Be Sure to tell them Thank You!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. It gives me some much needed time off, but I'm back to work on designing and selling ads.

Here are some great advertisers who renewed or signed up the last 2 weeks:

Loving Memories Florist in Hemphill Texas. Peggy over at Loving Memories handles most of your floral needs from corsages to funerals, or if you just need to say I love you. She does have some gift items in the store as well. One thing I like about Peggy is she is creative. When she first started advertising with NuTrader a few years ago we talked about funeral arrangements. She likes when people ask her to do something special. If he was a fireman, bird hunter, horse lover, you name it, let her design something that not only expresses your love, but your love for who or what that person was to you. I got to see a few that she had done and she did a beautiful job on them. Keep that in mind if you need flowers in Hemphill! (actually in putting her ad in, i realized I can order a christmas arrangement for my Grandmother in West Virginia right from her site! Thanks Peggy... Nanny is going to love them!)

Sweet Meats Bar-B-Q in Etoile Texas. I have to say when I introduced myself to Penny she took me by surprise! She is a huge fan of NuTrader and couldn't believe we were there to sell her advertising! Peggy is no stranger to BBQ, they had a restaurant in Houston but moved up to the lakes to get away from it all. Obviously BBQ wasn't one of the things she wanted to get away from. Sweet Meats Bar-B-Q is right on 103 and they have everything you want from a BBQ joint and then some. Be sure to stop by and let Peggy know that you are a NuTrader fan too!

Tyler County Tractor in Woodville, TX. I finally got to meet Brian's wife Emily at Tyler County Tractor and that just made my day. Tyler County Tractor has been with us for 3 years now and they love the value of NuTrader. Be sure to visit their ads and if you are in need of a tractor, utility vehicle or 4 wheeler, let them know, they will fix you right up. I also got to watch Brian handle alot of customers that day and I do have to say, the reason they are as successful is because they give GREAT customer service. I really like seeing that in our advertisers because I know that they are going to treat you right.

Cornerstone Christian Bookstore in Lufkin. I didn't ask Carolyn at Cornerstone to advertise for a couple years because honestly I rarely approach chain stores... I could not believe that Cornerstone was homegrown right there in Lufkin and that they were not a chain! Carolyn has such a beautiful store and everything is so professionally handled, it is the nicest christian bookstore I have been into in a very long time! Ok, and this is what REALLY sold me on Cornerstone, they have a coffee shop! So... all of you out there spending money at the Green Goddess, who likes to put their money where their faith is... you need to start going to Cornerstone instead. (I am now!) Cornerstone is also online now so be sure to check out their online store!

Blessings 4 Less in Lufkin: I wandered around Patricia's store for some time and it just amazed me. She has the neatest little store! There are Gifts, Household Items, a beautiful baby section, Designer dresses and bags... Just a little bit of everything for the woman who has everything (and for those of us who don't too!) What amazed me were her prices, everything was 4 LESS! Patricia is the perfect reason I like being a salesperson. I met a neat lady that day and she is one of those people I wont forget! She has a dream and vision for her store and truly does enjoy what she is doing. OH! in her children's section she had the most adorable tuxes and formal dresses for boys and girls of all sizes, from baby to tween! They were just beautiful and adorable.

Ooh-La-La! Boutique: Located on S First Street in Lufkin, Ooh La is just that! Its one of those cute little boutiques that you expect to find in a larger city! Kim has everything from designer handbags and clothing to candles. I personally loved, and i mean LOVED the jewelry! If your looking for that designer look (and let me tell you her prices are good!) be sure to stop in and see Kim. Make sure you tell her NuTrader sent you.

West Bank Realtors: Alice is an absolute delight to talk to! She has been working in the real estate business her entire life and like most, she just wont quit working! Having retired to the Toledo Bend area for the beauty she found herself back in the real estate world. Alice has a large selection of properties for sale... and like I keep saying, East Texas is the best kept retirement secret there is! Be sure to visit her ads and website.

Well thats it for this week. Again, why NuTrader works is our advertisers get business from all of you. So please do let them know that NuTrader sent you!

Do Yall Actually Make Money doing this?

Ralph and I get asked this often. There are so many "get rich quick" schemes out there on the Internet, so many failed attempts by dotcommers, its hard to believe that we are actually making money. Let me first say, we are definitely not getting rich quick, nor are we failing! The bottom line is we wouldn't make money if people didn't use nutrader!

