Some input, feedback, advice and guidance wanted for my online marketing

[xaster]

Hi Everyone,

At the start of this year, I launched ShaftesburyAvenue.com.

Shaftesbury Avenue is a famous street in London, UK. Over 16 million people visit Shaftesbury Avenue each year and it is situated in the heart of London's West End. Shaftesbury Avenue is well-known for its Theatres that are based on this street.

My website, ShaftesburyAvenue.com was launched as a guide to Shaftesbury Avenue and London's West End. Inspiring others with amazing things to do, nearby hotels and fine restaurants, theatre shows + tickets and useful information including a brief history, fun facts and how to get to Shaftesbury Avenue.

All content on the site is focused on Shaftesbury Avenue and London's West End. Most week's, I have writers who produce topics for my Things To Do section. I like to think that my content can appeal to both visitors and Londoners alike.

Since my launch, I have had some traffic, but nothing really significant. Now that I have my website packed with plenty of useful content and all the functionality in place, I'm ready to boost my online marketing efforts. Of which, I would appreciate your input, feedback, advice and guidance?

Marketing Efforts

• 
  Social Media - I have 4 social media channels in place - Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and Instagram - All have active content posted on a fairly regular basis
  Reddit - Whenever I have a new Things To Do post, I promote a link in the London sub-reddit
  Linkedin - To launch the website, I created a post on my personal Linkedin account to all of my connections
  StumbleUpon - I have posted a couple of Things To Do articles here
  Emailed niche blogs - I have emailed travel blogs/ London focused sites about getting linked from their sites - Increase number of backlinks
  Longtail Research - Whenever I create new content, I perform longtail research to see if I can target certain keywords with a certain degree of success in order to get more highly ranked keywords

I'm sure there are a couple of small extra things that I have done, but I would really appreciate your advice and guidance on taking my online marketing to the next level and growing my brand.

I look forward to hearing from you and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Thanks

David

 

[Nytshade]

The only question you should be asking yourself is "where do people who're looking for a Shaftesbury Avenue guide hangout online?"

Questions like where do they go to find these guides. Then you go there and position yourself as an authority in your field and milk the traffic. It could be blogs (via guest blogging or blog commenting), social media communities (fb groups, g+ communities, linkedin groups), discussion boards or forums etc.

That way you'll find the people who're interested in what you have to offer. On your thread you said that you post in the London sub-reddit, but that's too general, I don't know the sub-reddit but it just looks too general. At least if it was a sub-reddit about London's traveling guides or something similar like best hangout spots in London for instance.

Maybe you're not seeing much traffic because your targeting is not niched enough?

My advise would be, spend more time finding the right audience for your marketing campaign. It will make your marketing efforts a lot easier if you can find people who can resonate with your message, especially people who're willing to share your stuff in other online portals because they find it valuable.

Hope that helps, you can also browse the forum to get some really good traffic generation ideas.

 

[savidge4]

lets call a spade a spade here.. you are developing a directory, and that by all means is fine. You are immediately in a catch 22 you need traffic to get listings, and you need listings to get traffic. and amongst some other things this is where you are falling short... your site has no direction.

First off I live in little ol West Virginia in the United States... been to England a time or 2 which in my neck of the woods makes me a bit "worldly". and to be honest.. had no clue the name of the street with all the theaters on it was "Shaftesbury Avenue". The American equal would be "Broadway" and I think just about everyone knows where that is. Right now you are targeting "Shaftesbury Avenue" and to be honest your average "tourist" will have no clue. Say "Westminster" and you begin to stand a chance no? ( not really suggesting you do that, just making a point. ) While we are on the subject of "Shaftesbury Avenue" did you know or maybe you didn't where I live.. east coast USA you dont even come up in the first 5 pages for the term "Shaftesbury Avenue" Given the keyword count on your main page.. well I can see why.. your density is more than likely a bit over board.

So what to do? The thing with directories is you the webmaster / site owner need to break the catch 22. what can you GIVE that will receive traffic in return? I personally tend to go with hotels. You are not going to get a paid listing out of a hotel, so why not become a hotel affiliate and list them and develop content that way? - sounds easy but I see londontown . com is already doing that. so WHY do people venture to Shaftesbury Avenue? Theater right? - well ok pubs too LOL

Theaters are a bit on the notorious side for having minimal advertising budgets... so if you are not going to be able to take their money, why not leverage the "traffic" to your advantage. I would be creating a listing for each and every Theater.. whats showing and when. I would employ a bit of "future SEO" ( as I call it ) and have posts such as "summer 2016 London Theater" or the like. - here is the thing. how many tourist have you met, decided to goto London last week? last month? Trips to london from the States anyway is a well planned and planned early event. I dont want to know whats happening today, I want to see whats going on 6 months from now.

As Nytshade noted, you need to niche down a whole lot. you are right now "Hey come to someplace you never heard of and do stuff" you need to turn that around to "Hey! Come to Londons West Side to experience the best in art and entertainment"

Hope that helps!

 

[xaster]

Thanks for the feedback. It's really helpful.

Although the website does have a directory, my main focus is content. I have contacted a number of hotels and restaurants and have created free listings for these that are within 15 minutes walk of Shaftesbury Avenue/ London's West End. I don't charge for a listing, but I do have affiliate agreements in place with Booking.com, OpenTable, Theatre tickets etc.

I will work on the site's marketing within niche forums/ sites and position ShaftesburyAvenue.com as the authority in this space. I also take on board your SEO suggestions.

If anyone else has any more advice/ guidance, it is much appreciated.

Thanks

David

 

[Joe B. Ray]

Your site looks great! You should be able to monetize it.

Have you tried targeted Facebook advertisement? There are ways to run laser targeted campaigns on Facebook that are very effective. You really have to be creative and put in some work to figure it out. Facebook have a lot of data you can analyze and if you get it right it will work.

 

[Hawker]

Hi xaster nice domain name. Aesthetically, it's an attractive site, nice use of soft colours and I like the menu layout and the social media widget in the sidebar.

You say you have writers writing for you, but I see the menu links to those topics on your site and I was expecting to find a blog of sorts with lots of articles to read about things related to Shaftesbury Avenue and those topics on those pages don't seem to be regularly updated and don't seem to contain that much content on some of them like the fun facts page and your photos page doesn't really have that many photos and i think they are just your IG photos right?

You should get up to Shaftesbury Avenue with your digital camera and take some real photos of the place of all the different places on it and put them on the actual site as well basically just have loads of photos that will help and have more content like a blog wouldn't go a miss here especially on a directory!

And whats with that massive paragraph on the history page. Breaking it up into smaller bite sized chunks would be better. Easier to read without needing to come up for some air!

You should perhaps build some sort of timeline into that page.

I presume this is a fairly new site? Definitely interesting and useful though for anyone that needs to go there or wants to know more about it. But I'd say it needs more content and better content and get a blog going that will surely help. Make blog posts with daily photos taken of the latest activity on that street or something and share that on your social pages.

As for social media, you don't have that many followings yet, keep working on that side of things and never go a day without some kind of social media engagement.

I have to ask, have you thought about duplicating this for other famous popular streets in London or around the world and doing the same thing but for different sites?

Or is one site enough for you as it is?

Good luck!