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Thread: A Good Place To Advertise?????
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11-17-2000, 12:49 PM #1New Member
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Where would be a good place to advertise? A place where adverising would be effective anyway. There are a lot of host search sites out there.
Thanks
Chris
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11-17-2000, 02:24 PM #2Web Hosting Evangelist
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can you spell Ebay?
http://dynastyhost.com -Quality Web Hosting & Reseller Plans
Web Hosting Since 1999
Toll Free 1-866-307-HOST
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11-18-2000, 02:06 AM #3Web Hosting Evangelist
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wood for the trees etc !
Dynasty,
Do you mind if I call you that?
Thank you for that info... this is a question that I also had in my mind to ask, believe it or not.
It's (eBay) probably one of the most 'obvious' places to go but I'll admit my 'stupidity' for not thinking about it for hosting.
Well, I'm only new at this...
Thanks again.
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11-18-2000, 11:53 PM #4Junior Guru Wannabe
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More than 50% of my business, I get from Web hosting Directories. I also advertise on goto.com, it works for me, I know a lot of people had bad experiences. Other than that, ad your site to search engines. If you spend few hundred dollars a month, it should help.
Mostly, you have to be patient, if you give good service, you'll be amazed how much more customers you'll get from word of mouth.
Good Luckwww.123ehost.com
Fast and reliable hosting at low cost.
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11-19-2000, 01:31 PM #5Registered User
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SK, Can you let us know what hosting dDirectories you use?
This might help him in picking a place to advertise.
I have used this one of course and Host Search.
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11-19-2000, 01:41 PM #6Web Hosting Evangelist
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A short list of hosting dirs:
AAAHostList
AceHosts.com
AddaHost.com
All-hosts.com
AllAboutHosts
BudgetWeb.com
BigHosts.com
BuscaHost.com
CompareWebHosts
Colosource.com
Colocations.org
Ecommercefirms
Findahost.com
Findwebspace.com
Freewebspace
Gethosted.com
HostCrawler.com
Hostfacts.com
HostFinder.com
HostFinder.net
Hostfinders.com
Hostglobal.com
Hosthelp.com
Hostindex.com
HostInvestigator
Hostlist.com
Hostreview.com
HostingReviews
Hosting Repository
Hostsearch.com
HostShowcase.com
Hostspot.com
Hottesthosts.com
iHostCafe.com
Ispcheck.com
Macwebserver.com
RateAHost.com
Ratehost.com
Recellar.com
Reviewhost.com
Startplace.com
Supremewebhosts
SuperiorHosts
Thedirectory.org
Theblade.org
Tophosts.com
Ukwebhosts.co.uk
Verihost.com
Webhostarea.com
Webhostdir.com
Webhostdirectory
Webhosters.com
Webhostguide.com
Webhostlist.com
Webhostsrated.com
WebHosts- The List
Webhostseek.com
Web Host Guild
WebHostingFirms.com
Webserverlist.com
WebServerIndex
Wothost.co.uk
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11-19-2000, 01:44 PM #7Registered User
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I would strongly recommend putting your details in each one but investigate the site before spending money on advertising.
You want to email the owner and ask for details of the visitors. Make sure to get IP's so you can validate unique guest.
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11-19-2000, 05:28 PM #8Web Hosting Master
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ebay
Im confused on why Ebay would be a good place to advertise for webhosting services, what you want people to bid on it??? Also im not sure why you were so rude (can you spell Ebay) too the person who asked the question?? Am I overlooking something??
affordablecolo.com carrier grade colocation at a affordable price!
Charles Baker - Company Operations
1-866-316-HOST
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11-19-2000, 05:33 PM #9Web Hosting Master
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Well, what I think Dynasty does, is sell domains via ebay (and with them a free month or so of webhosting). I've seen his ads on ebay and they are very nice from a marketing point of view.
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11-19-2000, 05:33 PM #10Web Hosting Evangelist
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You can offer people to bid on annual contract plans, I guess.
