How do you promote a site?

[Rich]

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I'm quite happy with a few of my sites, but they just don't get the traffic (I feel) they deserve, so I'm looking at better ways to promote them.

Obviously, we all know that the best way to promote a website is via an affiliate program, but its a bit harder when you don't have full tracking thru to sale. Each site has a few programs that don't support tracking IDs, so its not possible to track every sale back to a referring site.

The only way I see it working is by either (1) using a CPA model (like Kelkoo paying out for each click out) or (2) by letting affiliates register there own IDs and using those for their visitors.

(1) Disadvantages : Seems VERY open to abuse, not sure how kelkoo avoid it.

(2) Disadvantages : Would make no income on referred traffic, but would hopefully increase exposure of the site and get more direct traffic.

Have you got any other ways of promoting your site?
Would you promote a site using method 2?

[Rich]

Ok I'll try being more specific to get a response...

One site that I REALLY want to push more is www.BookkooB.co.uk - a book price comparison site. I've put a lot of effort into getting the technical side of it sorted, and now just want people to see it!

If you currently run a Amazon Web Services site, or any other site selling books, I can provide you with a javascript feed of comparison data to include on your pages, which will use your affiliate ids for all the links. From my small tests, showing a range of price details helps conversions as the user knows they are getting a good deal - and quite often BOL have the best price and they pay £5 commission

In return for getting you these extra sales, the comparison table includes a small 'provided by BookkooB' link to promote the site (aimed at other webmasters that might be interested in showing the results rather than trying to poach your visitors). If that puts you off, give me some other ideas of what you can offer me in return.

Hopefully this will be of interest. Any other suggestions on how I can promote the site would also be gratefully recieved.

(The site shows as PR0 at the moment, but thats because it went through a name and hosting change last month)

[Mogga]

Thats very neat...

The javascript sounds a good idea...

[smn2]

Yes, your comparison site looks good

If you currently run a Amazon Web Services site, or any other site selling books, I can provide you with a javascript feed of comparison data to include on your pages, which will use your affiliate ids for all the links.

Can you explain more. Couldn't find details of this on your site.
(I run a couple of AWS sites, but specifically focussed on books,
but this might be reason to create such a site?)

Cheers,
Steve

PS Mogga - 1298 posts? Blimey, moses!

[Rich]

Ok, say you have a page with the details from a particular book. You can add a few lines of html/javascript to the page which would then collect comparison data from my site and write it on to your page whenever someone loads the page. If the visitor then clicked thru to a merchant, it would use your affiliate ID on the link, so you would get the commission.

There arn't any details on the site so far as I wanted to start it off with a few people here first. Hopefully other webmasters will see the results and contact us about adding it to their sites - hence the reason for the provided by BookkooB footer.

A few people have PM'd me and expressed an interest, and added some feature requests, so I'm hoping to get those implemented over the weekend and then I'll have something to show anyone else that is tempted.

If anyone wants to chat about it you can MSN me at richard at first-base-solutions.com or PM or post here.

[Rich]

I think I've replied to everyone that PM'd me about the feed, thanks for the response.

In case anyone else is interested, I got the feed coded on Saturday and a few people have already worked with me to add it to their sites. I get the feeling a few people think its a 'too good to be true offer', but the additional implementation and running costs are relatively small and hopefully it will give BookkooB some more solid foundations.

I've set up a demo page where you can see a few of the different types of feed layouts that I've created so far to match peoples sites. http://feed.bookkoob.co.uk/demo.php

[qwerky]

I've got to admit i was thinking wheres the catch, but there is none and it works a treat!

I've added the BookkooB comparison feed to www.1st-books.co.uk, just click on one of the book titles, if anyone wants to see it in action.

www.1st-books.co.uk