Advertising a Site

[Mike]

What is the best way to advertise a site do you think? A way that will get return visitors.

I've got about $300 spare for a new site. I think the best way will be to just advertise on a high traffic site. Or I could buy a few PR8/9 links, I'm not sure.

What would you do with about $300 to promote a new site, and get return visitors?

I can't really say what the topic of the site is about, but it's a site where you wouldn't just visit once. You'd come back again and again until you got bored :)

Cheers,
Mike

[Chris]

What type of site is it?

[baggiho]

I think google is the best ROI

[Mike]

What type of site is it?

An online games one, but one with a few more features than just miniclips stuck on.

[incka]

You won't get PR9 links for that, but you could find some PR8 ones. But it will be about 2 months before the page rank takes effect, so $400 minimum you will need. Free Online Games might be the best keyword to target.

[Chris]

Will you receive a return on your investment?

If doing PPC $400 at 5 cpc each = 8000 visitors. Can 8000 visitors earn you $400. You could go cheaper, 1 cent CPC, but still thats only 40,000 visitors.

Same thing with links. Does paying for a link generate, in the end, enough visitors to give you a positive ROI?

Usually advertising is not worth it for content/advertising supported sites. Only highly converting affiliate sites or ecommerce sites.

The best investment for that $400 is something that is permanent. Permanent links, permanent new content, things like that.

[Mike]

Permanent content sounds good, but I'm not sure if I'll have enough for content. Game developers will be quite expensive I'd think.

Thanks for the replies everyone :)

[incka]

Flash developers are 10 to a dollar.

[Mike]

I think I'll use $100 to get 10k visitors via ppc. I doubt it will make me much, but if I can get 1000 of those to stay (or even 700 or something), it will be a good start. Also, if they stay, they will tell their friends etc etc.

The rest will be spent on content, if it's as cheap as Sean says :)

[incka]

10k visitors will make you about $50 on fastclick so you start with a $50 loss. If you can get 10k return visits you've earned the money back.

[Mike]

Yep, a $50 loss isn't that bad, considering it's just for getting a head start with visitors.

I won't be accepted into fastclick by the way.

[incka]

I know. But there is azoogle ads, and you could run my ad network, $0.50cpm on leaderboards about, maybe more...

[Mike]

your ad network? eh?

[incka]

Just a small thing I do... I've been very sucessful with ads on my own sites, so I thought I might extend it to others...

[michael_gersitz]

what is the url to this ad network?

[incka]

No URL yet. I'm too busy at the moment to do it on any more sites...

[intelliot]

Google Adwords delivers extremely high quality visitors. You can expect higher than average return visits, if your site is "sticky" enough. I would say it's the best investment. Buying PR links works to improve your rankings, but as said above -- it takes a very long time. It's a long-term investment, versus the instant gratification you can get from PPC.

[Mike]

Adwords hasn't worked for me in the past, I don't like it to advertise. I'll just do what I said a few posts ago.