Should I give up?

[iyereoboite]

Hi everyone.

My main area of activity is ecommerce. I just launched this website....... www.DirectListed.com. Its supposed to be 'like' a classifieds ads website but its actually a well built, modern and intelligent website to find jobs, property, businesses and stuff on sale. I have put a lot of effort into it and work on it consantl. Best of all its Free. But classifieds ads is a saturated market and im struggling to get anyone to even consider advertising on it. In business its always good to know when to let something go..but ive invested a lot of hours into this.

Any advice guys.....!!!!

 

[Barnie]

first pointer is the greens clash eeek

no business will advertise with no traffic so worry less about advertising and more about traffic


its a hard market to be in, its a case of finding a niche then expanding on that, and/or try working your local area hard then working outwords

 

[love2hire]

Hi,

The website looks great, when was it launched?
Is it free for everything or do you have some paying people? Whats the total number of listings you have?

Do you generate other sources of income?
I know it can be hard but please do not give up, as time goes on you will develop new ideas about what to do and this may help you over time.

If this is something you really enjoy and its your passion, do not give up!
Have you thought about creating a forum?

 

[iyereoboite]

first pointer is the greens clash eeek

no business will advertise with no traffic so worry less about advertising and more about traffic


its a hard market to be in, its a case of finding a niche then expanding on that, and/or try working your local area hard then working outwords

Heres the problem right...no traffic no buiness, well no adverts no traffic, so im in an impossible catch 22 situation here....how can i cause a growth in traffic and advertisers simultameously......i really dnt kno

 

[crossdaz]

Hi everyone.

But classifieds ads is a saturated market and im struggling to get anyone to even consider advertising on it. In business its always good to know when to let something go..but ive invested a lot of hours into this.

I would be very reluctant to advertise on a site which doesn't already have a lot of adverts on it.
I would consider offering free listings for a while until your traffic increases. For instance, you could contact employment agencies and offer to list any vacancies for free and so on. All they have to do is email you a list each week - why would they refuse?
After a while you can start eeking some revenue from it - maybe rewarding those who helped you at the beginning with reduced or free advertising.

It can take a while for websites to 'kick-in' - even when all the fundamentals are in place. No point throwing the towel in when most of the hard work has already been done?


Amazon wasn't exactly an overnight success

 

[iyereoboite]

Hi,

The website looks great, when was it launched?
Is it free for everything or do you have some paying people? Whats the total number of listings you have?

Do you generate other sources of income?
I know it can be hard but please do not give up, as time goes on you will develop new ideas about what to do and this may help you over time.

If this is something you really enjoy and its your passion, do not give up!
Have you thought about creating a forum?

Well it was launched first aroun a mnth ago... then i pulled the plug and reworked it then relaunched it a week ago...


100% free, no catches...the only thing is that the adverts have a lifespan to ensure that what is being found by the visitors is not useless out of date information...like the millions of useless classified ads websites that ruin it for us that are not just trying to make a quick buck

Theres a forum style section already in the site.... Thanks for the encouragement

 

[Barnie]

Heres the problem right...no traffic no buiness, well no adverts no traffic, so im in an impossible catch 22 situation here....how can i cause a growth in traffic and advertisers simultameously......i really dnt kno

pick 5 different business in your area, ie large estate agents ect

offer them some money or offer to upload everything yourself

advertise localy and then offer there competitors free ads on the site

think small grow big, sites like this only work this way, think nail in a haystack, the bigger the nail ie your busniess and the smaller the stack the easier it is to find and work, trying to work this business in the whole of the uk is going to be such hard work for litle return

 

[love2hire]

Barnie is right, try and perhaps focus on one area, when you think about it there are so many businesses out there, i focus on hire companies as nothing really exists for this and what does is totally out-of-date.
Try to look at tradesmen, property, entertainment....i don't know, as your listings are not huge you can easily re-focus your site.

