26
Hi tedsmith,
If you go to gooooooooogle.com and search for lost doggies your site is the first to appear. Plus a few other links back home to XOOPS and the questions you've asked, etc. On the other hand doing a search for 'lost dogs' gives no results back to your site. The thing most noticeable about this is the adwords in right hand column in google. Only a couple of instances of advertisers 1 for K911.com, 2 for amazon and the other about opinion surveys on dogs.
On google.co.uk "lost dogs" keywords are taken up by 2 advertisers I'd say were relevant the other spots are taken up by the big companies like amazon and ebay.
So what do you do to increase awareness of your site in .com, co.uk, or maybe the world?
Budget $100 for advertising (might be tax deductible). Get an adword account on Google and place your keywords in the google engine. Suggestions are simple enough: lost dogs, stray dogs, pet pictures, etc, etc. It only takes a few combinations to get listed at top but you'll probably pay 5 cents a click, or more, for the luxury but it will get your site noticed until the next one comes along.
If you are looking for membership you probably have lot's of avenues for local advertising seeing as how your site is geographically fixed. Tea/coffee houses, small stores, small shops might have a small billboard where ads can be placed for free. Even a local pet supply shop. What or how do you advertise? Do it on a small 3 x 5 postcard listing a few benefits of your website in point form plus the discussion groups etc, etc. It should not matter as long as the message gets across that lost doggies is the best place locally to discuss dogs, post pictures of lost dogs, get info on dogs, adopt dogs, in general best place in UK for dog info, etc, etc. You built it now advertise a bit and people will come onboard.
Google does not necessarily get you the results you want as it only targets the few who have a computer and might have lost a dog, unless, of course, it's one of those Internet Dogs the ones that stand up bark and wag their tails every time the site records a hit. I think most people have probably already figured out that putting a picture of their pet on a telephone or power pole in the neighborhood is a much better way to find their lost doggie. It's a community effort.
Overall looking to the community you live in will give a much better turn out than most anything on the web. And once you have the community really working in your favor those other sites you were trying to link with will take notice of your presence. Now, and here's the kicker, charge them money to link don't do it for free after all non-profits can't survive with no profit.
It's not so much about beating the competition. I think the game you're playing is relevant to a specific demographic which is limited geographically etc, etc. Ted you can beat the competition with some old fashioned ideas, but if you depend on technology to beat your competitors the established ones will always win.
idea. recruit school kids, advertise your web site with the school associations, get kids on board to drive it, after all kids love their pets, parents just clean up after them :) ? What does BBCnews have to do with lost dogs?
my2cents
regards
rocket98