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11-19-2000, 05:35 PM #11Web Hosting Master
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Ohh, and *that* list is quite long, but you can cross reference it with my shorter list (I'm sure 99% are the same but I'm too lazy to check at the moment):
http://www.webhostdir.com
http://www.webhosters.com
http://www.hostfacts.com
http://www.hostinvestigator.com
http://www.4webhosting.com
http://www.webhostseek.com
http://www.hostindex.com
http://www.webhostlist.com
http://www.tophosts.com
http://www.ispcheck.com
http://www.hostingreviews.com
http://www.host-tribune.com
http://www.cyberwiser.com
http://www.hostfind.com
http://www.hostreview.com
http://www.findwebspace.com
http://www.hostspot.com
http://www.verihost.com
http://www.ihostcafe.com
http://www.hottesthost.com
http://www.webhostarea.com
http://www.hostcompare.com
http://www.reviewdepot.com
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11-19-2000, 09:42 PM #12Junior Guru Wannabe
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I suppose your question is answered.
It's a bit expensive to advertise most of these directories.
If your new to web hosting, you should have competitve prices, to build your clientele. Never increase your prices, unless your not making any money.
It's just my opinion.
Thankswww.123ehost.com
Fast and reliable hosting at low cost.
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11-21-2000, 01:37 PM #13WHT Addict
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Originally posted by SK
More than 50% of my business, I get from Web hosting Directories. I also advertise on goto.com, it works for me, I know a lot of people had bad experiences. Other than that, ad your site to search engines. If you spend few hundred dollars a month, it should help.
Mostly, you have to be patient, if you give good service, you'll be amazed how much more customers you'll get from word of mouth.
Good Luck
When we first started out advertising our personals ads system on goto.com we were paying out like .50 per click through, we got a huge amount of clickthroughs, but the signup ratio was around, 1 in 800 click throughs from them, we then finally managed to get listed on Yahoo! and our clickthroughs to signups increased to like 250 in 800 clicks from Yahoo surfers. In our mind this told us that the people that were clicking on our listing in goto.com were nothing more than clickers, people who enjoy spending our money to click on our listings and those of our competitors as well im sure. So for us it was a total waste of $900.00 that we paid to goto.com for that service.
When we questioned them about how they limit the click throughs against fraudulently having people click through, they told us that they are not at liberty to tell us their method, but rest assured that they have something in place that deals with fraudelent clicks. Meanwhile they could not or refused to respond to why the signup ratio from goto was 1 in 800 while the signup ratio from yahoo was 250 in 800. In fact they ignored that part of our email to them altogether.
So, IMHO goto.com is a complete and total waste of time and money spent. I think it better to have top knotch tech support for your customers, good word of mouth, great pricing, and even a target market wouldn't hurt. We have two websites devoted to hosting, one is a "software gamers" type of hosting site targeted at gamers and gaming, and another that is more of a general hosting site, one of these new fangled .ws names (yup, its too difficult to get webhost in a .com anymore), and that .ws site doesnt target anybody, but rather is a general nicely styled domain for general hosting.
As far as advertising, banners, well, how many banners do you really click on, I can say it takes a really stupendous banner to make me want to click on it, it really has to target what Im looking for and let me know it. For example if I go to a host directory of hosts, and see a banner ad that is flashy, and eye catching, but doesn't tell me anything about them, Im less likely to click on, and probably wont click on it at all, but if I see a banner that lists the items you get in their base accounts, and a price, Im liekely to click on it to see what else they offer.
So no matter where you advertise, keep in mind two things, how appealing and clickable is your banner to you, and how much does you banner ad tell prospective clients about your service. Just having a flashy, animated banner does not help to get people to click on it. Also find the really high trafficked web hosting directory listing sites out there and advertise on them, afterall, if the hosting directory site that you decide to advertise on only gets like 1000 uniques a day and you could be paying the same or slightly higher amount of money for an ad on a hosting directory that gets 10,000 uniques per day, which do you think will benefit you more, even if you have to pay slightly higher rates for the 10,000 unique visitors per day, it may be worth it.
