Website advertising options

[dereko]

I'm looking to advertise our online time tracking software application:

Web based time tracking software - Timesheets and Time keepting application - 1time

we have a google adwords campaign running and i'm now looking for some other avenues for advertising.

Our target market is project based service companies or any company that has a need to record time. e.g. Creative companies, accountants, software, architects, consultants etc.. Usually SMEs

I have a list of a few sites that may have a large amount of our target market. At the moment i'm looking at design companies as they seem to be the most active users so far.

I need to get the best value for my buck as it where so..

Any recommendations ?

 

[Redfly]

Set up a site targeted multi creative (Test/Video/Image) adwords campaign.

Give away a free copy of the software to som high profile bloggers in your niche and ask them to review it.

Something I ahve seen work well is offering a free trial and upgrade the account of those who write a review on their blog.

Also, try reviewme. I have had some decent success with product launches with that.

 

[dereko]

Thanks Dave, We currently have a 1 month free trial. Not sure what you mean by multi creative adwords campaign?


I'll check out review me alright. thanks.

 

[Redfly]

Not sure what you mean by multi creative adwords campaign?

I mean set up different campaigns. Image ads, video ads, animated ads and target them to specific sites using adwords. Sites you think your target audience may be using. (This site?)

Also you may want to visit and post in forums your target audience and advertise in your sig. If anything, it's a good branding excercise. Just be sure to behave yourself and stay clear of flame wars.

 

[Cormac]

ReviewMe seems to be a fairly solid publicity source.

Shoemoney is charging $2,500 per review. That's nice money.
I'm at the bottom of the heap though, @ $60.

 

[Redfly]

They have the new advertiser marketplace open which I think looks like it's much more value.

I am not too keen on the TLA post level ads. I thought they were permenant and I am sure Google will find a way to discount them.

 

[mneylon]

Get a few key bloggers to review it ie. give it to them for free

It will definitely help promote it

 

[mneylon]

Just had a look at the site...

Couple of things...

There are no tangible contact details on the site. You mention the company name once, but there is no mailing address or phone number. This is in direct contravention of EU legislation covering ecommerce.

Presumably you are targetting the global market, but you have pricing in Euro only.

It would make sense to offer pricing in Euro, Dollar and Sterling

Although you have an SSL installed you are also serving non-SSL content, which is giving an error (broken padlock)

The title tag on the main page contains a typo

All your pages seem to have the same title tag (including the typo)

The "contact us" link is a "mailto" - what if I don't have a mail client installed or want to use a different email address? ie. I view your site from my dayjob, but want info on it sent to my non-work email address??


Just a couple of thoughts

 

[dereko]

Thanks very much, I do know of a few issues on the site alright that we are working on at the moment. The SSL should be fine now as i only just installed some code for a stats program which was causing the problem.

I'm also adding some more contact information as well. the price is in Euro's because of the way we are set up with our payment gateway. May have fixed US dollar amounts in the future or i'll show the estimated dollar amount.

Thanks very much for the rest its very useful. We are working on the site so hopefully we can have that sorted before we go full steam ahead with advertising.

also if anyone here is interested in checking out he app let me know if i can help you with anything.

 

[louie]

you didn't ask for the website to be reviewed but here we go:

The registration page (Next Step) link should show an error showing that you need to make at least one selection. It looks like you are trying to use javascript for this (said trying because it doesn't work).

for SEO purposes you should try to avoid being able to browse your website without www.

you use https:// everywhere now, which will stop your website from being indexed properly also an SEO issue

alt tags for the features images should be more to the point not just "promo image" which doesn't make sense and has no connection with what you sell. I would spread the features on few pages instead of scrolling down.

website very slow, seems is waitting for something to load at the bottom of the page, where BTW the </html> closing tag is missing.

and of course all of the above that blacknight mentioned.

 

[dereko]

you didn't ask for the website to be reviewed but here we go:

We have big long list of changes that have to be made so i was going to submit for review when we got that done but i do appreciate any comments now.

The registration page (Next Step) link should show an error showing that you need to make at least one selection. It looks like you are trying to use javascript for this (said trying because it doesn't work).

yea a message should show up, edited the link back, no javascript involved though.

for SEO purposes you should try to avoid being able to browse your website without www.

No that wouldn't be true. I only use the base url without the www in all links to the site so google recognises the site as being without the www. I have a proper re-write for anyone who types it in wrong. I generally subscribe to the theroy that the www is a waste of space. 'http' lets you know its the web. But in saying that I do use it in print material sometimes to make it clear its a website.

you use https:// everywhere now, which will stop your website from being indexed properly also an SEO issue

Good point, i got rid of the problem now, we don't actually need SSL at that point. We no longer take credit card information on registration to allow for a month free trial without having to put your credit card information in.

alt tags for the features images should be more to the point not just "promo image" which doesn't make sense and has no connection with what you sell. I would spread the features on few pages instead of scrolling down.

In general I'm not too happy with this part of the site. We have it in like that for the moment but I think we will eventually create something a bit more comprehensive. I have updated the alts though for now. Maybe somethink like what they have on: ExpressionEngine - Publish Your Universe!

website very slow, seems is waitting for something to load at the bottom of the page, where BTW the </html> closing tag is missing.

I've taken out the reinvigorate stats javascript link back to there site as it seems to be slowing things up. I hope it runs quickly now though. Seems ok this end but we have a very fast connection here.

Thanks for the tips, much appreciated and i welcome any others.

 

[louie]

Quote:
Originally Posted by louie
for SEO purposes you should try to avoid being able to browse your website without www.

No that wouldn't be true. I only use the base url without the www in all links to the site so google recognises the site as being without the www. I have a proper re-write for anyone who types it in wrong. I generally subscribe to the theroy that the www is a waste of space. 'http' lets you know its the web. But in saying that I do use it in print material sometimes to make it clear its a website.

I saw you have a redirection somwhere, but it doesn't work very well for some reason. when you had the https:// enable IE7 ask me first if I want to continue as the website doesn't look safe.

Alo you shouldn't design a website for Google or search engines. I still think the www. is a good thing to have, cause that are still a lot of people out there that doesn't know how internet works. Just my point, but at least you started that way and google has nothing from your website with www.

anyhow there is a good reading, ,might make sense for some, no for others.

bla.st : which is better for your site: www or no www?

 

[dereko]

re-direction should work fine even in IE7.

Thanks again, any thoughts on advertising the site?

 

[mneylon]

Choose a few key bloggers and get them to write about it.

That will work

But you'll need to make sure that any of the minor glitches already mentioned have been ironed out - bloggers will rip into it

 

[dereko]

Thanks, The website isn't quite up to the standard of the application just yet and as soon as i get that right I'll start talking to bloggers and see if they can help me out a bit. I think ideally when ready i'd like to get on sites like

downloadsquad.com
techcrunch.com
solutionwatch.com
etc...

 

[mneylon]

To get onto Techcrunch you'll need to be doing something very cool and innovative AND you'll need international pricing as it's a very American site