Local Promotion, what works best?

[jamesb]

I have a website which is all about promoting my local town of Reigate in Surrey (I have a separate url for it from a main national site) and I am trying to promote it locally but am not getting very much interest. The site is called www.reigate-offers.co.uk.

So far I have tried :

Direct email sourced from other local media, but was certain this was going to be treated as spam and was not going to work and I was right.

Leaflet dropping - actually I only did a quick test batch as I'm not convinced this to be the way forward either as its just spam through the letterbox. And I've tried it before to no effect.

I've ruled out advertising in the local media as essentially my site is in competition with that media and may not be accepted.

So I'm now stumped for good local advertising techniques, (that are cost effective) any ideas?

Cheers
James

[PeterCarruthers]

After looking at your website, James, am I allowed to say that I'm not sure what you're offering? I was at an Internet marketing seminar recently, and the most important number that sticks in my mind was that you lose 50% of your visitors with every click. That kind of terrifying, and it means that your front page needs to spell out exactly what you're offering, why people should stay, where they should go, etc.

For example, on your side you have a Join Now link. But, respectfully, join what? There isn't an "offer" before the request for action.

Maybe it is because I am a foreigner -- from South Africa -- that I don't understand the concept of "national offers". I clicked on it out of courtesy because you asked us to check out the site in this forum. But it contains gold: discount coupons. So why not just call that link "discount coupons"?

I don't mean to dismiss the work that you have done. Every single day I get an e-mail from some be wanting to start a business, talking up a storm, about their new concept or website, but very few get there.

The mere fact that you have gotten this far puts you in the top 1% of the population -- well done. And maybe the reason you're bumping into these problems now, is to hone your skills, and tighten your focus.

Imagine, if the site took off immediately, without you having to think about it, you would fall apart the first time sales fell off.

[timd1230]

You could always spend a couple of days door knocking visiting local businesses to see what the response is when properly explained

Tim

[jamesb]

Peter

Many thanks for your valuable comments, I will take a long hard look at my front page and make some changes.
But I spell out what the site is in my marketing but its not helping bring in the customers, as I suspect my marketing is not being read in the first place, so I really need a more efficient marketing method.
I had thought about the face to face approach and yes it might get the ball rolling a little, but I need to get thousands of companies taking notice of my site and for that I need something a little less time consuming to rely on.

James

[A.N.Onym]

You need to make sure you provide value to the companies, first.
Once they notice you and see you as a valuable local resource, they'll gladly use your services.

To do this, you need to attract the customers of your target audience to your site. You can do that with quality content or otherwise interesting or entertaining material.

[bigOz]

I agree with Peter that your site needs imrovement, but more importantly, the reason there is no interest may well be connected to so0mething else. The fact is, your site is not visible when a search is done using specific key phrases related to your area of service.

I have tried Reigate on its own and in conjunction with other related words such as shops, business, hotels etc. to no avail - your site does not come up! The only time it would show up on the first page is when the actual site name "Reigate Offers" is searched for!

I also had viewed your meta tags - wrong choice of meta description and meta keywords! Ask someone who knows more, or search for "meta tags" online and do some reading. If you wish your site to be a business directory, then you might be better off changing the name to one.

Better use of keywords in the content of your index page may also help. Just to give you an example, if you expect people looking for "Reigate Business deals/offers" visit your site, there is no point in using very generic key phrases such as "latest offers available in town". Write "latest Reigate business and shopping offers available".

Likewise, there is no point in writing "Below are just some of the more recent and most unmissable offers on right now", a more search engine spider-friendly way would be "Below are just some of the more recent Reigate offers on right now".

As for meta keywords, for example, include the word Reigate before every phrase such as "local business", "local offers" etc. rather than on its own. Spiders can be tempremental, they may read Reigate and local offers as separate key phrases but not necessarily consider them together as a single phrase.

You can find more material on line to read on the subject for optimising your site.

[jamesb]

bigOz - thanks for your very good post, I'll get onto all your points right away...