Certainly do not give up, it would be a shame

 

[TopShopper]

Hi,
Don't give up yet, I've just advertised on your site.

Regards

 

[love2hire]

You need to build up your site, develop your forum, develop your affiliates.
Companies will register for free and this helps you to build things up.

Once your site has at least 500/600 listings minimum, an active forum etc then you can re-contact the free listings and see if they want to upgrade or propose banner advertising. They are more likely to say yes when they see a full and active site then an empty one.
But keep it relatively cheap at the beginning and over the years as you develop increase the costs. It takes a while, its not overnight!
Hope this helps and this forum is great for tips and ideas, that's what helps me

 

[love2hire]

By the way don't advertise you get thousands of visitors if its not true, your site is empty and people aren't stupid
You can say this when you have hundreds of listings, even if its not true people believe it more

 

[Moneyman]

Re catch 22 when there is no legitimate way to succeed cheat a bit. try to choose an area and then offer free adverts. You can never sneak these things out. you need to do what so many of the job sites did. They just copied other adverts without permission but for free. who is going to object or sue to find their advert on two sites instead of one. But you really need a team of people to just crib local papers and type like mad for days. At the same time you need to take adverts in local papers right up under aaaaaaaaaplumbers etc ADVERTISE FOR FREE ON THE INTERNET www. etc. it will cost you a few quid but might start the ball rolling. Also try to plant a "small guy takes on the world during recession and creats new local search site that has them flocking to your door". dont forget to mention that a big american company is asking to buy you out for millions. Ethics is not going to be a major player in this stratergy but it might work. there are dozens of ethical failures who produced the exact same site. You then need a "£1 per add" tag line. It wont get you rich but it might get you to the £2 per add stage.

Do it big do it fast or forget it.

 

[iyereoboite]

It has dawned on me that I am not making it clear that site listing is free on the site is free. You guys are right. So far ive taken the advice down as

- Approach Recruitment agencies, estate agents e.t.c. in my local area
- Tell them about this free service and that they can send me their listings and Il do it for them for free , or they can just stop beng lazy and do it themsleves
-After a year + of listing for free and possible significant growth ask them for a very small free
-Or best ......keep it free ad find a way of raising revenue elsewhere

 

[iyereoboite]

Re catch 22 when there is no legitimate way to succeed cheat a bit. try to choose an area and then offer free adverts. You can never sneak these things out. you need to do what so many of the job sites did. They just copied other adverts without permission but for free. who is going to object or sue to find their advert on two sites instead of one. But you really need a team of people to just crib local papers and type like mad for days. At the same time you need to take adverts in local papers right up under aaaaaaaaaplumbers etc ADVERTISE FOR FREE ON THE INTERNET www. etc. it will cost you a few quid but might start the ball rolling. Also try to plant a "small guy takes on the world during recession and creats new local search site that has them flocking to your door". dont forget to mention that a big american company is asking to buy you out for millions. Ethics is not going to be a major player in this stratergy but it might work. there are dozens of ethical failures who produced the exact same site. You then need a "£1 per add" tag line. It wont get you rich but it might get you to the £2 per add stage.

Do it big do it fast or forget it.

Thanks for the advise .. i was laughin my ass off at some of ur suggestions

 

[love2hire]

you weren't the only one.
Good luck with it

 

[MH1]

I would recommend offering free ads for new sign ups for a definite period, ie five years, gain the momentum then look at ways to charge once you have the site busy, hit plenty of forums with the offer and market it in other ways.

 

[mobyme]

Your market is absolutely saturated, personally I would not put the time and effort into flogging a dead horse. You would not believe how many of these sites we have built. Each time we have warned the client that it's a "me too" site and almost certain to fail. Our last client was so convinced it would work that he gave up a brilliant job and mortgaged his house to do it. I spent literally hours trying to talk him out of it but finally built the site for him knowing that if we didn't, somebody else would. It hasn't worked and he has lost everything trying to prove everybody wrong.

