Online stuff

Jynxed · Post by **Jynxed** » July 10, 2003, 4:10 pm

I visit this site quite a bit (am semi retired from EQ atm) and I know a few of you are in technical fields. I own a small business and have been contacted by a company wanting to market me online for a huge fee. I don't know enough about online marketing to make an educated decision, so any help would be appreciated. Oh yea ... Jackass to me

Melrin_Specclaster · Post by **Melrin_Specclaster** » July 10, 2003, 4:31 pm

I'll be the noob.

Market you online?

You mean help advertise for you online? Put your banners up around, put you higher on the search lists on search engines?

That kinda stuff?

Assuming thats what you mean. I would say if you think its 'a lot' of money then you better ask yourself if you're a gambling man. What you can do is maybe ask for references for other people they have 'marketed' for and call one (or 3) of them and talk to them about results and satisfaction. If they are a good legit company, they will have this on hand and gladly provide it.

Oh yeah, and also consider what your target audience is (or maybe could be, be openminded or you could be missing a big area) and decide if online targets the people or base that you think would purchase your goods/services/etc.

Ennia · Post by **Ennia** » July 10, 2003, 4:38 pm

self jackassing doesn't count you jackass!

Jynxed · Post by **Jynxed** » July 10, 2003, 4:40 pm

Thanks

Basically getting me higher on the search engines, redoing my site so that it's more "search engine friendly" they say. I have found someone local that can create metatags for my site, which is what this company would do... but as far as getting me to the search engines --- is this something that I can do myself and get good results? This company claims to be able to get me ranked in the top 10 with some keywords on some major search engines---- for a fee of $900 a month. I'm thinking I might can do it myself but I don't know where to start ><

Melrin_Specclaster · Post by **Melrin_Specclaster** » July 10, 2003, 4:45 pm

900 a month is steep. I know some people that have done it, but I havent. If they are keeping you in top 10 for 900, but I bet theres (honestly) some kid around there that would be thrilled and could do it for 1/3 that (less but for less he may decide its not worth it some month and leave you hanging). If 1 job from the search will pay for the search engine a month (or year depending on size of what you will do) then maybe its worth it. If the jobs are only a few hundred bucks each, then you'll need mass to make it worthwhile. I still say try for a reference, but if you're a gambling man, you could try it for 6 months (honestly, it could take 6 months to even start picking up).

Edit: Afterthought. Also, if it gets you mass business: a) is that what you want? Do you want to grow big, or stay small and comfortable(really this is an important thought. The younger you are the less you'll care likely)? b) If you get more business than you can currently handle, how hard will it be to find the people able to help you with the new business.

You may want to grow, but for a lot of people that have done that before, when they start a new business, they dont want to repeat the headaches. They just want a small business to run and be comfortable with.

(Can you tell I worked for owner/salesmen before?)

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » July 10, 2003, 4:51 pm

Jynxed, that price is VERY high, someone could improve your listing and get you higher on search engines for about 5-10 hours of work a month. You do the math, for 900 a month you could hire someone to do it locally on their own time, and have them locally to throttle if they did you.

I have promoted sites before, and 99% of the work is in researching each search engines methods of listing. You could promote your site in a much less expensive manner by asking VV'rs to link to you from all their personal sites (link counts are valued by almost every search engine) and if in a few months you saw results you could make a donation to VV.

Jynxed · Post by **Jynxed** » July 10, 2003, 4:57 pm

That's what I was thinking ... and it's a 12 month contract also. It would take a couple of good sales a month to pay for it, so it's a gamble. I pay that much a month in paid advertising online anyway though. Do any of you VVers do that kind of thing for a living?

edit: Yep Kylere I've learned just since I've been looking into this this week that search engines rate you from links, keywords, site content pertaining to search,etc.

masteen · Post by **masteen** » July 10, 2003, 5:35 pm

Just make sure your metas include lolita, teen, interracial, bukkake, orgy, and fetish. You'll top everyone's search!

noel · Post by **noel** » July 10, 2003, 5:52 pm

This just in: Xo said he'd do it for $899!

Post by **Xouqoa** » July 10, 2003, 10:19 pm

$900 a month sounds a bit ridiculous to me!

I don't really know that much about all the search engine stuff, but it really shouldn't be too hard to go through the major search engines and find out how they rank, and then adjust your site accordingly.

Meta tags are your friends.

<meta name="description"content="Your site description" />
<meta name="keywords"content="site keywords separated by a space" />
<meta name="author" content="Your Name" />
<meta name="robots" content="index,follow" />
<meta name="copyright"content="Copyright 1999-2001 by You" />

Those should get ya started... read up on how sites index and you should really be able to do it yourself pretty easily with a little research.

This might be helpful, I skimmed it real fast and seemed to have some good infoz.

http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters ... hp/2168021

Good luck!

Jynxed · Post by **Jynxed** » July 10, 2003, 11:45 pm

Thanks for the help all

I thought that was OMGIAMRETARDEDCAUSEALOTISTWOWORDS of money to spend every month ... and plus to be tied into a 12 month contract too. I would prob give it a try for a few months but being tied into that is a bit scary. I'm going to try and find someone around here. If that doesn't work I'll find out what I can myself. I mean, I learned how to play EQ and that takes a genius... right???

Jynxed · Post by **Jynxed** » July 10, 2003, 11:46 pm

OMG I retarded myself