John, it would help if you told us what you have already done to try to get traffic.
Debs _________________ Learn how to turn keyphrases into quality, well-targeted articles your visitors and SE's will love with Gary Antosh's new ebook "Web Content Made Easy!"
I'm new to this, so any ideas are welcome! I am working with some affiliates who send emails out..yes spam. The havn't sent any out yet---I believe starting next week. They belive they can provide me with some big returns. They like the idea that my site offers free e-greetings. So, they're suggestion was for them to send out an e-Greeting from me. The logic is when a person is checking their email sees the "you've got a greeting card from..." they'll be inclined to see from who. At that point it is a greeting card from careparcel.com offering 15% off with a provided coupon code. I liked this idea. Does anyone have any experience with email marketing? If so, what are the pros/cons, etc. Thanks again for all input.....I spent a few hours going through the prior posts on this board, just trying to dig up any more ideas.. Thanks!
You have a great looking site, but not much for spiders to index ... meaning text content. If you don't have what spiders want, you aren't likely to be ranked very well. So, get some content, suggestions on great uses for the care packages, including a calendar of holidays and events that would be perfect times to send packages. Use text as much as possible on these content pages, as well as text links to other pages on your site, so the spiders won't have a hard time moving about.
On your home page I would recommend a horizontal text navigation section at the bottom (just above your copyright notice) for the spiders as well.
As far as email marketing is concerned, you want to keep an eye on what your affiliates are doing, as they can make you liable for CAN Spam violations, and fines.
Now, to get to the traffic!
Helping the spiders index your site, will help to bring you some traffic, just be sure and use keyphrases that searchers will use to find the types of products you offer. Use them in the meta tags ... title, description and keywords ... use them in your content, page names, and text links. Work them in somehow
Get your site pages submitted to the major search engines and directories, even if it means paying for submission. You have a commercial business site, so you may have to pay for inclusion to really get some action.
Yahoo would be a must in the directory list, and it will cost you $299. Also, submit your datafeed to Froogle (the product search engine from Google). I believe Yahoo is also looking to do this, or has done it, so check into getting listed in Yahoo product search as well. Those 2 will do more for you than almost anything outside of affiliate promotion.
A quick reference site for SE's and directories, that also has a neat tool for submissions: http://www.selfpromotion.com
Find sites that would do well promoting your products ... sites related to Financial Aide for college, sites offering tips to parents on saving for college, preparing for, etc. I am sure you already have an idea of some of the sites out there that would be a good fit. Contact the siteowners directly about your affiliate program and/or advertising on their site, or in their newsletter.
Don't get into panic mode ... it takes months to get listed and get traffic in most cases, however there are things you can do in the meantime.
Doing advertising is great, but watch your conversions, make sure your ads are very very targeted in keywords as well as ad copy. Experiment with different ppc campaigns at Overture, Kanoodle, and Google ... see what's out there, and experiment, track, and experiment some more, within your budget of course.
Targeted newsletters and ezines might be something to experiment with, again, if you want to do it cheap, consider contacting the owners and offering them an opportunity as an affiliate.
Do a couple press releases, and get them circulated. Here are just 2 to get you started:
Check your local newspapers to see if they have a web site, then contact them about doing an article on local goes international
Get links into your site ... this can't be stressed enough ... check out the Links forum here about how to exchange links with complimentary sites (not direct competitors). This will help get traffic from the exchange, as well as help in SE rankings.
Hope this helps,
Debs _________________ Learn how to turn keyphrases into quality, well-targeted articles your visitors and SE's will love with Gary Antosh's new ebook "Web Content Made Easy!"
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