The majority of the income from NuTrader comes from our advertisers. You can see them on the left and right of the page when your browsing through NuTrader. These are businesses that recognize we have a valid audience and just as they would advertise in a newspaper, they are advertising with us. Our rates are very reasonable and they do receive alot for their money. Because we can see the results and track their statistics. We know these ads are working! So... if your a NuTrader user, be sure to tell those advertisers that you appreciate their sponsorship of your favorite site! Most of our advertisers are long term, and have been there a while and would appreciate knowing that you use NuTrader!

We also make money by people featuring their ads. After you place an ad on NuTrader it asks if you want additional features. These are all low cost but beneficial to you. To feature your ad it costs 1.95 and it will make your ad appear in various locations on the site that it wouldn't normally appear. Weighting your ad and adding highlights or color to the title so that you stay on the 1st page and stand out, is slightly higher but its because it has greater value. These things do work when our free users use them and increases the visibility on the site. If you are placing ads on NuTrader, once in a while feature one or weight it... it will get you more response!

One of the new methods of advertising we put on NuTrader is the Google AdSense. How AdSense works is if you see something related to what you are looking at, and are interested in it and click it, we make a portion of what that advertiser has paid to be there. We are finding that our loyal users are not clickers and were actually thankful for that. It means people like what they find once they get to NuTrader!

Another new method of advertising that we are testing is affiliate sites. Right now most of our affiliates are running in the 2nd banner at the top of the page. We are testing programs that pay if our users click them and register and ones that we get paid if our users buy something. Right now, this program has been disappointing. We are including one in the weekly Backporch email as well and testing that. I am choosing companies in the Backporch email that just pay for the lead, so if you register on that site, we make money. Again, I think the fact that our audience is so loyal, this method of advertising will not be the most successful in the east Texas area. Once we have other regions running and our audience is newer, I see it working better.

Ralph's Backporch radio program is growing in popularity and we are looking to start selling advertising on it. If you haven't taken a listen do! Because this will be an ad share program with blogtalkradio we are not sure how it will work or what rates they will set. I am certain it will be a per listen rate, which means you will pay so much per time someone listens to the ad. I will let our advertisers know once we have an amount on that.

Thanks again for being loyal NuTrader users. None of these methods would work if it wasn't for the users who look at Nutrader and use Nutrader to sell. We do appreciate you and your presence is what gives NuTrader value.

Thanks,
Tamara

Local Advertising Works!

One of the tasks that we do on a monthly basis is report to our advertisers how many times their ad was shown on the site and how many times their ad was clicked on for more information. I have spent most of the morning compiling these numbers and getting them ready to send.

As you know we have been running Google ads and other ad networks getting ready for the upgrade which will allow regional sections to the site. As I was compiling the advertising numbers something that I have been a huge advocate of stood out!

Local advertising on local sites work! Even comparing click rates to Google AdSense which have been very relevant to the content of the site, my local ads run circles around them. An ad that has been on the site for 2 days has more clicks than all of the Google ads combined that have been running for 2 weeks!

I think NuTrader has a long way to go to even better serve our advertisers and we are working on improving that daily... but what we are doing does work! It is our goal to be the one stop shopping place for local advertisers to market themselves on the Internet. We are interested in working with the small local businesses in using this world wide web to create local customers.

I tell my advertisers when you put a website up, it is like you have put a building on a county road, it is work to get the building to the highway. One of the ways to do that is to advertise on the Internet to the customers you want. It is our goal to be the web page movers that help them move their site to where their local customers are driving by it every day.

The advertising numbers will be going out on Friday and Sunday. So advertisers check your email! These are important numbers to let you know the effectiveness of both your website and your NuTrader ad.

Advertising Opportunities

Every week we are adding new advertisers to the NuTrader family.

this past week we would like to welcome:

Luman Real Estate: At Luman they specialize in large tracts of East Texas Land. This includes timber, farms, ranches and investment properties. Wayne Lacy, the associate and I got a chance to visit and discuss real estate in this part of the country. I honestly believe their slogan that East Texas is the "Best Deal on Earth!" If your looking for a poultry farm or just acreage for the horses, be sure to give Wayne and the others over at Luman Real Estate a call.

Lufkin Farm Supply and Nursery: Stephen at Lufkin Farm Supply has a loyal customer base who love the Purina products he sells. It is so much more than a feed store though! They now sell hunting supplies and have one of the best Archery centers I have seen in East Texas. In the spring I know I will be heading to their Nursery to get some of their trees, shrubs and flowers for my house! I get to spend alot of time in businesses as I am selling, and sometimes it includes multiple visits like Lufkin Farm Supply. What always impressed me as I was waiting to see Stephen was their level of customer service. They don't just wait on customers, they help friends.