 

[prizeauc]

Don't give it up as you had done lot of hard work and you surely will find some good results out of it. Just keep working hard.

 

[iyereoboite]

Your market is absolutely saturated, personally I would not put the time and effort into flogging a dead horse. You would not believe how many of these sites we have built. Each time we have warned the client that it's a "me too" site and almost certain to fail. Our last client was so convinced it would work that he gave up a brilliant job and mortgaged his house to do it. I spent literally hours trying to talk him out of it but finally built the site for him knowing that if we didn't, somebody else would. It hasn't worked and he has lost everything trying to prove everybody wrong.

Thats a terrifying story ... it cant be true ...luck for me im a 19yr old student with no mortgage or kids.... but y wud ur client throw all their eggs into one basket

 

[JustOneUK]

I'd get the layout checked crossbrowser...this is what I see

oops!

 

[Moneyman]

Thanks for the advise .. i was laughin my ass off at some of ur suggestions

Ever read how craig's list and others really got going?

Sorry you thought it was a bad idea? and yet the most famous small adds sites started that way. Please name a successful one that did it nicely. It aint nice but it might work and no more unethical than referral swapping and other SEO methods.

PR requires a sob story or a success story. The "boy in bedroom launched million pixel site worked". He had only sold a few hundred when he got the articles written and most were friends. Publicity is publicity and how many of you havnt got a company which is "going to be worth millions one day". use it. papers will eiher take it or not. You might get lucky.

 

[mobyme]

Thats a terrifying story ... it cant be true ...luck for me im a 19yr old student with no mortgage or kids.... but y wud ur client throw all their eggs into one basket

Oh it's true all right. I didn't tell you the worst part, he has a wife and two young children. He slung all his eggs in one basket because his family and friends kept telling him what a brilliant idea it was and how they all knew someone who started from scratch and within 6 months/ one year/ two years (take your pick) had sold out for a fortune. I feel quite bad about it now, but I actually stopped talking to him because wouldn't listen probably when he needed me the most.

 

[JustOneUK]

Our last client was so convinced it would work that he gave up a brilliant job and mortgaged his house to do it. I spent literally hours trying to talk him out of it but finally built the site for him knowing that if we didn't, somebody else would. It hasn't worked and he has lost everything trying to prove everybody wrong.

you should have built him a better site







(hehe)

 

[mobyme]

you should have built him a better site


(hehe)

Ouch!...............

 

[Moneyman]

There is nothing you can do with those sorts of people. I get them every day. It is heart breaking but there have always been people who shout "just keepon with the determination and you will win. You see the same deluded bunch on x factor etc.

I turn down a really good idea almost every day. Fantastic product. the market will all want them. However it is ten times the price of the alternative and the market is far too small. But all there mates are there cheering them on as they chuck more money in.

It is really a pride thing that keeps them going. Loads of people on this site do it and keep going flogging dead horses. You have to sit back and have a cold hard look and just think "is my £10k a better bet following this one up trying to get my investment back or in the other idea in the back of your head?"

Another two months of hard work you can afford to lose but dont chuck good cash at it.

 

[Camille-I]

I opened your website and nearly saw nothing......

 

[love2hire]

your site doesn't work.

 

[oldeagleeye]

I don't think that I will ever get this. A few days ago there was a post from a so called 'Business Mentor. A specialist in marketing he stated and had written books about it..

Yet there he was asking how to put together a simple marketing strategy. Now I may be wrong but I always thought that a Business Mentor was akin to a GP. He may no be a brain surgeon but he knows how it works.

We now have this OP who states that his main activity E-Commerce.

He is asking how to drive traffic to his web site. Now am I naive or what. Isn't understanding how the search engines work - how the public use the Internet a fundamental part of e-commerce. Perhaps even more important isn't knowing what the competition is before even setting out on a project like another job or classified web site essential in order to avoid wasting time let alone money.

