Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hello,

I have just finished building a website and am trying to find creative with ways to promote it. The site is for North American college students to exchange their class notes for free. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on how to market this type of website to college students. Ideally I am looking for free or low cost solutions, I am not really looking for suggestions that involve formal advertising.

If you would like to view the site the address is http://www.classnotez.com

Any ideas and suggestions are welcome.
Thank you for your time,
Scott

bump - does anyone have any suggestions?

First, take the keywords you think people will search for on search engines and start building links with those keywords as anchor text.

For example,

Las Vegas Web Design

If you're not looking into SEO, then just go to websites you believe college students will go to and post your link.

Try starting a Facebook page and get a Twitter account.  You will be able to build exposure for free through those channels.

If you're looking for free methods to promote your new site then your best bet is to adopt a social media strategy.  Why not encourage people to submit notes through a Facebook app and have all their peers find out about this via the News Feed?

Isobel, agency:2

Some simple suggestions:

1. Make sure you have an updated site map (free from sites like xml-sitemaps.com) and submit it to Google, Yahoo and Bing
2. Submit your site to a list of Link Directories or outsource that work - which generally runs about $40 for 500 submissions on most freelance.com type sites.  If you need suggestions for providers just ping me and I'll give you some names.
3. Write some keyword rich articles about your site or articles that would appeal to your target audience and submit it to free article directories.  The key is to make sure you include a link to your website in the article or in the author bio.
4. Look for list of Angela/Paul/Terry/Kyle backlinks and follow the instructions for submitting your website and building backlinks. Funny, but that's how I found this website.

I'm happy to give more suggestions, I'm just not sure if this is the type stuff you are looking for.

Cheers,

JB

JB (or whomever),

some newb questions i guess...

can you p.m. some of the names of the directory submission guys you've had success with in the past.

how do i put a signature after my posts.  i added something a couple of days ago but see nothing...is there a 'probation period' or something does it have to be bb code instead of html or (?)

last one...what the heck is  the Angela / Paul / Terry Kyle Profile Link Building Method.  Google keeps taking me back to elance type work requests for this but having a hard time finding a definition -- is it just an indirect or spoked way of backlinking???

uh...sorry if this is covered elsewhere :)

r8r

ok...duh...i figured out the second question...just a typo actually.

the first and third questions from the previous post stand though :)

Hello corporater8r,

I just sent you two private messages addressing all three questions...though I see you figured the signature question out.

Cheers,
JB

Facebook may be a great idea for promoting your site because of its ability to display ads only to certain demographics.  You'll probably have to target keywords outside of what seems like a "natural" search for your product because no one knows they need it.  If I were you, I'd target keywords like cliff notes, etc.  Just a thought.