As far as ebay goes, I've never even thought to look at them to find a host when we werent our own hosting company and were still using virtual accounts, and on goto.com I've heard by my ex business partner that people were paying up to and over $6.00 per click through for the words web hosting, that hardly seems worth it, and I have no idea how these companies stay in business at that rate, some of them pay goto 4.00 per click , and offer hosting at 9.95
Its a tough business to be in, especially with the market so saturated. If I didn't have the need to be on my own dedicated server, I wouldn't be in the hosting business at all, but since my virtual hosting bills were real close to what Im paying in ded server hosting, it seemed worthwhile, since I can add up maybe 75 other sites onto my server without a problem with resources and memory and what not, so that could make a nice little profit, wont pay my mortgage, but might make my auto loan payment if it works out.
Good luck to all, I wish you all well in your hosting endevars(sp? - wheres the spell check when you need it).
Bbox
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11-21-2000, 02:48 PM #14Junior Guru Wannabe
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the signup ratio from yahoo was 250 in 800.
In how much amount of time did you get 800 clicks thru Yahoo?
Did you advertise?
The reason I'm asking, is because I don't get a lot of URL referrals from Yahoo.
www.123ehost.com
Fast and reliable hosting at low cost.
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11-21-2000, 02:57 PM #15WHT Addict
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The minute the site went live on their listing and it still had the "new" icon next to it, we received over 5500 unique clickthroughs between that day and the next day, after the new icon was removed, the click throughs started to drop off, but it's still the highest ranking search engine that provides the most click throughs to our site in our sites log files.
Bbox
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11-21-2000, 03:32 PM #16Junior Guru Wannabe
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Could you share some tips with us, on how to get so many clickthroughs. Keywords? Description?
Thank youwww.123ehost.com
Fast and reliable hosting at low cost.
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11-21-2000, 03:45 PM #17WHT Addict
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I dont think there are any tips, yahoo does its own thing, they take a really well written description and chomp on it until it conforms to whatever the category editor (read: yahoo employee) wants it to say. They took a two sentance consise description and chopped it down to 5 words, while other listings in the same category have almost a paragraph description.
Since they are not a search engine, meta tags like keywords and descriptions mean nothing to them. They are a web directory where the category editor has the final say in what appears and what doesn't as well as how it appears listed on their site.
We (me personally) had to go through about 10 emails with the category editor to get him to keep coming back to the site and retry it, he cited for one reason or another that he couldnt check out the site it wouldnt work in his browser etc. etc. etc., so we had to keep making changes to the site so that he could access it. Finally he made it through and put us in the directory using his own keywords and description. The big influx of uniques was mainly due to the "new" icon that was pasted next to the listing for the first xx days, like I say, after that the uniques started dropping off, but still the highest ranking in our logs.
Theres really no secret, it depends on your content, what market your in, for example Im going to try to get a listing under a webhosting category for them, and I'd believe that 1. If I do manage to get listed with them, I will not get the huge amounts of traffic that we originally saw with the personal system, because the field is so over populated with webhosts, and 2. in their listings it depends on your domain name or site title, for example go to their directory, they list sites alphabetically when you drill down in the categories, so most people will obviously start at the top and work their way down the list.
So if your site is at zebrahost.com your listing is surely going to be at the bottom of their listings, and Im reasonably sure that if you try to list it with a title of Alpha Hosting to try to get it near the top, if they dont refuse you, and actually accept it, it will probably still be listed under Zebra Host.
So, domain name is important on a Yahoo! listing, but less so on regular search engines like Excite, infoseek (now go.com) and others, where meta tags properly used (and I stress properly used) are more important.
So, no secrets to disclose here, just get good listings on the major search engines, that will be your number one traffic source. Other than print media, television, and radio ads which still bring in a high amount of people, of course you cant track where they came from, so you'd have to have some kind of poll in your signup system that said where did you hear about us, and hope that they tell the truth.
