Patrick Sexton (aka feedthebot) over at SEOish contacted a few big names in the search marketing industry and asked:
This excellent post includes responses from Aaron Wall, Andy Beal, Andy Hagans, Kid Disco, Lee Odden, Todd Malicoat, Neil Patel, and Patrick himself. This is a great read for someone who is just getting started with online marketing and is on a very small budget, such as a college student or a single parent.
The responses varied in their degree of specificity. Some recommended simply building quality content and attracting links that way, others recommended buying Aaron Wall's SEO Book. There was also plenty of mention of how to leverage social media and using blogging to become an authority in your sector. For the veteran SEO, this post is an excellent resource to send clients who perhaps can't afford your services or are looking to set out on their own in the search marketing world.
By: Oatmeal
How to Market a Website with $100
Online Advertising
The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
Get an exhibit pass to any of the conferences (free). Grab all the swag you can, including all the literature from seos and analytics exhibitors and read it.
Then get 100 $1 bills and write on each... "Please link to www.mysite.com" and hand them out to every recognizable face at the conference.
You are bound to get some interest.
Buck Bait? I like it! It's true, the links, interest and recognition you can build for yourself and your site by making yourself know (and preferably liked) at conferences, events, etc can be extremely valuable.
For $100.00 - Buy 7 bags of Starbucks Verona Coffee…… get a new Bunn quick brew coffee maker and consume all 7 bags of coffee in 7 days. Use your caffeine induced rants to fill your blog with really strange fresh content. Send link requests to the top 50 or so coffee sites and try for some good ibl’s…. of course your writing style may be a bit hyped up which would certainly tip off the site owners that you are not a software program who “really loves your site”. Make sure you have a friend at Starbucks who will start the viral process with internal emails – Subj line: Look at this Idiot…….. Watch your stats increase… Add a linkshare ad for Starbucks to monetize and see what happens. Ok…where did I put my cup of Folgers Half Caf???
What this man just said is pure gold. Remember what happened to Fry in Futurama when he drank 100 cups of coffee?
Tons of coffee + Wordpress = The Golden Ratio
Deserves a thumbs up purely for the Futurama reference
Interesting question and a nice piece from Patrick. I tend to side with Andy; if you're on a tight budget, pour your time into solid content and link-building. Add to that the other comment about participating in SEO communities and tapping the collective knowledge, and you can get a lot of online marketing bang for your lack of bucks.
Thanks for pointing attention to this. $100? Almost better to have nothing and just use free resources.
Depending on the business, I guess would depend on the answer. I've found that Yahoo Local listings can be a surprising source of qualified traffic, so I might put the $100 towards and enhanced listing.
The $100 might also be well spent on some decent graphics from istockphoto.com -- since I assume with a $100 marketing budget you didn't have jack for design either.
A short term Wordtracker account would be a good investment for keyword research.
It's also worth looking at a little super-low cost PPC action. Certainly not going to be able to bid on popular terms at that rate, but a little creativity can go a long way.
I also might just use it for cocktails and caffeine and just go social media, seo, and conversational crazy and eschew all the paid channels.
-- and yes, I used the word "eschew" :)
I love eschews, I can munch on them all day.
Whenever I go to a chinese restaurant, I always get the "eschew chicken".
hahaha, okay I just gave you a thumbs up for that but I feel really guilty about it
don't try to make eschews-es
Forget thumbs down, I think you need an SEOMoz "time out" for that one ;)
The article is good, challenging, interesting. I read it between the lines, and even though I "claim" I know pretty much on SEO and SEM, there's always something to learn from others.
I would say that money is of no real importance when promoting a website. You can promote it with $0, $100 and get the same results with another ones promoting their website with $50,000.
Money is not that important in SEO and SEM. And that's the real beauty. Be smart, dedicated to what you do, and good results will soon come.
During the last 3 days, I've constantly watched and re-watched and re-re-watched the videos with Paul Potts winning Britain's Got Talent. Amazing performance. Thumbs up for the guy, he really deserved it. Simply AMAZING. I do think though that his best performance during the entire show was the first one (in qualifying). Why? Because he knew he only has 1 single chance and he performed so well it really froze me (and all others). And then he won the show and he'll be sing ing for the Queen.
