pound for pound is it worth it? i managed to get a £200 ad for £100, i got plenty of enquiries but very few bookings. i know one gig would pay for it but the take up rate seemed small. mainly other djs after comparision prices me things... anyway what do u think?

I still always maintain that your best advert is simply word of mouth. Yellow pages are a very expensive form of advertising for the results that they actually deliver. The "Enquiries" that you got were probably just from the "competition" checking out your prices.

I find that a good website generates more business than adverts in the local press / Yellow pages etc, especially if you can get a good place on the search engines and its almost free worldwide 24/7 advertising, how many directories can boast that! . I've actually halved my advertising budget for the roadshow since building the site, and over 90% of my Sound & Lighting business comes from the internet.

I've tried ads in both yellow pages and thompsons and neither ad even paid for itself in terms of resulting business!. For me at least - a waste of money!.

Another good free way of advertising, is to visit in person, the pubs and venues that you know have disco's, or even advertise a function room for hire. Many of these would welcome a resident D.J! - since they can often make a few quid on providing the room, buffet and entertainment to their clients as a complete package . If you put that fact to them, you'll often get the business!.

Must admit I'm quite proud of the fact that I have never taken out an advertisement in said publications or local papers....... EVER. Word of mouth is the best!

moveing on the internet have u had to pay to submit to the major search engines or is there a way of doing it for free?

QUOTE (tonyj @ May 10 2003, 07:52 PM)

moveing on the internet have u had to pay to submit to the major search engines or is there a way of doing it for free?

No you take your chances with regard to search engine placement. The trick is, to optimise the META Tags in the HTML of your website in order to get the best ranking. If you are lost already, then pass it on to your Webmaster to handle .

There is no such thing as paying for Search Engine placement, you just submit your URL to the Submission page to each Search Engine and await days / months for it to appear. Sometimes you can get lucky and get a high ranking, other times it may not appear at all, and you'll then have to go back and adjust your META Tags.

Sounds complicated, but it is more a matter of chance, but at least it is free to keep submitting!.

YP, does exactly what the rep says it does - generates calls - that does not mean generates work. YP, is a tax deductable item.

Certain website allow you to pay to advertise...

Google for example allows you to go a system called Google Adwords... Here you type in a list of words that when matched display your site (similar to the META Tags that Chris was mentioning).

Then everytime someone types in that word, your adverts appears and if clicked, costs you money (a pay per click).

I have used this system and to be honest, it doesnt work... Well, it does work in the fact that the site gets the hits, but 90% of them dont generate into business.

The free ones are still the best......

A thread of particular intrest to me. I'm teetering on place an add in the "PAGES". They were 'sposed to vist me last night to discuss artwork, but were a no-show! No an auspicious start to our relationship. I've been in communication with Thompson today. Still it's given me a bit of time to think...

I have a website which definately needs optimisation (pleased with the asthetics), as I'm convinced this has yet to be done. I'm definately not knowledgeble is this area, so paying someone is a consideration.

Someone did have a look and said met-tags were lacking or not labeled correctly. Any web-wizards on board looking for a project?

QUOTE

Someone did have a look and said met-tags were lacking or not labeled correctly. Any web-wizards on board looking for a project?

An address for the site would be good! providing it doesn't break the rules of the forum!

djbydesign.co.uk

Actually Martin i like your site exactly as it is and would'nt change it, it loaded fairly quickly its stylish but easy to find your way around................ top one!

Hi folks

Just going to put in my 2 cents worth here as I know a little about website design.

Although meta tags are a consideration, search engines are relying less and less on them for rankings. It's much more vital to have good content rich pages, and this is why:

We'll use google as an example of how it hapens.

Once every 4 weeks or so, google sends out little robots to index pages in their databases. When someone types in a ksearch ter (eg, mobile disco coventry) Google will returns results based on what it has found while indexing pages. If the bots come across a site with those key words in prominent places on your homepage, you are likely to get a good ranking.

However, it's not quite that striaght forward. Finding the right key words to target is quite an art and takes time to master properly. After tons of reading I built my own website for my mobile discos and managed top 5 rankings in the major engines, and it wasn't by accident, I'd thoroughly research it.

If you don't have the time for all that faffing around, it may pay you to hire a webmaster to set your site up. I won't advertise myself here though.

Also, make sure you get lots of other people to link to your site, particularly other sites dealing in similar subjects, as the likes of google also look for what is known as "link popularity" which simply means how many similar sites are linking to you from their own site.

If anyone wants any futher help, feel free to email me off this list.

Good luck
Darren

Cheers Spin, Yeah I 'm very pleased with the designt.Need to get the out of date paragraph taken out though! Just need to crack this optimization lark.

Darren - I'm sure I'll be picking your brains soon

Just to add my experience with Yellow pages. I've been using the YP for a few years. Before all work was word of mouth (or is that ear!) anyway a sales rep kept buggin me. Each time we talked the price came down, till eventually it was sensible! At the yearly renewal they always try and find ways to jack up their prices..... just hold out and say I paid £xyz last year "what improvement can you do on that!" This is especially true if the rep is at month end tring to hit there sales target!

I find it's best to submit your site to the search engines once a month. I do this using the feature within the domain registration company's control panel. I click on submit, and my site is added to 10 of the UKs search engines. Hassle free as well, at no extra cost.

From viewing my site statistics, I've found that the googlebot is constantly searching my site, with about 100/200 hits a month.

I paid £800 for my YP ad last year to see what happens when you advert in the book.
I paid £500 for a stand at the biggest wedding fayre in the South West,
I paid £200 for my website, including hosting etc.


This year I will be saving £800


'Nuff said

If I had thge time to waste trying to make one up yes, but I am hardly ever at home and do not want to waste my time when I can pay someone to make it and lokk after it.

My last two confirmed booking booked me because I had the best ad in the YP, nothing to do with experience, although YP only generates the call, not the booking but I may not have even got the booking, that said I will still be saving some dosh next year

Fair comment. I wonder tho if they would have still booked you, after trying others first and not being satisfied? It's like playing the lottery, you just don't know until it happens.