FIRST ATTEMPT AT ONLINE BIZ??

[highhopes]

OK so i joined this site, posted a thread or two, got some feed back and decided to create a little dating/ friendship site. A template site from white label.

Marketing will be the next step once the site has been approved and the web designer has tweeked the details a bit.
So with respect to the marketing, ppc etc

Question for ALL... Where should i start marketing?
High

[dmarzean]

This all depends on your marketing budget. The quickest way is PPC. The only problem with PPC and the niche you have chosen, is that it is going to cost you.

The other option is article marketing. This is going to be a huge time investment but if you don't have the cash, this is the only other option.

I am not sure exactly what type of site you are talking about, but you have picked a very competitive niche. Whether it is dating and friendship advice or a site such as match.com.

Doug

[jayden.fellze]

Yes. I do agree with him. Such a competitive niche for this very tough business. You can also go to social media sites to promote your sites, it can generate more traffic easily. Good luck.

[ptmueller]

highhopes,

since you are trying to break into a market that is very competitive, you can do the things mentioned above but you can also go to google and search on "your niche affiliate program" - find all the folks who have affiliate marketing sites and contact them to see if you can do an interview with them, many will say no, but the ones that do, you can record it and use that as a marketing tool on your site to help build credibility pretty fast.

Hope this helps.

Paul

[highhopes]

Thanks all for your input. I guess the site is in a lot of competiotion with other sites....but as it is my first time, i look forward to at least doing something, getting used to what I have to do to promote it.
Also, the things you mention in your posts i will look at thank you.

If i spent say $500 dollars month ppc google, does anyone know if that would bring results / sign-up?

Site not ready; FriendsorMates.com - Home Targeting 35-70 years emphasis on friends first.

[dmarzean]

Nobody can answer whether your $500 would generate good results. There are a lot of factors involved with PPC.

1. Ad quality
2. Site quality
3. CPC (cost per click)
4. Google Quality Score

All you can do is test and tweak. This business is all about testing and then improving.

Doug

[Traffic-Bug]

Dating/friendship is very competitive niche. Why should people come to you when they can go to plenty of fish? Unless you have really good compelling content not available anywhere else you will have a tough time getting any results

[sylviad]

As a first-timer, you might want to back off doing PPC until you get your feet wet. You can lose a lot of money if you don't know what you are doing.

Get your site up first, get some back links, post to social sites and dating-related forums with your link in your sig to see how well you do. Make sure you make your site search engine friendly so that Google will list you high in the search results.

This means using relevant keywords for your site, and then making sure those keywords are scattered randomly throughout your site in a natural way. Use as many keywords as you can. The more you target those that relate to your theme, the better results you'll get.

When you start seeing some results, then consider PPC, but do your homework first before putting up an ad. It's not as easy as it sounds, believe me. I tried, spent $300+ and never made more than 1 sale.

Fill your site with quality content. Give away free stuff. For example, create a small mini-report on dating and offer it to them for signing up to your list. Then you can promote to them in the future. You want to get their contact information because they will visit once, leaving you with no way to get in touch.

It's easy to create giveaways by finding products with private label rights. You can modify them to your needs, add your own links, etc. For example, package a few articles together into a mini-report. By offering something extra and unique, you can draw people away from your competitors.

You might want to start by targeting one particular segment of the population, like divorcees, single parents, seniors - rather than going after the whole shebang at once. Then, you can promote through the various sites and forums that cater to these people. As you see success, start going after the rest, one segment at a time. This is a great way to beat the competition because from what I've seen, most of them are general dating sites. Make yours specific and unique.

Hope this helps.

Sylvia

[highhopes]

Thank you all again....tough time ahead but I will use your suggestions. nothing like experience!

H

[dsmpublishing]

If you are going to do the articles make sure that you bookmark them also!

[highhopes]

Articles, bloggs? have`nt done this yet...is there A GOOD place to look to find out what to do?
If I could spend say 2-3 hours a day and say 1-2 hours after work , how should i divide my time, on what features to promote the awareness in my site?

