How would you spend an initial marketing budget of 2000€?

[matthewmurcia]

I have been reading around a lot and trying to do as much learning as possible about SEO but the first question I have is more about business and marketing than the actual techniques of SEO. (as it's a more pressing issue for me right now)

I would like to know how would you spend an initial marketing budget of around 2000€

I have got into SEO and set up a site over the last few months. I have received plenty of local interest from a few people I know where I live, send out an email newsletter to about a 150 contacts twice a month and have generated some external (not local) interest through a blog and some participation in forums :) I have also defined and priced a basic list of initial services and presented this to a few interested people who have received it well.

I have made contact with the local marketing club and even worked out a little affiliate type plan which will allow web design/ marketing/ ad agencies to earn discounts/commissions through selling the services to their clients. I think the moment has come to be a bit more aggressive about things and I think I could invest about this much money. At the minute I am a one man shop with the help of a couple of collaborators on some projects.

Based on the qualatitive feedback from the local contacts, their state of conciousness about SEO and website promotion could be summed up as follows:


website promotion is getting listed in 3000 directories every month right?
i want to be number 1 in google
i don't really know how many people visit my site
I've already spent (lots of) money on having the site designed
My site doesn't really wotk


Some do a bit of PPC already but don't think it really works as well as it should for them.

The 2000€ spend would have to pay for itself in about 3 months. Would you spend more maybe (or even less??)?

Thanks, I am really interested in your ideas.

[g1smd]

>> # website promotion is getting listed in 3000 directories every month right?

Huh? There are only a few dozen directories worth being listed in. If you are submitting that stuff every month then you're a spammer. If you are paying someone else to do that, then STOP IT RIGHT NOW, and get a full refund before they screw the reputation of your site totally.

>> # i want to be number 1 in google

Everyone wants that, but you don't need it to be succesful. You need to be found for all relevant keyphrases related to your business, not be number 1 for searches that people rarely make.

>> # i don't really know how many people visit my site

You should do. Any half-decent host will have provided access to your log files. The last 7 to 14 days should always be archived there, and you should analyse them to see what people are searching for when they arrive at your site.

>> # I've already spent (lots of) money on having the site designed

The SEO part of the work should be done as part of the design, not after it. Get a designer with a clue, or get an SEO to oversee the project and tell the designer what needs doing as part of the design.

>> # My site doesn't really work

See the previous answer.

[matthewmurcia]

Hi g1smd, nice to meet you. :)

I absolutely agree with everything you said!! Those points aren't at all my way of doing things, :o: I listed them merely as a summary of the state of conciousness as regards SEO for the majority of local clients I have met so far. That's the way they currently think, like it or not, right or not (and it's very wrong) They are the 'barriers', if you like, that my marketing will need to break through to persuade them to have me sort their webpage out properly and be found for the keywords relevant to their business, as you point out.

I would like to know how you would spend the money (an initial budget) which could be (and will be when it starts to work) expanded. The goals are to have prosepective clients who are unsure commit to projects and also to find new clients. Sorry if I wasn't clear on that in the first post.

[ihelpyou]

Oh boy. It sounds like you are "just" starting out offering SEO services, right?

I don't know about most others out there, but when I started 8 years ago, I offered my services "for free" in order to build up some clients and a history of some kind. You have to build trust first. If you start out selling services that you really don't have a grasp of yet, what will that do for your clients who pay you, and then don't get what they expected? You simply can't open up shop and start selling if you really don't understand "all" there is to know about that service. I went from "free", to selling at a VERY low price, and raised that price from there.

I don't think you should be spending ANY money of marketing 'yourself' yet. That's kind of nutty for right now. Participate in here by learning and answering questions. People will see how knowledgeable you are and contact you.

[matthewmurcia]

That's absolutely right Doug :) Just starting, because I've been reading and testing things a lot with my own sites for a few months now and people have started asking me to look at their sites and the like. Your the first person I've talked to though that's admitted they started doing something for free which is kind of refreshing. How long did it take you to get you first paying customer?

[ihelpyou]

At that time we had excite and infoseek as the main players. Infoseek was a "daily" thing where you submitted pages to them and you could see the changes "instantly". It did not take long to find out I had a gift for it. I'd say maybe after about three or four months I started charging:

$27

as a TOTAL FEE. Yes, that's right.... $27. :D

I went from there by doubling my fee every two months or so.

The more you know, the better you get, the higher you can charge, and the more clients you can show as proof.

[matthewmurcia]

Ok, that's about the point I'm at right now, I imagine, although the price of a loaf of bread has gone up in the last 8 years so maybe I'll try for a little more than $27 :) It's nice to know that if you keep going, it all starts to work as well, which can be a bit of a struggle at the start of new projects. A one day indexing cylce sounds kind of fun too.