A Stitch in Time: My mom taught me to sew and mend my own clothes. I can hem a skirt, alter a shirt and do just about anything on a sewing machine. The problem is, I don't have the time. Tammy at a Stitch in time does and does a great job. I took several of my items to her recently and I am so happy to have them back in my wardrobe again, I also don't have that pile of clothes in my closet which were projects that I "would get to someday!" Tammy also does the embroidery for letterman jackets, rents tuxedos and has gift items. She has been in business for 28 years and it is locally owned and operated. Next time you see that pile of "things you will get to someday," scoop them up and take them to A Stitch in Time. It is worth it!

T Bell Services: Tommy down in Woodville is honestly one of my favorite advertisers. I just like Tommy. He is a good guy, honest and when you talk to him, its like your talking to an old friend. Tommy renewed his ad for another year and I'm glad. I know that NuTrader users are always in the market for a new trailer or welding work, so I believe that Tommy's ad works well for him and I am honestly putting our customers in contact with a good business person. That is always my goal to match customers who need what my advertisers have and I know when I send folks to Tommy Ive done both of them a service. So, if your in the market for a new trailer whether to pull hay or the 4 wheeler, give Tommy a call and see what he has. I'm sure he can work you a deal.

Super 8 Motel: The Super 8 in Jasper has been advertising with NuTrader for 3 years. I'm happy to say that they will be there another year! The Super 8 is under new management and I got the chance to visit with the new owner Ken Patel and he is proud of what Super 8 offers. Most of his guests are fisherman who come to fish Lake Sam Rayburn or Toledo Bend. If your heading up the Jasper way to fish, definitely stop in at Super 8. It is definitely worth it and you will be pleased with the clean rooms and above average service they offer.

I have been selling advertising for almost 10 years. I really do enjoy what I do. I have always been a person that likes to help others and NuTrader does just that. We help match businesses with their customers. If you would like more information about advertising in NuTrader and how to best optimize your advertising to our audience, please give me a call at 936-288-0832.

Change is in the Air!

What is New on the Site:

We are working on an upgrade to the current program. This will include the long awaited regions and improved search engine listings.

The regions mod will allow you to choose what geographic area you live in and will show only the businesses and free ads ads in your area. This is a crucial element that will be needed as we continue to expand outside of East Texas. It will allow advertisers to continue to focus their efforts on their local customer base and browsers wont have to get excited about that car of their dreams only to find it is 1000's of miles away. There will be search options that will let you look beyond your region if you choose for items that do not need to be geographically specific.

The upgrade will also improve our search engine friendliness. Admittedly, Nutrader has not done as well as we would have liked in the search engines, primarily because the program itself is not friendly to them. This upgrade has improved that immensely!

I have been working on installing the upgrade for a couple months now! It is now on the priority list and we are hoping it will debut before January 1.

What is New in Marketing the Site:

Everyone look for the first issue of Southern Life and Style to debut in November. Nutrader will have a full page feature story! We are excited about working with the folks down in Southeast Texas on their new venture and I'm sure there will be many more opportunities for us to work together in the future. We really appreciate and have enjoyed working with Tammy. She shares our philosophy of if you help others, you will be blessed in return. Thank you Tammy for helping NuTrader! We appreciate it!

Ralph's Back Porch is taking on a life of its own. We really enjoy doing the show and many of our users have asked that we do an evening live show as well. What do 'yall think? The only time that we can guarantee that Ralph and I can do an evening show is Monday or Friday evenings around 7 pm central time? Does anyone out there have a preference?

We are still looking for up and coming bands and music to play on the show so if you are a band that wants some air time, let us know. We just need an MP3! We also want everyone to call in and let us know what you are passionate about!

Who are the new or renewed advertisers:

Top Drawer Consignment Shop: This week I got to visit with Rebecca at Top Drawer and she is returning to advertising with NuTrader. I really like Rebecca's store because she carries a large selection of clothes in my size! (Yes, i am a full figure kinda gal) She also carries children's and men's clothes. Top Drawer always has good prices but it seems every time I visit she is running an incredible sale on top of that. She is located at 321 East Main Street in Nacogdoches, TX. Look for her ad soon on NuTrader.

Book Nook: What I love about the Book Nook, when you drive by you will almost always see Linda or her husband sitting out on the front porch reading a book. I tell you, if that's not good advertising I don't know what is! I always wish I could pull up a chair and a book and join them! For people like Ralph, the Book Nook is perfect. They have a great exchange program where he can take his old books and get new ones! The way Ralph tears through books it will really save on his pocketbook. Linda is also a returning advertiser to NuTrader, the store is located at 104 Church Street in Center Texas.

