Can a little guy like me attract giants?

Question

I have a little site (damnIneedajob.com) and it's taken some time but now it is enjoying steady traffic due to search engine rankings. It's hard to sell stuff to unemployed people so I'm thinking of selling some ad space. If you search for "I need a job" my site has some excellant rankings. Better than some of the big job boards like Monster and Careerbuilder (at least for these key words). I need some advice on approaching companies like these to advertise on my site and what to charge. Flat monthly rate? Pay Per Click? How much? Could be a mute point as for all I know nobody will even be interested. I don't want to do the Google Ads side bar stuff as I think it looks crappy. I was going to make a "Resources" page for listing ads. I would kind of like it to be subtle but that might be a "have my cake and eat it to" sort of thing. I appreciate anyones expertise or experience.

Answer 1

Congratulations on your getting good listings.

I have a job related site jobsuccess.co.uk and have a listing on Workthing.com - but the way I did this was to contribute to the site.

I doubt very much if the big guys will advertise on your site and they don't offer listings.

You do have a very unique product with the potential for a lot of PR as well as some off shoots and a social site.

My suggestion would be for you to work on getting your site higher in the search engines but to also launch a marketing campaign.

Start with a press release to PRWeb with an interesting story

Then start a linking campaign with job based sites such as mine. You have a reasonable PR so go for the PR3 - PR5 sites.

The PR will get you more exposure and the linking campaign will lift you up the rankings.

Think out of the box and work on getting some more products along the same lines.

Answer 2

in my opinion your site has unclear message. i would never guess on first glance that you are offering t-shirts as a way to advertise job hunting efforts .. in my opinion, redesign it. say it clear from the beginning. put the t-shirt photo on the place of 'what's this section'. use short text. use bullet points instead of flat text; add some valuable info - such as reviews on job websites, tips for job hunting, etc.. try with ad words placed at the bottom of the page - people read your job hunting tips and at the end see some sites that (eventually) offer solutions.
become Cafe Press affiliate.

by the way, your proposed way of job hunting has not been used since the great depression when workers wear posters at their fronts and backs with their job resume. personally, i perceive it quite humiliating to wear job-want-T-shirt.. but maybe there are other people who don't think that way.

Good luck

Answer 3

yup