Thread: What is the best advertising besides referrals...Gigmasters....other ???

What is the best advertising besides referrals...Gigmasters....anyother I am looking for something, and I cannot afford much but I know it will pay off if I choose well. If I were to chose one which would be best?

Search engine optimization (SEO)

I get the majority (80% - 90%) of gigs through my website.

craigslist is free... its effectiveness varies from community to community

Originally Posted by andalee-oriental

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Tell me more ... please!

I have only gotten one good lead from Craigslist. Most of the time I only get creepy requests or they want to haggle me down to $50 for an hour of performance. I do, however, get good response from students on Craigslist.

Other than that, website and business cards left at restaurants where I dance are my best leads.

Thankyou ladies!

Gigmasters gets expensive - you have to pay to register and then you have to pay every time you log a gig (a minimum of $20). So, not a good idea if you are on a budget. Partypop can be good depending on your area - if there are a ton of dancers on it from you location it might not work as well. I know when I first signed up for it, there were only a handful of NYC dancers on it, and it got me a lot of bookings. Then, all of a sudden, the paid ads for NYC were three pages deep and I stopped seeing a return on my investment, so I pulled my ad.

Other than that, google ad words are good because you can set how much you want to spend - same thing with advertising on FB. And of course, leaving your business cards any and everywhere is always a good way to get your name out. I do Craig's List ads too. It's only gotten me a couple of gigs, but they were nice ones (I remember one was a very nice wedding, and then a few bday parties). And it's free. I'm just not good at remembering to do it often enough!

With google ad words it is a little confusion and I was afraid it could get really costly if you get a lot of hits and no bookings. But I guess if I set an amount enough high I should get some hits. My new website I am not happy with they are just stamper outers they promised me the moon and do not deliver. I was supposed to have good search engine presence and that does not happen at all.

Yep, good SEO on the website. It does take time for Google etc to 'find you' and your ranking to go up. Sometimes as long as a few months. Here's Google's own guide to getting ranked highly.

http://static.googleusercontent.com/...rter-guide.pdf