Fortunately for the SEO and SEM you, unlike Paul Potts, have several chances and can improve your techniques again and again. So this is my advice: always improve.
I like the 'buy beers for seos' answer...
That approach works for me.... and people think I know something.. lol
Oh no. My first thumb down :(
I got one too so it must be a teetotaler....
or someone giving everyone a thumbs down
You were the only squeaky clean person left in the Top 20, Will, so it's about time you joined the dark side like the rest of us :) I once said something that rhymed with cloaking and got 4 thumbs down.
Nice... I have not bothered to see what got me my 4 or 5 thumbs down... now you have me curious
He always looked "dark-sidey" to me...
I guess it depends on your skill set. If you are able to customize a free template, no need for a designer. If you can write, not need for a copywriter.
Aside from hosting, and maybe buying a few links in the big directories, everything else can be done w/ sweat.
Unless your unemployed - time is money, so at $10 per hour (that's asumming you're very poor) that gives you 10 hours to work on promoting your website and a budget of $0. If you spend X thousands of hours of promoting your site, you spent LOTS of money on it (at least money you could have earned if you spent that same amount of time working instead).
I hate how all the "free" this and cheap ways to do this don't take in consideration time. "How to market a website and gain traffic if you have a butt load of time and no upfront capitol" would have been a more accurate title.
No argument with you there, but I think the whole focus of the piece was on people with very limited budgets and, assumedly, some time on their hands. Admittedly, though, all of us in the web world need to learn when to get out of our own way. I often find myself doing design or programming work that I'd be better off farming out for the time it takes me.
I love how many people give zero value to their own time... but if it is work or hang out then obviously the dedication reflects your seriousness and above all perserverance does pay off.
I don't think $100 will change website a lot.
Congrats on all the attention you're getting for the article Patrick. Deservedly so I'll add. I'm still not sure if declaring yourself the most attractive man in seo counts as a valid vote, but it's still a good post.
Rand, What's your answer to this question?
I am trying to get my website https://www,surfingcamp.org to show up on Google when people search for surf camp. My competition must have spent lots of $$$ because I don't show up until page 6 even though I have a page rank of 3/10. What can I do to get recognized?
Guess the other way is to post a question like this and get all the people here to help for free.
We missed that option!!
You need links that Google and MSN recognize.
https://wholinkstome.com/?url=www.surfingcamp.org
I thought it was funny when Matthew said, "...is on a very small budget, such as a college student or a single parent." I know a fair amout of both that have more money available than a head of a household with 3 kids...
Good article and comments, btw.
- j
Great post. Blogs are a very natural way to attract links. I’d love to see a post on how to get your company to blog. Particularly if you are dealing with a large, conservative company.
Wow, this is a great post, which I would have found it earlier.
Your article is much more informatics for all of the visitor. I am very happy to read it. This is really very nice. Thank you for it.Web advertising
very useful articles…..I think seo off site more important and power full for geeting free traffic than seo on site, I already implemented for my web……so I am focus on off site optimisation…thanks
It's a great idea (and a fun read!) but a few of the suggestions make big chunks of work sound like trivialities, and assume that your time comes for free. Well - mine doesn't!
OK - buying a book costs you a few quid. Reading and understanding that book is going to take you serious time - especially if you're going from a standing start. Even at minimum wage, that alone is going to cost you a lot in lost productivity elsewhere. And that's without even starting on the practical 'doing stuff' phase of the activity.
That's why I'd argue that if you've literally only got $100 to spend, then you're better off not even starting. It's a fun thought exercise - it just runs into a problem that these things always do: making the major stuff sound trivial ("Want to make a million with just £40? Just buy a website and make it really good!")
And if I get a call from a potential client in future saying: "please market my website - I've got just over £50 and I've read that you can do that" then that collected gurus that contributed are going to get a slap!
I jest, of course... ;)
I think when you are in a DIY SEO mode, the best is to read and learn online, and then spend your $$ wisely. Content would be the best investment. Thanks for the link. It was interesting to ready everybody's thoughts :).
In my opinion there is no difference between starting at 0 or at 100.
The only situation is if you get a couple of good PR backlinks in directories for your 100 bucks.
