6 replies to this topic

[wassim]

Hello SEO Experts,

I created a new website where I upload some video tutorials to it (and keep it updated). My video tutorials are about: Programming, Animation, Designing.

I am wondering what is the best way to market the site, or let people know about it. I don't plan to buy links or things like that, I offer the tutorials for free and I don't benefit from it that much for now... I am planning to maybe sell advertisements on it later on after few months, but I don't have anything in mind for the moment and my main concern is to help people and teach them new things.

I've been told that Free Services market themselves automatically especially if they are of good quality, and they will all become familiar by themselves as soon as people start discovering them, since most people love free things. I believe the website is of a good quality and most people are liking it, but the traffic is very low at the moment (It's been online for 3 days by the way hehe).

Do you have any suggestions on how to market this kind of websites? Do you think Ads exchange will help in this case (I have created an ads spot on the right of my site)? and where can I find people interested in exchanging ads with me especially that my site doesn't have good traffic at the moment and the other party won't benefit of being my partner in ads exchange!

Thank you

[Jill]

Well, this is when you should be falling back on your business and marketing plan. You do have one of those right?

[wassim]

Well, this is when you should be falling back on your business and marketing plan. You do have one of those right?

Hello Jill,

well yes, I have one, but the problem is Marketing Plans cost some money, and my site is all free... so I thought maybe I could market the site for free since marketing it is easier than a paid-service.

What do you reckon in this case?
I don't mind paying some money, but I can't spend alot of money on this because I don't expect any income basically from it. The site is mostly educational and isn't a commercial one.

Thanks

[nethy]

I've been told that Free Services market themselves automatically especially if they are of good quality, and they will all become familiar by themselves as soon as people start discovering them, since most people love free things. I believe the website is of a good quality and most people are liking it, but the traffic is very low at the moment (It's been online for 3 days by the way hehe)

I'm not sure I would go that far. Free services are probably more likely to be super successful at virally spreading. But that's still a long-shot & free is only one parameter. Generally speaking viral marketing generally is centred around the product itself. Seth Godin is a famous advocate of this approach. According to him, your best bet is to build an incentive to recommend (share) & the tools to do so right into the product. For example, Google video & YouTube do a similar job. YouTube enjoyed much more robust viral growth. The reason given for this is that Youtube built in mechanisms for you to share, (follow, embed, send to, etc.) & incentive for you to share*.

On 'traditional' advertising, my advice is generic . If you plan to spend money on advertising, set aside a test budget. Set up several parallel advertising channels (adwords/ppc, facebook ads, stumbleupon ads, youtube ads, whatever you think may work). Work out a way to measure the effectiveness of each. Try them all & work from there.

*I think that these two 'free' giants & their market values show that free does not ensure you'll have an easy time.

[Randy]

I've been told that Free Services market themselves automatically especially if they are of good quality

You've either been told wrong or misunderstood. New-ish free sites have no advantage. Maybe they'll have an advantage years down the road if you keep developing, but early on there's no difference between a free site and a pay site.

To paraphrase something Torka has said many times that's exactly correct...

There's good, there's fast and and there's cheap. You get to pick any two, assuming you're willing to do a lot of work yourself. But all three just aren't possible.

[wassim]

Thanks much nethy and Randy for the tips... All appreciated and I trust what you're saying

[goslingmar]

You have the right strategy in that you wish to first demonstrate your intention to help before you attempt to make money out of your site. That's a great start. Extend that helpfulness by writing articles for quality other sites in your niche even if they don't pay you. Post specific tutorials in places where they are most likely to be appreciated. For example, create a top quality post in a programming forum and you may even get it stickied. Network with people who are well known in your field. Comment on their blogs without linking back to your site - it shows you're not after cheap links but interested in building relationships. Once you get noticed, offer to guest write a blog post with a complimentary link back to your site. Those are, I believe, good ways to get a free service noticed.

For your kind of site there's a definite inverse relationship between quantity of ads and viral inward links you generate via the above suggestions. When you do introduce ads, I would use a gradual approach. Good luck.