Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What is the minimum budget to promote a site?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 37 posts

Re: What is the minimum budget to promote a site?

#11

Post by gscott »

quellhorst wrote: post #9
gscott wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another idea Step 1: Write an article between 300 and 500 words on your products target market, then suggest your product as the solution Step 2: Submit your article to article submission sites such as articlebiz.com, crixi.com, electrictext.com, contentdesk.com Step 3: Rework your article into a press release and then submit. PrLeap.com or PrWeb.com (about $120) Step 4: Rework your article into a video. You can read…

Have you done this? What were the results?

These are things we all "know" but never quite put together as a system. I just came upon this system myself and I have started implementing it, I am not much of a writer and so I had two articles written for me. I just started on this myself so I have not gone all the way from step 1 to 7 but when I do I will compile the results and post them.

Re: What is the minimum budget to promote a site?

#13

Post by agentbleu »

Your all living in dreamland. No one is going to really give a toss about an article here or there, in whatever blog or whatever advert they see. The point is: The internet works a specific way. People who are 'in need' can find that on the net by 'search'. These are the only people that are worth targeting because they are the only ones who give a shit about what your selling/offering. The point is very simple. If you want to launch a Website you have to spend a small fortune, and heres what on:

0) Have an old domain, New domains are penalized thus take 6 months or more to get top for 2 word search terms. 1 word search terms can take 2 years.

1) Correct SEO, your site will be indexed properly and optimized for your targets. Miss this and miss your target.

2) Link building, this is getting harder all the time. Google see link building as the enemy and are doing all they can to discount unnatural links.

3) Remove all barriers to entry, no sign ups etc, immediate gratification.

4) Innovation and content. Killer apps that people find useful and content that is compelling.

For the record, I have about 10 popular domains, have been recently featured on Techcrunch twice and all of the suggested blogs, which are all good, but at the end of the day, search traffic is what counts in the long run.

This is precisely why Facebook and other social platforms perform so badly for advertisers, people using them are simply not in search mode. That and the adverts online are totally crap!

Re: What is the minimum budget to promote a site?

#14

Post by redorb »

the minimum budget is whatever you can afford...

The standard (2) options are search engines and their paid advertising platform.

The "2.0" option is social media.

Option (1) Search Engines

have SEO done on your site; any traffic you don't have to pay for is the best, second register with only Google, Yahoo and MSN paid ads; spread your budget according to engine traffic and technology to catch click fraud, 65% google, 25% yahoo and 10% MSN (live).

- adjust your budget according to cost per action on your site (setup analytics) to the correct engine for your audience (google = mainstream, every genre) (yahoo = less technical audience) (MSN = industrial and older)

option (2) social media

this is the hardest option and unless your site is naturally viral or something people would care about (in which case it would have probably already got "buzz" or users) trying a social media campaign on a site that your mom,dad,sister,brother or friend wouldn't visit more than once a week probably isn't worth your time (unless you have that in abundance)

if you need any free advice email me.

Re: What is the minimum budget to promote a site?

#16

Post by bluelu »

quellhorst wrote: post #9
gscott wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another idea Step 1: Write an article between 300 and 500 words on your products target market, then suggest your product as the solution Step 2: Submit your article to article submission sites such as articlebiz.com, crixi.com, electrictext.com, contentdesk.com Step 3: Rework your article into a press release and then submit. PrLeap.com or PrWeb.com (about $120) Step 4: Rework your article into a video. You can read…

Have you done this? What were the results?

I once paid a guy to write articles and submit them to these article sites. There were a few visitors coming from those sites at the beginning, but it didn't help much. (This has also been 2 years ago, things might have changed)

Re: What is the minimum budget to promote a site?

#17

Post by quellhorst »

bluelu wrote: post #16
quellhorst wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you done this? What were the results?

I once paid a guy to write articles and submit them to these article sites. There were a few visitors coming from those sites at the beginning, but it didn't help much. (This has also been 2 years ago, things might have changed)

It sounds a bit like a plans sold by get rich quick sites. Instead, spend time improving your site.

Re: What is the minimum budget to promote a site?

#18

Post by shafqat »

We've spent 0 so far, and have had pretty good results. The blog is huge, and I started the company blog almost six months BEFORE launch. I'm also active in the general tech community and try and leave meaningful comments on the blogs that matter to what we're trying to do. And it has paid dividends. We're still in private alpha, but will be opening up our doors in 2 weeks.

Then its SEO, SEO and more SEO.

Re: What is the minimum budget to promote a site?

#19

Post by andrewparker »

kyro wrote: post #2

$0.00 Techcrunch, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, Facebook, news.yc, etc. are all extremely effective places to create buzz for no cost.

Unless you're building the next social news site or a bittorrent client, this is the wrong initial audience for your product. You want to find people that are actually in your target demographic, not the fickle digerati that try 10 new web services a day but never stick around at any of them.

You want your initial customer base to be your target demographic because their initial feedback will help shape future iterations of your product. If you just launch with the web 2.0 social news scene, their feedback will be less relevant and will take your product down a distracting path.

Re: What is the minimum budget to promote a site?

#20

Post by wanorris »

lsb wrote: post #15
kyro wrote: post #2

$0.00 Techcrunch, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, Facebook, news.yc, etc. are all extremely effective places to create buzz for no cost.

That's assuming your time is free.

Often, actual cash in hand is more of a limiting reagent than your own time. Since the OP was about minimizing cost, it seems fair to assume that cash in hand is the appropriate limiting reagent.
Post reply on HN