Good Luck
Bbox
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11-27-2000, 01:05 PM #18Aspiring Evangelist
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Keep in mind it might take several weeks or months to get listed and to get listed well, especially in such a broad category as web hosting. Always check your listings and resubmit as needed.
Ocean View Host - http://www.OceanViewHost.com
Affordable web hosting and E-commerce solutions for any size business.
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11-27-2000, 01:41 PM #19WHT Addict
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Yup I agree, one of the tricks that we use is to NOT wait until the site is completely built, just build a page and insert it as your index.html page that has some mumbo jumbo about webhosting and what you offer. Then start circulating this to the search engines (not directories), in the time that it takes for them to pick it up and index it, you'll be done with your site and wont have to wait the 2 to 6 weeks or more to get listed after your site is done and your losing money. Dont do this with web directories like Yahoo, since they will send out an employee to view your site and if thats all that they see there, they will refuse your listing.
The above info assumes that you are new to hosting and just starting out, it's not meant for established sites, in which they should properly format their keywords and keep monitoring their sites listing on the search engines as the afore mentioned poster mentioned.
Oh yeah, heres another trick, signup to be a go guide at go.com and add your site there if they still have any webhosting catagory editors available.
Word to ya mutha!
Bbox
[Edited by brainbox on 11-27-2000 at 12:49 PM]Hosting Beacon - The light in the web hosting storm!
http://www.hostingbeacon.com
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11-28-2000, 12:05 PM #20Web Hosting Master
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Keep in mind it might take several weeks or months to get listed and to get listed well, especially in such a broad category as web hosting. Always check your listings and resubmit as needed.
Yahoo only accept paid entries for commercial categories ($199).
Plus, web hosting companies are listed at the lowest level in the directory, by geographical area.
They severely chopped my description and listed the site by postal address, not server location.
It will be worth it in the long run, and I only really did it because I had to spend some cash on promotion to reduce my tax liabilities.
By the way, I do a lot of banner advertising. I use my free web hosting service to generate banner exchange impressions which I use to advertise the paid hosting.
It sounds complicated but it amounts to thousands of free ads per day.
Its quite weird, because we generate so many impressions I occasionally see my own ad on my own site!
(the free hosting service makes its money from affilliate schemes)
I do get reasonable click through rates but they are substantially lower than paid ads placed on networks like MSN (where I buy ad space for some of my marketing clients).
Gordon
Formerly: Managing Director, Hostroute.com Ltd & Marketing Director, Ultraspeed UK Ltd
View my Professional Profile: www.gordonhudson.com
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11-28-2000, 12:56 PM #21Aspiring Evangelist
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Paying the fee to Yahoo doesn't guarantee entry into thier index. Only a guaranteed review. Realistically I've never heard of any half-way decent site being turned down after pay the fee, but there's still no guarantee. Same with Looksmart.
However, for non-paying engines you still need to monitor and possibly resubmit many times.
Ocean View Host - http://www.OceanViewHost.com
Affordable web hosting and E-commerce solutions for any size business.
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11-28-2000, 11:45 PM #22Web Hosting Master
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Jaiem, there was some talk at Sitepoint about people getting listed at Yahoo, and then dropped after a month. It may have just been one person, but something to think about.
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11-29-2000, 12:48 AM #23Aspiring Evangelist
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Chicken - Yes, I've read that too. Can't verify it though. Might be just an "urban legend". Then again, Yahoo is so into itself I wouldn't put anything past them.
Frankly since Yahoo switched to using Google as thier web search DB we've done very well. Might consider paying for a listing for my other site however.Ocean View Host - http://www.OceanViewHost.com
Affordable web hosting and E-commerce solutions for any size business.
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11-30-2000, 05:10 AM #24Web Hosting Master
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Have you tried submitting your site to yahoo canada? I thought I read/heard that they don't get nearly as many submissions and that although they prefer to list Canadian-related content, they will list anything decent (guess this is somewhat subjective, but worth a try).
Reason I mention this is because where ever I read this, it also said that sites they list, are automatically listed with the regular yahoo. This might be old news. Might not even work at all, I don't know, but maybe worth a shot.