comparison search engine (different to listing each product like you do but a similar idea) for cyclists.

The guy who runs it is a web developer and spent a lot of time setting it up to integrate with the databases of each webshop featured...I know this as he integrated the shop I ran for a while. I imagine once that initial effort was put in not much weekly maintenance has to be done now as the site just crawls the database of each shop...nothing has to be manually updated. The site has had a few facelifts which must have required some effort but the general day to day running can't be much. The style is quite minimalist but that is because the site is centered around the search box, and its reputation has spread purely by recommendations on forums rather than advertising.

The reason I like it is that by crawling each shop database it is always up to date, and it links directly to each product. It doesn't have to use some generic affiliate program and that is why it works so well. In the case of monsterkicks I think having to use one affiliate company is limiting as you can't include more specialist retailers.

Sites like bikepimp work as a secondary income because what is involved is time not money. You say you can't afford to get monsterkicks how you like it, does that mean you are having to pay a developer? IMHO these type of sites are only going to be very profitable if you can do everything in house, once you have to start spending money outsourcing the work it could soon eat away any profits.

BTW, here's a lead both for a club to advertise with and for a retailer to affiliate with: http://www.tallclub.co.uk/suppliers/index.asp#mensfootwear

fuzzball172

I don't know how your affiliate link manager / creator works, but looking at the urls on your site, it looks like the link points to their server which then configures a redirect for each site as the referrer url is different. You would need to read through the link manager to see how it works.

earley15

Thanks for the advice im taking this all on board and will make updates to the site soon

thebaldwindowfitter

you can also advertise your business free on ebay,free yell .com advert ,craigs list ,gumtree.i would also look up free website advertising

paulwf

The new site layout is currently broken in Firefox and Opera - this needs fixing asap as you are already advertising, please make sure you test for compatibility with several browsers.

The wood effect background looks like something I would have used when building websites circa 1996...for a consumer portal my advice would be to keep it clean and mostly white. Sorry to be so blunt but I've said it because I want to see you make money

As I've said before I think a site like this makes an excellent second revenue stream for a web developer. In your case I think some skills need sharpening up first, especially if you aren't fully sure how your affiliate links work. I'm self taught so lack of coding skills isn't a big problem...it just takes time to learn.

If it was my site I wouldn't spend a penny on advertising until I'd got a good hosting platform (one without such generic templates), a good logo, a decent affiliate scheme, an enticing layout, and a dozen people had tested it for usability and compatibility. Perhaps let it evolve for several months until you are 100% happy with it before trying to generate significant revenue from it.

JazzySheep

I'd like to add to the advertising side of this discussion if I may.

The size of your advertising and marketing budget is important but the more you pay does not equal higher footfall, virtual or otherwise. So many businesses take out horribly expensive ads in the papers and glossies only to end up with one or two sales a year, costing them hundreds if not thousands of pounds.

OK so you won't draw many people using a free paper in a rural area regardless of how good your ad is, not unless you are catering for those readers wants and needs. However finding out who your buyers are and what they will read and placing yourself in front of them when they are thinking in that frame of mind will find more targeted traffic than a general "buy from me" ad in a general newspaper or mag.

I think it's also important to say that some research has shown that people tend not to buy until they have seen an ad for a business at least 5 times. If your budget is that strict you might get lucky on 3 but think about how many times you see an ad before it sinks in. Lots of people give up after losing their shirt just the once, and sometimes that's the best thing but it does take time to get the message across.

Anyway I hope that helps

barginboyrob

I know a BIG and TALL clothing shop in Nottingham, maybe you can speak to them and affiliate for them or advertise with them or something?

earley15

That would be great, if you could pm me the details I would be grateful