All in all - I think the OP ought to be seriously asking if pursuing the venture is worthwhile. I mean it took me less than 5 seconds to open another tab click on Google and search for 'Jobs Sites'.

It seems that there are over 1,861,000,000 pages of them out in Cyberspace. Now that is competition on a monumental scale and it's no use going back to successes in the past when there was little if any competitor and saying to the OP you stick with it mate your get there in the end. He will not. There is only one realistic route to success for a small business today and that is find a niche market.

And finally can some-one please explain to me what free advertising means in this context. I mean my company name and reputation is worth a lot to me and if I wanted a bit of free advertising I would go for a press release and send it to the relevant business journals.

Why however would I want to be seen on a web site which the owner is openly saying has no value. Where I was probably the only company in my field. That would make it look like that I was desperate for free promotion. No thank you. In fact I wouldn't want a so called free listing even if you paid me.



Note. I drafted this 10 minutes ago and then made a cup of coffee. By now there are probably over 2,000,000,000 job or other pages of free listings. Even so. Anyone know where you can find a reasonably priced plumber.

 

[love2hire]

I don't think that I will ever get this. A few days ago there was a post from a so called 'Business Mentor. A specialist in marketing he stated and had written books about it..

Yet there he was asking how to put together a simple marketing strategy. Now I may be wrong but I always thought that a Business Mentor was akin to a GP. He may no be a brain surgeon but he knows how it works.

We now have this OP who states that his main activity E-Commerce.

He is asking how to drive traffic to his web site. Now am I naive or what. Isn't understanding how the search engines work - how the public use the Internet a fundamental part of e-commerce. Perhaps even more important isn't knowing what the competition is before even setting out on a project like another job or classified web site essential in order to avoid wasting time let alone money.

All in all - I think the OP ought to be seriously asking if pursuing the venture is worthwhile. I mean it took me less than 5 seconds to open another tab click on Google and search for 'Jobs Sites'.

It seems that there are over 1,861,000,000 pages of them out in Cyberspace. Now that is competition on a monumental scale and it's no use going back to successes in the past when there was little if any competitor and saying to the OP you stick with it mate your get there in the end. He will not. There is only one realistic route to success for a small business today and that is find a niche market.

And finally can some-one please explain to me what free advertising means in this context. I mean my company name and reputation is worth a lot to me and if I wanted a bit of free advertising I would go for a press release and send it to the relevant business journals.

Why however would I want to be seen on a web site which the owner is openly saying has no value. Where I was probably the only company in my field. That would make it look like that I was desperate for free promotion. No thank you. In fact I wouldn't want a so called free listing even if you paid me.



Note. I drafted this 10 minutes ago and then made a cup of coffee. By now there are probably over 2,000,000,000 job or other pages of free listings. Even so. Anyone know where you can find a reasonably priced plumber.

1agree you do need to find yourself a niche, there are so many business directories, many out of date, dull, dead-links etc. If you specialise in something, make it fresh and exciting, create a forum, newsletters etc...do something that's a bit different then that will make people think its worth spending money advertising in. But first bulk out your site and list people for free....then you can think about making some ££££.

 

[mobyme]

1agree you do need to find yourself a niche, there are so many business directories, many out of date, dull, dead-links etc. If you specialise in something, make it fresh and exciting, create a forum, newsletters etc...do something that's a bit different then that will make people think its worth spending money advertising in. But first bulk out your site and list people for free....then you can think about making some ££££.

Creating a forum is absolutely deadly and one of the worst things you can do unless you can more or less guarantee a certain amount of activity. An empty forum only confirms that nobody uses the site and has no interest in it. Even worse is a forum with cooked up threads answered by the same four or five people. If you want to sell advertising there is only one kind of site advertisers are interested in.........a busy one; populated by users that align with their products. All the rest is wishful thinking.

 

[love2hire]

Well unless you try you never know....it all depends on the forum, a general business forum would be tough, something in a more specific market could work..it really does depend on what you do.