[highhopes]

After a 6 weeks this is working! OK just wetting my feet !
Starting to look at this part-time thing more seriously now!

[sajae102]

Of course, you have picked a very profitable site! Good for you. But you should also note, that competition is feirce! However, it is very EASY to market. Dating sites is a multi million dollar industry. All you have to do of course is market it in social networking sites. Some of the best would be Facebook, Twitter and of course article marketing would be a good idea.

[TerryTelford]

Hi

The first thing I would suggest is to set a marketing budget. Your marketing budget should include your time and monetary investment. You can do a lot of marketing online for free, if you're willing to invest the time. If you don't have a lot of time, then invest some money and leverage the time you do have.

As far as what marketing is best for you, I would suggest having a look around this forum or buy an ebook on marketing and rough out a plan that you feel you can handle financially and from a time perspective.

I wish you much success

Enjoy your day!
Terry

[Mark Riddle]

Highhopes,

I started and operated a singles site and know first hand what you may be facing.

The players in the niche do not play fair, when they see a new person on the scene, they will happily over pay for their PPC just to shut you out.

Singles sites all run on the same basic model, each member will have an average life of 14 months, and is willing to spend several hundreds of dollars to find the right match.

Bandwidth is your largest expense, photos and videos eat bandwidth like you won't believe.

It has to be ran on several dedicated servers and its best if your cluster is spread to different hosts.

The key to any singles site are WOMEN ~!

I hate to burst the bubble but many females on the sites are paid to be there.

There is a ratio of male to female that you have to maintain and simply stated the girls just aren't that into online.

You may be better off turning your domain into a review site and generating affiliate income. Dating sites and adult dating sites pay well.

Also know that in the dating arena black hat SEO is the normal way of doing business.

One of the Big name sites hire photographers to go out an find "hot girls" and give them a free photo shoot so the can break into modeling and the documents state the photographer also has rights to the photos, which are placed on singles sites.

Hope this helps

Mark Riddle

Former tag line Where Singles Become Couples since 1996

[DougHughes]

Ditto what Sylvia said about PPC. If you don't know what you are doing watch out. When we first tried it we lost like $1500 in no time. The first day we lost something like $500 in a couple of hours.

If you do use PPC make your ad as specific as possible, let people know your program costs money, and use negative qualifiers. Such as "not for people with _____ etc... Try and weed out as many no money clicks as possible.

Alternatively, you can spend a few hundred dollars using PPC and just give away content on the front end to build your list. Then setup an autoresponder series and build your business and sales up on the backend. It is essentially like using a loss-leader to generate leads.

[Warriorcoach1]

Here's my suggestion for you.

First, master marketing and especially online marketing. If you're saying "duh!", just bear with me.

Too many people get wrapped up in their pet project online and start dabbling in marketing, trying a little PPC, a little blogging, a little of this or that. And then they get frustrated and go broke.

How to avoid that? Simple. Find an automated online marketing system that already exists. I can think of at least two that are excellent, in case you need suggestions. These systems will teach you more in a month about online marketing than most people will learn in their first 1-2 years.

They start you off on the right foot, give you the tools you need (which saves lots of time) and get you earning really fast.

You can use systems like this to market what they give you and / or your own site. I'd suggest marketing their material first to get your feet wet, and using their methods and tools to market your own site "on the side".

That way, you won't feel so stressed about your own site and you can start making some cash. You can then take that cash and pour some or all of it back into your marketing, which takes the stress out of learning PPC, for instance.

Hope that helps!

[bryan77]

It can be quite a task getting a page on a new site indexed quickly. An alternative would be to create a Squidoo page optimized for a long tail keyword and do a review on your site. While you are there join a few groups.

[highhopes]

Thanks for all the posts some good stuff there i will be pm ing some of you with some features mentioned.
From the end of the first week /End of Feb - March Nothing. Today made £483.57.

Moderate results but.......
The members are growing, and i have noticed the expense ratio coming dowm all the time.
The keywords i chose dont include the word dating! Friends online and 20 other combinations at .25 pence p c. tops.
About 20 free members joining every day with 15% conversions, top ups etc.

