i am going to build a site to give free hosting with ads for promoting a hosting site. is it work and effective?

could anyone give a some suggestion on promoting a site more effective and economic?
I really want to get more client, how to do this? nowaday, many hosting company exist in the worldwide, how can i survive in long term?

pls suggest. Many Thanks!

Moved to Running a Web Hosting Business.

A lot of people use google adwords and other forms of media advertising.

I would reccomend staying away from google adwords unless you have a HUGE advertising budget.

From my experiances the free advertising methods usually work the best. Some free ideas include forum posts with your signature, start a newsletter, maybe write an ebook, etc.

As you begin to bring in more money you can advance to more advertising methods.

SEO your site

We got over 7000 monthly visits from search engines.

I would reccomend staying away from google adwords unless you have a HUGE advertising budget.

From my experiances the free advertising methods usually work the best. Some free ideas include forum posts with your signature, start a newsletter, maybe write an ebook, etc.

As you begin to bring in more money you can advance to more advertising methods.
Yes you deffinately need quite a large budget for adwords, i believe the keyword "domain" is now at $5/click minimum :(

Yeah, you can use a mix of paid search engine placement (from www.overture.com (now yahoo), MSN AdCenter (msnadcenter.msn.com) and Google AdWords (www.google.com/ads).

The key is to be as specific and targeted to your industry as possible. Selecting a keyword like 'web hosting' is too broad and attracts everyone looking for anything related to web hosting...you'll receive a lot of clicks due to the volume of people searching for the keywords but your conversions will in most cases be small.

I would first select a market to go after. Then form a campaign around this market.

Hope this helps!

SEO your site

We got over 7000 monthly visits from search engines.
could you give me a suggestion for SEO? which is the best? I don't want to waste the money for some unless SEO.

PLs suggest. Many Thanks!

We've used link exchanges quite effectively.

That also helps boost your SE rankings.

We've used link exchanges quite effectively.

That also helps boost your SE rankings.


could u mind tell me which link exchange program is more effecttive? Thanks!

you dont really want to use programs, you want to target sites related to yours with decent page ranks to help boost your pr in a positive way.

Hire a company like www.submitawebsite.com and go with their basic package. This will get your homepage optimized atleast and they guarantee like 10 first page placements. Hey, it's better than nothing and will probably help with future rankings on google. SEO is the way to go. Stay away from Google AdWords.. there are too many "big" companies with "big" budgets that will crush you! :)

could u mind tell me which link exchange program is more effecttive? Thanks!


We've used Arelis for link exchange software for a few years now. It works quite well, as they search for link partners for you based on a number of search criteria, like keywords, competitors and such.

They're over at http://www.arelis.com

you dont really want to use programs, you want to target sites related to yours with decent page ranks to help boost your pr in a positive way.


Actually, the new version of Arelis has page rank and Alexa Rank for each possible link partner that it finds. This allows you to see if they're a good fit for you as well as you can browse the site before asking them for a reciprocal link.

Hire a company like www.submitawebsite.com and go with their basic package. This will get your homepage optimized atleast and they guarantee like 10 first page placements. Hey, it's better than nothing and will probably help with future rankings on google. SEO is the way to go. Stay away from Google AdWords.. there are too many "big" companies with "big" budgets that will crush you! :)


At this point, I think Google Adwords is just way too expensive. Especially for us small hosts, there's no way to compete with those that pay ridiculous amounts per click just to get a customer over to the site.

I think alternative ways of advertising, both effective and cheap, will work just as well. It may take a bit more work, but that's better than going into debt with just a few clicks!

I don't think getting your new web hosting business noticed would be an easy task, considering it's new. Try listing at FindMyHosting. They pop up pretty much everywhere in search engine results.

SEO is very good if you know what you're doing. It's not as simple as it seems. We've been doing it for as long as we exists :)

Everything needs capital, even SEO if you're really into it, if we really want to get big. For starters, get your website listed on every major web hosting directories. Your prices must be very competitive, otherwise people will overlook you.

So for now, google "web hosting directory" and get you listed on every each one of them. That's a start :)

5 tips I can give you:
1) Make your site Search engine friendly. Define Alt pictures, submit sitemaps, meata tags.
2) Advertise locally, offer incentives, reward referrals.
3) submit yourself to directories, web hosting, others as well.
4) get as many good backlinks to your site with your keywords. this should help you well. Adwords is very expensive. CPC is expensive imho

Google adwords works if you use very specific search terms (phrases) which would get you less impressions and clicks but what you do get will cost less and be more likely to mean a sale.
eg. website hosting yourcity yourstate

With any form of advertising, the main thing is to choose a target market, usually local, and sell to them.

