KhalidsLife.com

One of the few projects I’ve been working on is Students Uncovered - a cross between an information site for all and a student portal with student related news, questions and more. The site has plenty of useful information for both students and non-students, including nightclub reviews and accommodation advice, as well as photo galleries and funny media.

I managed to find a fantastic wordpress theme to use that is very adaptable and integrated both pay-per-click (PPC) and pay-per-lead (PPL) adverts with two good companies, Media Jump and Tradedoubler.

I’ve mentioned Media Jump before - they are a small UK company and an alternative to Adsense. I managed to earn about $10 per day with them through my tattoo network and this was through “double clicks” - a user would have to click on a link then click on a paid link. Imagine the possibilities if it was single clicks only!?!?

They’ve recently introduced a new system called “FastBox” that is single clicks, much similar to Adsense. I have a good relationship with Media Jump and was invited to try this system out. Although their system is not as advanced as Google Adsense, things are going well and hopefully they will continue that way. If you are interested in signing up with them, drop me an e-mail and I’ll introduce you to my account manager.

Tradedoubler is an affiliate company who provide a marketplace for large organisations such as the Natwest bank. I decided to opt for PPL programs, specifically credit cards as many students are looking for 0% interest offers. PPL basically means a user will click on one of my ads and submit a true application that will be processed. Regardless of the decision to offer or not offer a credit card, I will be paid. This model is good however with the credit crunch, people may be less inclined to attempt to borrow as they are being easily refused and each credit check reduces your credit score.

I intend to build some good backlinks to the internal pages of Students Uncovered and get them ranked, such as “Nightclubs in Edinburgh” and have a cool marketing plan to get the site known amongst the party hard undergraduates - offline marketing.

I have purchased t-shirts and rubber stamps with my logo (and web address!) on it and intend to send attrative photographers to nightclubs across the country, wearing my t-shirts and stamping people they photograph. If the students don’t remember the hot chick wearing the t-shirt the night before, they’ll certainly be reminded with a web address stamped on their arm in red ink!

What do you think of the idea and marketing plan?

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

I’m back and I’ve already been working hard to launch Bar Vacancy. After sending out a few hundred e-mails to bars, nightclubs and agencies, I’ve setup an Adwords Campaign covering a lot of keywords. I’ve decided to let it run for a few days and if it doesn’t work well then I’ll need to look at another form of advertising.

The site is simple, easy and best of all FREE. There should be no reason people don’t want to use the site, I just need to ensure an balanced number of visitors between employers and employees. Word of mouth will hopefully play a big part in ensuring people recommend the site and I intend to advertise privately across bar/nightclub/security forums.

If anyone has any comments or suggestions I’d love to hear them. Perhaps you have an idea or opinion that could help?

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

Marketing a product or service can be particularly difficult, especially if you have stiff, established competition. Introducing my latest site, www.BarVacancy.com

Bar Vacancy is a free classifieds site specifically geared towards the licensed trade. Bar Vacancy allows you to post free bar jobs and will make money through people paying for “featured ads” and banner adverts.

The site rivals Gumtree, BarZone and every other site because it is FREE! Gumtree charge £25 per ad and BarZone £34.

I need your help…

Marketing such a service may sound easy. People often say “Oh that’s a good idea and because it’s free everyone will probably use it” - In theory yes, if a vendor was handing out a product you’d check it out before paying for it elsehwere.

The problem is getting the message out.

I let Adwords run for a few hours, targetting keywords for employers only so I could get some more jobs posted on the site e.g. “bar staff required“. £14 later at a cost of £0.40 per click, I got nothing. Understandably campaigns like this take time and I can’t expect immediate results, but just how far do you go before you try something else?

I’ve been looking at magazine specifically for the licensed trade, such as bar owner magazines and websites. For a good quarter page magazine ad I am looking at £1400 and there are no decent websites I have found so far.

I was thinking of doing down the route of business cards but they would only cover my city and would involve a lot of legwork. Flyers and mailshots is another idea and I have an e-mail campaign ready to go but I need more ideas.

What do you think I should do?

Thanks, and good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

I’ve been keeping my latest announcement under wraps until I had added content and established the site. Introducing Ribbu.com

The site, quite simply, is a picture blog that has a cool, funny, weird or crazy picture posted everyday, from architecture to illusions and more.

Despite the site being less than a month old, it has already received a whopping 20,000 unique visitors from StumbleUpon in three days! I’ve also been contacted by a new ad network to advertise on the site.

My aim is to create a huge picture site that ranks well in the SERPs (obviousely) and becomes a social picture collective whereby users submit their own findings to be posted on the site.

In due course I aim to generate enough revenue to purchase a unique blog design too. What do you think of the idea?

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

p.s. Share and View with Ribbu!