I really dont have the time to spend as i have a full time offline business, but I have warriors writing articles, bloggs, presenting me with top sites to get back links etc.

The software tools sound interesting, i am considering joining portal feeder, Jason Potash to speed things up.

I had a budget of $5,000 to over 6 months to get this site going. I know it is a competative market, but i am pleased with the projections. The numbers are starting to compound.
It is a white label site, so I am an affiliate.
There are people spending figures like £2,000 ppc per week, and have been active for 3 years.

I will take on board the comments above.
Hopefully I will get a more SEO organic position soon, with the help of the warriors and not spend so much on ppc.
friendsormates.com targets the over thirties, hope they will help my cause!

[highhopes]

Forgot can i add my site for all to see here?

[magneticweb]

Of course you can add your site, Highhopes, and congratulations on breaking into this very competitive niche. I for one look forward to having a look at it to see exactly what you've done.

With a huge niche like dating, sub-niches are the way to go. If I were doing it myself I think I would start with article marketing and get some sales from that first. You have to be so careful with Adwords/PPC as it can quickly empty your bank account, but you seem to have found success with it, so good for you.

[highhopes]

Thanks magnetic....still plenty of things to do thanks to all who have posted here! Must read every word again, till it sticks!

[Adaptive]

Hi High,

The place to start is with your ideal buyer. Is this person male or female? How old are they? What kind of work do they do? What kind of car do they have? What is their biggest goal in life? How important is dating? What are their hopes and fears? What are their favorite TV shows? When they use the Internet, what sites do they visit? How patient are they to read a lot of how-to information about dating? Would they like to see videos demonstrating how to make friends?

As you answer these questions, you will figure out a strategy to reach them where they live and join the conversation already in their mind.

Regards,
Allen

[jameshax]

hmm.. this reminds me, I have fully coded dating site which I coded up 5 years ago and forgot about it heh... maybe I should make it like again.

[rai007]

You can start marketing from banner posting through some job sites and search engines.I hope you will get some quality traffic for your dating site

[william.jack38]

There are so many ways of marketing Like Banner Posting, Submit site to Google Adwords, Yahoo Networks. If you go with Google, it will be more helpful to get good results.

[highhopes]

That is really helpful...I have not tried banner advertizing, but will look at this.
All the other suggestions i want to try. ( given the part time hours i devote to it)

It really is a maze with so many combinations you have to work out and test.
The Warrior forum is the place to do it..

Although I am maybe 4th, to 7th on google ppc campaign based on my keywords, it seems to me getting the free traffic will take a long time and with not an insignificant amount of work!

SEO testing? postion of your website? What is the best tool to keep checking your site?

[mogili]

You can try different techniques like PPC,Free Ads, forum and blog postings, article submissions to directories, searchengines etc.

[highhopes]

Warriorcoach1
Forgot to ask you your advice on the best online marketing sytem?
Thanks

Originally Posted by Warriorcoach1

Here's my suggestion for you.

First, master marketing and especially online marketing. If you're saying "duh!", just bear with me.

Too many people get wrapped up in their pet project online and start dabbling in marketing, trying a little PPC, a little blogging, a little of this or that. And then they get frustrated and go broke.

How to avoid that? Simple. Find an automated online marketing system that already exists. I can think of at least two that are excellent, in case you need suggestions. These systems will teach you more in a month about online marketing than most people will learn in their first 1-2 years.

They start you off on the right foot, give you the tools you need (which saves lots of time) and get you earning really fast.

You can use systems like this to market what they give you and / or your own site. I'd suggest marketing their material first to get your feet wet, and using their methods and tools to market your own site "on the side".

That way, you won't feel so stressed about your own site and you can start making some cash. You can then take that cash and pour some or all of it back into your marketing, which takes the stress out of learning PPC, for instance.

Hope that helps!

[PLRwithAlex]

I'm going to recommend that you invest in Nitro Blueprint. I've ordered it to help me with my business and think it would help you. The price is steep for a newbie but a good thousand cheaper than it's worth.

If this isn't possible for you now, start with free stuff - blogs and article submissions.