If you have been keeping up with this blog series at all you will know I just finished my first product, a job board (consolejob.com). As of today, I have failed my first attempt at marketing. I figured that if I offered companies free postings on the site initially they would say "sure thing, no risk to me". They ended up saying " ". I reached out to several companies with the offer of free listings and got silence in return.
After doing some research it turns out I have a "chicken and egg" problem. I need companies to post on my site in order to make money and get the content and backlinks needed for SEO, which will draw in developers; but they will not post unless I have developers actually using my site to find jobs. I figure that getting developers to show up to a site that has job listings is probably easier than getting the companies to post job listings. So for now I am focused on getting the first job listings.
I am not a business marketer, I am a developer. So learning how to get companies to take a risk, even a free one, is not coming easy. Another strategy I tried was reaching out to partner with ZipRecruiter. They have a program where you can post the jobs they have on their site and get money based on click-through. Again, I was met with silence.
At this point, I am starting to wonder if it is illegal to just make the listings myself and have them redirect to companies that have open positions. For example, Blizzard is hiring for a host of positions. When you click to apply it sends you to a form on a specific webpage to apply. If I create a listing on my site for that same job and then have the apply button redirect to their specific webpage, is that illegal?
Right now I am brainstorming ways to get this site off the ground, I have come up with a few that have some merit if you ask me, but for now, just getting one job listing is the goal.
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