Smith and Barnhart: Trent has renewed his ad again and I think this makes 3 years running in NuTrader. Smith and Barnhart is a AT&T authorized store and you can get all of your cell phone needs taken care of! Has anyone been to one of those AT&T stores where you have to sign in or take a number? Oh that just irritates me. Trent and his team at Smith and Barnhart don't do that. They treat you like I feel they should! They feel honored to serve you, not bothered by you! So, if you live in the Jasper area and need anything to do with cell phones, take it to Smith and Barnhart! They also do Dish TV. You can find Smith and Barnhart in their new location in the Brookshire Brothers shopping plaza in Jasper, Texas.

NOTE: You will notice that NuTrader is running some ads that are not local right now. We are testing different ad networks which we will need when we set up the regions on our site. (right now we don't have local ads for wyoming!) Please bear with us on these. We would like to ask that if you see an ad that is inappropriate (by this we mean, we wouldn't want our children to see it) please, please let us know and we appologize. As I test the different networks we are having a problem with what we think is inappropriate the rest of the world doesn't have a problem with and I have to manually remove them! We have found a Christian ad server and I will be installing it and testing it next week. It is our hope that we will get more appropriate ads from this network!



That pretty much sums up whats going on at NuTrader this week. It has been an exciting week with the upgrade and new potential. Be sure to visit NuTrader: click here Ads are free to the public and we have great advertising opportunities for businesses.

Our History

The goal here is to blog about what is happening on NuTrader.com! Lets start by getting everyone up to speed.

NuTrader was born in 2003 when Ralph Hampton, his wife Lydia and I decided we were going into the Internet business. I lived in Sarasota Florida at the time but was looking to relocate to a smaller town, the Hampton's lived here in beautiful East Texas and said "well shoot darlin', why don't you move to Texas?" Well, they sent me a few photos and that's pretty much all it took. East Texas is beautiful and I decided to not only move 1000 miles away but start a business with some Texans that I met on the Internet!

In Sarasota I owned a printing company and sold print advertising. Ralph is a professional farrier and Lydia is a lab tech. What we knew about websites and starting an "Internet business" you could have fit into a salt shaker! But, we learned, some things quickly, some things it took us a while to grasp. I will say from the beginning it has been sheer determination and grit that has kept the site going and growing!

We started out in 2003 as ArklatexTrader.com. Our goal was to market to the arklatex area (for those who are unfamiliar that is the corner where Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas meet, not anything to do with latex! I had a few raised eyebrows in Florida when I told them the name of the site!) Our original plan was several sites targeting geographic areas.

In January 2004 we began marketing the site and in February 2004 I sold my Florida business and moved to Texas. Since that day, the classified site now known as Nutrader has been self sufficient and we have made a profit. (We are still loosely defining profit at this point!)

We have had a lot of struggles. Ralph and I are the only full time employees of the company, although we have had a few full time sales people and a lot of part time help along the way. It is by all means, a family business where the Hampton family has adopted me! Lydia and their kids have all participated, worked for and contributed to the growth of NuTrader.

Somewhere in 2005 we decided to go "national" We looked at where our traffic was coming from and it was definitely beyond the arklatex area and rather than create and market new sites, we changed the name of the one we had to NuTrader. Ok, a little note here. Ralph and I are never allowed to name a site or business again. Neither of us saw Nut Raider in Nutrader at all! We have suggested other business names and quite frankly... we really stink at naming businesses! I think we will leave that up to Lydia and the Hampton family with future ventures!

Currently we are marketing NuTrader to the East Texas, Tyler Texas and Southeast Texas communities although we do have traffic to the site as far away as England and California. We are hitting about 30,000 unique visitors per month to the site and maintain between 2,500 and 3000 ads at any given time. We offer free ads to the public with unlimited ads, 1500 words, and up to 5 pictures per ad. We make income from selling business display ads. Our prices are affordable and the advertising is designed to be effective.

That pretty much sums up where we came from. We have survived hurricane Rita, the fallout of Katrina and the struggling East Texas economy. We have tried a lot of new things on NuTrader, some of them have failed and some have been wildly popular. Ralph and I will continue to promote, grow, enhance, upgrade, improve and build the site and all of the pieces that grow from it.

The last thing I have to say is a big thank you. We have very loyal advertisers. Many of them looked at me (a yankee) with one eyebrow raised and agreed to buy advertising on a website with limited traffic and no reputation. Most are still with us today. They took a chance on us and we are still working hard to make sure that pays well for them. We also are getting very loyal free users who are helping through word of mouth grow NuTrader. We appreciate them!