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Any Advice for A New Website

by cnich23
17 replies
I've just launched my site
I'm stuck at how to approach businesses who might want to advertise by placing their article on category home pages, products on category pages, or to get a Quick Page/listing (similar to a Lead Page).

How should I start in approaching businesses? I'm considering attending a few networking events in my area.:confused:

Thanks
#advice #website
  • Profile picture of the author stevet563
    Think of who may be best suited to benefit from your business
    and target your site to those people.
    Use colors, words, even a video about what you're all about. The main key
    is to know who it is you are marketing to and adjust accordingly.
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  • Profile picture of the author narendras83
    Banned
    Drop the centered text.
    Get a decent layout/site concept.
    Get a decent logo (a half decent one you can get for not much).
    Lose the font it's not easy on the eye.
    The apartments page needs the into text at the top and the list underneath going down not accross.
    The images are resized by the browser and from a third party site.
    Yeah lose the frames
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  • Profile picture of the author Alex.R
    I commend you for your attempt to do your own design, but without some formal knowledge about website layout design, you are going to end up with a very unappealing look to your site. You have no header to speak of i can hardly read the type on it, the color combination needs to be changed. Do away with the green type it's not a very good readable color to have and where is your site navigation.

    If you want your site to have some authority and to be sticky you do need to have a complete revamp of the site. I would say spend time on doing this before worrying about how to approach businesses who might want to advertise, You need to make the site look more professional, then you can concentrate on the promotion of it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Hugh
    cnich,

    I like it. Very clean, neat & crisp. Uncluttered. Keep up the good work.

    Hugh
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  • Profile picture of the author atrbiz
    I would definitely hire a web designer to create a professional logo for and give the site a more aesthetically pleasing design for branding purposes.

    I would then do SEO (target long tail geo keywords,etc) and Social media marketing.

    Once the site is generating consistent traffic and has a nice front end design then you can approach businesses,etc.

    Best of luck,
    Ahmad
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  • Profile picture of the author atSad141
    this link will help you,
    infoheaps. com "how to make an web page"
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  • Profile picture of the author mal129
    Your site looks great! Clean and simple. As for advertisers, I would offer free advertising to begin with since I'm guessing you do not have much traffic yet. You could even start by including a signature for free ads in your forum profile - I think you might need 25 posts to do that.

    I would also get some big name advertisers on there from cj or linkshare to attract the smaller advertisers.

    Above all, I'd say targeted traffic will be key before you will be able to charge for advertising.

    All the best!!
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  • Profile picture of the author Gigi1176
    Add more content then apply at cj .

    Good Luck,

    Gigi1176
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  • Profile picture of the author Jason Kanigan
    I think the design is pretty clean.

    However...

    1) Arriving at this site, I really don't know what it's about. I can guess, but it's not apparent. A sentence or two under the map would help.

    2) The status line in the top right is hard to read and not helpful.

    3) I'm not sure why anyone should use this site instead of another directory site. Come up with a Unique Selling Proposition (USP). What can they get at your site that they cannot elsewhere? "Clean listings" is a legit USP, for example.
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    • Profile picture of the author midasman09
      Banned
      Here's a link to 3 college guys who set up a site where college kids can go to get Discount Coupons;

      College coupons by text, free mobile coupons - CollegeTokens.com

      I like the way they set up the US Map to find Coupons. Not sure if this can help you but...might give you an idea or 2.

      Trying to set up a "Craig's or Angie's List" will be a "Bear".

      I'd start with 1 city....then go city to city.

      OR....even start with ONE Category. Example: Jack Mize set up this Sample Site to show how he suggests you sell individual Categories.

      http://houstondiscountroofing.com/

      He sets up the site (He calls these type of Sites, "LEAD GENERATING" sites! He doesn't need more than ONE Page to get Leads) ...then sends an email to roofing contractors telling them the Site is ready for ONE Roofing Contractor.

      You could use "DenverDiscountPainting" or "TampaDiscountLandscaping" etc

      Don Alm
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      • Profile picture of the author cnich23
        Her site, chrisgayle885......... I'm a female , no big deal though.
        ----------
        I'm going for a clean look like Wikipedia but for professional services; for consumers to stay informed and for businesses to remain in a high quality and "clean" website.
        ------------
        Thanks mal129 and everyone else for the advice,
        I'll read over all the suggestions and apply them to the site.
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        • Profile picture of the author sandalwood
          You've taken the first step. You have actually done something constructive which is to teach yourself how to do it. I'd bet with the same amount of initiative you will be onto steps two and three and before long you'll have your site the way you want it.

          Surf this section and you'll get a ton of advice on everything from SEO to marketing plans. I think your site is clean and looks good and only positive things can happen for you.

          Good luck,

          Tom
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  • Profile picture of the author TimD
    Originally Posted by cnich23 View Post

    I've just launched my site, qualitylist.org (sorry about the basic design...I'm self taught --I'm just tired of quality businesses being stuck with scammers/spammers on other sites... 60% of them)

    I'm stuck at how to approach businesses who might want to advertise by placing their article on category home pages, products on category pages, or to get a Quick Page/listing (similar to a Lead Page).

    How should I start in approaching businesses? I'm considering attending a few networking events in my area.:confused:

    Thanks
    Cnich, the comments on the look of this site might be on target if you want the site to sell itself. Here's a long thread by a warrior who started with a site that doesn't look nearly as much as you and made lots of money quickly with it.

    The key for him was to think creatively about how to use it and to take action:
    http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...st-3years.html
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  • Profile picture of the author Igal Zeifman
    Get some businesses on-board for free to serve as a "proof of concept". Also I would suggest to show top 5-10 bushiness on "Main Page" for each category. Initially it feel help you to seem more interesting, later on (if successful) you can use these spots for extra revenue or as a bonus for long term customers (or something else).
    I would also add some social icons - if only for show.
    Also, SEO wise, your KWs are pretty hard (I`m guessing them from internal links).
    If I were you, I would take time to develop a "deeper" site hierarchy by building pages for each [location] + [type of business] result (i.e. Honolulu SEO Services).
    This will allow you to target smaller and much more reachable long-tail KW but even so you will have to do a lot of work to do to get high ranks for these quarries.

    GL
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  • Profile picture of the author vibharak
    Hey cnich23,
    The home page is easy to navigate though, it looks to me as an article directory. Just scan through some of the sites like 99acres.com or so. You will get an idea as to what are the features of a business listing website.
    Once the platform is ready now it is time for you to market it using several methods both free and paid.
    Both paid as well as free traffic are essential for this site. Even though you can get quick and targeted traffic by paid methods you have to simultaneously start building organic traffic like link building with targeted keywords. Both these bring good traffic and need maintenance till a period that traffic comes to your site by word of mouth from which time it is totally automated and passes all search engine algorythms.
    Best of luck!
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