Marketing Your Site Through the SitePoint Marketplace
Posted by Lucas under Internet Marketing 9 commentsIt’s the last day of August! I hope everyone had a great month. Want to win some prizes? Check out my contest here with $800+ worth of prizes!
I did not have any intentions of writing about this particular topic because this is risky. I decided to publish this post because I was inspired by this thread over at WebPhorum. 
Warning: You have to spend at least $20 and you may either gain absolutely nothing, get a few visits, or get hundreds of returning visitors and even some profit. I only did this once and it so happened that it was effective. This might not work for all types of sites so use this method at your own risk.
What I Did
A few months ago, I owned (I sold it last June) an entrepreneurship-related blog. Now, this blog was getting around 300 unique visitors per day and I was really struggling to get more visitors to it. I got the idea of just selling it on SitePoint since I didn’t have time to promote the website anymore — I was getting ready for school.
I listed it on SitePoint under “Established Websites”, and bought almost all the upgrades for it.
Total cost: $60 ($20 for the listing itself, $40 for upgrades)
I set the BIN at a high price because I always overvalue my possessions. The reserve price was also near the BIN, so I could always back out whenever I wanted. These actions were actually the ones that paved way to getting myself some visitors!
I was getting low bids, like $200 or so. My BIN was set at $4,500 and with the blog’s age and subscriber base, $4,500 was just not realistic. The reserve was at $3,900 and that, too, won’t be ideal for the site. Nevertheless, I lowered neither the BIN nor the reserve.
I was receiving a lot of questions regarding the price, site stats, revenue, and all that. Of course, those people interested in the site visited it and checked what it had, etc. I got a lot of visits and comments on my posts because of the listing! Not only that, it seemed that potential bidders actually found the site as a good place to advertise because almost all my readers had been leaving comments on almost every post. I managed to sell 4 banner ad spaces and 2 links in a timespan of 8 days. A banner ad space was $25 per month, and a link was $15 per month, so I earned $130 in 8 days. Not that much, but I actually made a $70 profit just by listing my blog on SitePoint. Not bad at all, because normally I only got to sell 2 banner ad spaces per month.
The listing was set to expire after 30 days, so I was getting a decent number of visitors per day (more or less 150) from SitePoint during the time the auction was open. After the listing was over (the site wasn’t sold by the way), my subscriber base jumped from 110ish to 250ish! That’s a 140 increase in subscribers in one month, without doing any other promotions. I know there are more effective methods to increase your subscriber count, but what’s good about this is those subscribers stuck around for a long time — I think even after I sold the site two months later.
Another positive thing about this is the traffic went up gradually and naturally. These people I got as subscribers had blogs and placed a link to my blog on their blogrolls and mentioned it to their friends (I think, since I wasn’t doing any promotion and I was getting referring hits from other blogs and direct hits).
Why It Worked
I believe that this method worked because the site was entrepreneurship-related. We all know that the people lurking around the SP marketplace are all business-minded, so they were very much interested in my content. Another factor that I think contributed highly to the increase in traffic is the way I presented my auction. I got the people’s attention and my listing made them very curious about my website!
One last thing that I think made this method work is how I presented my actual content. I kept my visitors eyes glued to it (not literally), that even potential bidders who were only there to check if my site had comments, original posts and stuff were enticed to subscribe!
How It Can Work For YOU
You have to create an attractive auction listing — no doubt about that. Check my post about it if you haven’t yet. Also make sure that your site has content that can actually “force” people to become returning visitors!
Your Opinions?
What do you think of this method? I’d love to know your thoughts! Leave your comments please.
Readers have left 9 comments on "Marketing Your Site Through the SitePoint Marketplace".
Be it risky, it can actually give you some visitors. And controversial things are quite persistent over the net now-a-days!
Good post :mrgreen::mrgreen:
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Brilliant post, as always. I don’t know why I haven’t thought of this - utilizing the Sitepoint marketplace to get more hits! I will try this on one of my flagship sites.
I can see one downside of this method though, and that’s this can’t be used for MFA sites/sites with very little interactive/useful content.
I know you know very well why.
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Hmm
Very interesting way of geting traffic. I know the point was to sell the blog but you recovered more than what you paid for the listing.
Good blog post
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It might not always work though. But still a very innovative way to market your site. :p
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Sure is! Hehe.
I’m glad that you found it interesting. Thanks buddy.
Thanks for leaving an insightful comment! I appreciate it, really.
Controversial things like…? This one? Heh.
Interesting post, nice idea. I have got to try this with my flagship websites. Thank you for this wonderful post.
HI, great post btw! I am considering of selling my site as well, but I would probably wait for about another 4 months because my site is just 2+ months old.
This is really a great tip
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No problem Gian. Glad you liked it.
Thanks for the compliment.
Very nice. I thoroughly enjoyed reading that. I actualyl saw people doing “what I suspected to be” that before, but didn’t see anyone write about it and admitting it.
Good job man, and thanks for giving us the lowdown dirty details.
Cheers!
Jay
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What do you think? Have your say!