Adwords is great. You might want to integrate Commission Junction links try cover some of your costs.

Christopher J Smallwood

Sorry for bringing up an old topic but i'd just like to add..

Do you think that video adverts on TV would work for promoting your hosting company effectively? Or would it be a waste of time and money?

The ad would have to describe that its to get your OWN website on the internet. for $$ however much a month etc...

Sorry for bringing up an old topic but i'd just like to add..

Do you think that video adverts on TV would work for promoting your hosting company effectively? Or would it be a waste of time and money?

The ad would have to describe that its to get your OWN website on the internet. for $$ however much a month etc...
That will depend on your target market. I don't see too many hosting companies advertising on TV.... probably because many don't focus locally, they sell their wares globally.... and advertising on CNN I can imagine would be quite expensive.

If yuo plan on targeting your local market, then perhaps look into advertising on your local TV station. If you do, I'd love to hear how it works out for you :)

Regards,

I think TV ads would be great if targeted correctly.

I dont' think they'd be as effective in a big market, but let's say you were in a small city. Say 150,000 people. I think they could be very effective there if advertised as a local company, with direct contact and expressing things like local exposure to BBB etc.

Seems like small city people like doing business with locals much more than I see in big cities. But that might just be me.

The problem is you have to get some sort of realistic ROI numbers. Could it work? probably. Would it be worth it? research could answer that or get you a good number. Depending on exactly what you're selling though I think every business would get a lot more customers if they focused marketing on local businesses. Not necessarily personal sites and not even TV maybe? Local cold calling and things like that work GREAT.

How much space and bandwith are you going to offer? There are a fair few hosts that offer free hosting with no ads now adays

could u mind tell me which link exchange program is more effecttive? Thanks!

I found http://www.build-reciprocal-links.com/ one of the best link exchange site.. the service is free too... you just need to give direct link to their website on your site's home page.

Build-Reciprocal-Links.com is free only for sites having pagerank of 3 or 3+. For websites with pagerank below 3 it is paid service.

There is one more facilty called selectively reject categories for LINK EXCHANGE. I am just doing LINK EXCHANGE with WEB HOSTING & WEB DESIGN categories and happy to receive many links. :)

There are actually many ways you can do this...

You could go with, of course a company, that will do link exchange for you but usually your best bet is to do it yourself. Reason being there some good link exchange sites out there and there are bad. Also search engines periodically optimize their code for scripts, which a lot of link exchange sites use. A lot of search engines do a pretty good job presently already. And for you to make the most out of the service, you need a ton of links. With these services you usually do pretty well to start out with, with a moderate to high investment, then it starts to taper off. Doing it on your own can create working relationships without a fee and will lead to more links in the future. Best bet is probably do a bit of both it will maximize your money and allow you to get really good friends in the industry.

Start creating a ton of information on your site, all with related subject matter, all the subject material could be, “how to's,” on different aspects of hosting. This will also help you two fold your clients will see that you care and at the same time the added increase in your text to script ratio will increase your search engine standing. This content that you created can also be linked to various partners you have made from the various forums, developer sites out there and will help with getting your name out there.

Another idea would be to try to get published as often as possible, press releases, interviews, white papers. The more your name is on the internet the more it benefits a client search results. It isn't any wonder why news, forums, and every other interactivity site usually has a high amount of traffic and popularity on the web. Tapping into this resource will usually be free. Hope these help. There are ton's of ways to get your name out there don't just settle for one resource. :)

You should start in forums, and just get the name on the net!

Hello,

The best way to promote your site is through the search engine optimization, which definately increases the hits and the rating for your site.

Optimization really gives good results, and if the optimization is done with the google server then the results are even better.

Thank you.

Regards,

Try googleadwords . It is expensive but good.


i am going to build a site to give free hosting with ads for promoting a hosting site. is it work and effective?

could anyone give a some suggestion on promoting a site more effective and economic?
I really want to get more client, how to do this? nowaday, many hosting company exist in the worldwide, how can i survive in long term?

pls suggest. Many Thanks!