Promoting a website

[jonesy68]

Hi everyone,

I wonder if anyone has any experience here of promoting websites.
I don't sell anything as such, I just offer a free service which is open to everyone and want to broaden my ways of getting this message across.
I have had a few radio interviews about the website (Spareground) as it's something that people do find interesting when they find out about it. I think the problem I have is sustaining a good level of momentum.
It is increasing in terms of site visits and listings all the time but a bit too slowly for my liking!
I know that ideally, a long term advertising campaign of some sort would be the best, however, as with most things, the huge costs involved put the boot in on this.
I have posted on a few forums where I think people would be interested but unfortunately a lot of the posts have been pulled due to their 'advertising' policies. Oh well!
I do 'tweet' about it have facebook fan page etc so those are already covered.
Any suggestions would de gratefully received!
The website is spareground.co.uk and in a nutshell it allows users to advertise or search for any available space that they want or need. This can be parking spaces, garages, driveways, storage space (sheds barns etc). any unused land or gardens or property. The site is open to everyone to use including private individuals, corporate groups, schools churches, organisations etc.

Thanks in advance.

 

[rendy]

hey nice site, one thing you want to do is use titles on each page (seems to me each page is the same.

E.g. http://www.spareground.co.uk/view.php?spListingId=221
title is Spareground - make the most of your space

What would be better is to make the URLS more readable and use the listing title as the title of the page

http://www.spareground.co.uk/putney/parking/garage-for-rent-putney
title Spareground - Putney Parking - Garage for Rent Putney

which may help (I admit to knowing very little about SEO) drive more natural search engine traffic to your site.

On a business front, how about placing adverts in the free-ads papers for some stuff on your site, just initially to get the name out.

 

[rendy]

also why does your page refresh every 3 seconds or so? Don't do that, its not cool.

 

[jonesy68]

also why does your page refresh every 3 seconds or so? Don't do that, its not cool.

Err,...I don't know ias the honest answer here! I will check with the webman about this.
Thanks too for your other comments, really appreciate it and will definitely see if we can implement the new format as you have suggested.

 

[Hira&Hira]

First start of with some SEO, research some potential (and relevant) keywords and put them in the following places:

1: Title pages (relate it to the content of the page)
2: Headers of the page

Look into offline marketing such as leaflet dropping through letter boxes, car windows, local press etc.

Hope this gets you started

Hira&Hira | freelance marketing support

 

[fisicx]

This sort of site can spread quickly if it meets a need. At the moment the site is too chaotic and it is difficult to sort out what's what.

So rather than concentrating on twitter and facebook (problably not your target audience), why not contact all the removals, storage, gardening etc companies and websites and discuss some sort of link exchange.

But the site still needs a shed load of work doing before it's going to be really usable and effective. Can't offer advice as a website review is a privelige for full members.

 

[bidabooking]

I am pretty much at the same stage with my website.

We are an online auction site for private holiday accommodation. We have a facebook fan page, twitter, myspace page and I have a blog linked to the site as well, which I hope will help with the search engines.

I have pretty much done everything the same as spareground, and I am also already contacting property management companies to get them to join up.

General feedback from anyone who has seen the site it they think it is a great idea. Problem is I need to get the word out to the general public. The people likely to book these types of holiday accommodation. Getting property owners loading their properties on the site doesn't seem to be a problem.

I have the same problem that the type of advertising I really need to do completely blows my budget. I wondered if anyone could provide me with some suggestions please?

 

[perfectpressreleases]

If you've already had some success getting the site onto the radio then go for some wider coverage in your local newspapers and even TV - you obviously have a story to tell. How did you get the radio coverage?

A few quick press releases out to the right people and you've got a low cost method of generating some word of mouth interest in your website.