But in my opinion you can do that even without the money if your site is interesting enough
His article is interesting. However I'd rather read an article titled What would you do if you had $10,000. And the answers shouldn't be hire an SEO firm. That would be a cool post. Maybe paid content for SEOmoz?
That would be an interesting read for those of us who have been at it for a while.
For about $10k, you can:
1. Create lots of content with your time (research, write, promote) - recommended. At least, you could hire a great copywriter and a web developer to create content for ya
2. Getting a good design (visual/HTML)
3. Getting a pro to improve your site usability (ROI here is 2nd best to social marketing)
4. Learn SEO (both by reading books and blogs)
Read more about creating a website on a $3-15k budget here.
On a limited budget, it's very likely you'll need to pick up good all-rounder skills. Aside from reading holistic marketing staples like Cluetrain and visiting bread-and-butter SEO sites, I would also look at copywriting and analytics resources. especially free ones like Copyblogger and Occam's Razor. Learning to write compelling copy and understanding basic web analytics are just as important as search marketing.
If you work at a corporation, do everything you can to persuade (i.e. business case) your marketing department into purchasing some of the pricier books and resources. I was pleasantly surprised the day I started work at my current employer to discover a copy of SEOBook and WordTracker access. I may not 'own' these books and resources but at least I can read and gain experience in using these tools.
One thing is for sure, it's great to be Australian. $A1.00 buys $USD0.82, up from 0.6x just a year or so ago. I can buy books from Amazon and still save 20% on local prices even after international shipping!
Great article Patrick!
It is great being Australian!!!!
I agree that money isn't really the issue, nor should it be the focus. The art of creating a successful website should be reliant on effort, creativity, and general usefulness.
If SEOmoz had a huge budget I doubt things would be much different. I've never spent any money on my sites/blogs and I had a good deal of success. Of course the amount of time I've spent on them can be translated to $$$, but if it's enjoyable for you, it's worth it.
seomoz does have a HUGE budget for this site- the amount of hours they invest times what they're time is worth is enormous. If you were to purchase a site with this functionality and this much content - how much do you think that would cost?
They've sunk MANY, MANY hours into this that could have been spent working on other projects. I think they made a good decision, but don't think that just because they didn't write a check to someone for this site or have a large marketing budget to spend outright, that they don't have an enormous amount of man hours (which = $) invested. No resources exist in a vacum!
This is a great discussion. Very enlightening. Both sides have a point. For someone with no money to invest, learning how to pull in $1,000.00 a month, even with a lot of effort involved, might be well worthwhile for reinvestment purposes.
I really dont understand what you can do with $100. Forget the hosting, domain name, design and content. Even if you do that by yourself, what else could you do to bring in quality traffic. The ultimate aim is to make money and I really dont think money is alone the factor. It takes a lot of human time and effort and it costs a lot. :)
Hello all, and thanks for the comments (and thank you Matt for the mention) I apologize for not commenting earlier. My laptop died and I have been a mess because of it. (talk about bad timing)
Solomon - ROI is the big thing, I agree.
This article is for people who have the asset of time, not money and I am appreciative of your comments because I did leave an important sentence out of that article that mentions this, I am going to go fix that.
Cool- it was a great article and it opened up a good discussion in the comments here. You also picked up a bunch of great links, congrats.
I'd be interested in reading a follow up which included personal stories or case studies of how people went about gurilla marketing or SEO without capital. I have a few I can share... If people are interested.
I stress ROI, because I run into so many people who are costing themselves thousands of dollars by doing things themselves that should be outsourced to professionals. I just ran into a client today who was spending $3,000 a month on PPC and all his bids set at $1,00 with no conversion tracking. I was like.. hm.. well your adwords setup is completly messed up and needs to be redone and you've probably wasted at least half of that money (probably more) - so I'd recommend not doing it yourself anymore - lol.
If you don't have the capitol, but you've got the passion and the time you can achieve success in anything including SEO that will rival anything a professional could do, but be prepared to devote LARGE portions of your life to it.
Solomon, there will be a follow story, very much as you describe. I will use me as an example. I wrote feedthebot from a public computer as I had no computer of my own. It is now (six months later) about to have a corporate sponsor.
I spent 4 dollars on SEOish and started it about two weeks ago (spent maybe twenty hours on it.) It now has authority of 125 in technorati. It is worth more than 4 dollars.
I would like to highlight stories like this. If you have some let's talk. btw, are you going to be at SMX?
Yeah, I have some stories along those lines, including a personal one. I'm slammed in the middle of my workday grind so I can't type them out right now.
I probably won't be at SMX - it's a bit pricey. I just can't see paying that price and flying in for a conference. I'm located in Los Angeles, the rest of my company is in Seattle and San Fransico, but I think they're going to pass on SMX as well. We're slammed with work and it's hard to justify paying a bunch of money for networking opportunities and in person presentations of things covered in the blogosphere.
It sucks though, I really want to go to an SEO conference. I feel totally isolated and I'm working like 60-70 hour weeks. I don't even get to see most of the people I work with very often, just on VOIP, and in netmeetings. Maybe I'll go in my "off" tiim - lol.
Hey you do a good job at blogging (both with the writing and promotion aspect). I'm only asking you this, becuase of the comment about having no computer six months ago, but do you need money? I've got some blogging and online marketing work that you could help me with and some other more ambitious projects where I'll be need some very talented individuals. Shoot me an e-mail at [email protected] if you're interested.
Solomon, that is really solid of you, and is an example of using SEOmox for er, actual networking. (something I think that many online communities forget to do)
The money part sounds great, but work, as a general rule, sounds icky to me.
It has a "I have to pretend i'm sober" ring to it. I just don't know...
The "ambitious project" sounds good, sent you an email.
I've got at least one project where it's ok to be drunk, as long as you are consistant. Give me a call.
Having 100$ or 0$ seems the same at start :)
I liked the suggestion where they said to buy SEOmoz premium content with it! Butt kisser. lol. It's a fun one and has great information from some of the best. Glad you decided to share it with the Moz community, saw it this morning on Pat's blog (his new design is pretty sweet too).
Matt, please tell Rand that he can send the payment to me via PayPal for that plug. :P
We pay out .0023% for referrals, payable in yak's blood on the first full moon of every year that ends in a prime number.
Sign me up.
Being new to this SEO stuff (8 Months of reading and applying) I have readed Aarons book droped some coin to spend a day with one of the big guns, and done some trial and error.
So from the new guy on the block view if i had only $100 dollars Here is what i would do. After picking my subject area and doing keyword research.
1. Set up a blog on godaddy Domain $8.99 Hosting $3.99 month.
2. Buy a subject content articale and post it every where i could. Digg, MSN, other subject area bolgs. Searching on "Subject" + "Blog"
3. Answer Questions in the subject area on the MSN ask an Expert.
4. Post daily on the Blogs.
5. Link hunt daily.
6. Add content daily.
7. Then try to get sued by Google to get great exposure. "Google Sues the ShortBus" (Sorry did i say that in my outside voice)
8. Monitize after i had a couple hundred hits a day. That way i am bringing in some cash to put back into the site.
And Join SEOMoz to get the good info and tools.
I think if you going to post comments they should say something other than "Look at me i comment on every thing and say nothing"
Shortbus
Planet Ocean
Interesting post.
My first website was built on free resources, and in the two years since it has been active, it has earned me a cumulative ~$650. I have invested that as I recieved it in more projects, each of which yielded more money.
If you are smart, you can make the same amount regardless of whether you start with $0, $100, or $1000 - it's all a matter of having the right ideas at the right time and being smart about how you implement them. As soon as you manage to make your first dollar, you are on your way up, because every dollar you earn opens the doors that are available for you to make more money!
Break the $10,000 a week bar before dishing out monetization advice ;)
ROI, ROI ROI, raw number are meaningless. $10,000 a week could be pittens if you have too much time and staff invested in continuing to keep that amount rolling in (and depending on it's defensibility). $1,000 per week could be great passive income if it only takes a few hours a week to maintain.
What I mean is for him at least hit the bottom of the food chain before dishing out advice in a public setting.
If he can't even net $1000 a year he has no place offering advice on how to start, since he has utterly failed in his own effort.
Your advice, however, holds truth and could actually help people starting out. Thanks.
Sorry, but I assume you misunderstood my post. I was merely describing how I *started out* not where I am *right now*. Currently, I am making over $10k / month off the net all told.
What basis are you standing on to criticize?
Nice post. Seems to be a lot of answers including great content..