Community Hints & Tips - Promotion & Marketing

**Consider-This** · Mar 22, 2005 06:42

I don't know if Fluffykins is still here, but Fluffy's Darklogic home page was a real eye opener for me.

I love the invisible looking scroll thing, and the thumb nail screen shots are dynamite --

My web site is a conglomeration, so if I used the scroll thing and screen shots, then visitors to my home page would be able to see their choices...

I have a bit of brain damage, so it's a bit hard to say things as quickly and well as I'd like.

But in terms of promotion, people seem to be much more motivated by clear pictures than any alternative. I learned that this was supposed to be true back when I used to sell advertising for alternative yellow pages, but I've really really discovered the truth of it when I review my ad activity for my site. The pictures work really well. Sorry, but I forget that my whole site is supporting copy for the most successful picture ads. Sorry.

**shmick** · Mar 22, 2005 07:12

Well, from my limited attempts at trying to promote my site, I would have to say that I get most clicks through forum posts, however, this is simply because I have not bothered to post anywhere else!

For some reason I get an ok listing in Yahoo, but miserable in Google. Can't even find me in google unless I type in the URL into the search field. Woe is me. Oh well, I will keep reading this forum to find some answers!

**dpakman91** · Mar 24, 2005 22:00

a few things i'll add that i've done well with. keep in mind, i'm by no means an expert coder, web designer, or promoter.

-sending sets of data referenced on my website to other news sites. i've only gotten a couple of them to use my data in articles, but all have brought over 1500 visits to my site in the one week or so that the article was on their site.

-adding specific pages from my site as external links on wikipedia. NOTE: only do this when it is really related, and the information could not reasonably be added to the wiki page itself, as otherwise it is spamming and in violation of the wikipedia policy.

-Every single email i get from a visitor, regardless of what it is, i always include somethign to the effect of how important word of mouth is, and not to hesitate to tell a friend about the website.

that's really all i can add, most of the other stuff i've done has already been mentioned in the first 8 pages.

**Zone** · Mar 31, 2005 01:53

I have read this thread and now I would say my succesfully things about promoting:

Content, content and content. Make a fresh and interesting content. I agree: Content is king.
Syndicate your content. I have a news site about handhelds and I syndicate my headlines to a lot of others and I get a lot of visitors
Make your site search engine friendly and the spiders will do their job Think in CSS2 and XHTML!
Try to publish your articles and news in the related offline media (magazines, newpapers, etc.) and of course place as many link in the materials as you can.
Make partnership with biger companies who are intereted in your content!
Make a good forum! Try to hear your visitors wishes and give them what they want - continously develope your forum code!

Don't do (I think):

Banner ads: nowadays websurfers blinds about banners
Syndicating content to a Teletext: we have this kind of syndicating to a Hungarian TV but it won't work. It's good to do but do not wait a lot of traffic.
Spamming to related sites forums.

That's all in my case.

**ivytony** · Apr 1, 2005 23:04

Originally Posted by jstraathof

I've got one promotion tip, try to get to your competitors stats, then see how they get their traffic, it works very good ! (You'll be amazed!)

but can you pls tell us how you can get your competitor's traffic?

thanks

**toddh** · Apr 3, 2005 20:22

I have gone over a lot of these threads detailing traffic promotion, and I've got my 2cents to add. First of all you do not just want to get a bunch of people to visit your site. You have to do whats cold an "all points check list" because if your website is not viewable or appealing all your traffic building efforts will go to waste. So the first things that should concern you is

1. Can people access my site without getting frustrated?
2. Do I provide contact information to viewers.
3. What is my investment and ROI
4. Is your website appealing

Answer those questions before you start promoting your site. You also want to add a counter or statistics program in order to gauge your traffic development efforts.

Next steps: Submit your site everywhere. The more places you are submitted to the better results you'll get traffic wise when people search for your site. Also use TrafficHance! It drives targeted traffic to your site using expierd domains and exit exchanges. When people exit a website they'll be re-directed to your website you can purchase the amount of people you want driven to your site and the types of sites they come from no campaign or category is to much because of the huge advertising network that Traffichance! is connected to. Check out www.traffichance.com they are one of the most top notch traffic generating sites that i've used. I own the netgifts.com and just recently sold it. I bought 100,000 visitors from Traffichance.com and a large internet directory company purchased my domain for $10,000. My investment for the 100,000 visitors was less than 90 dollars.
regards,
ToddH

check out yahoo.com or goto traffichance.com to submit your site to several search engines as well as purchase traffic.

**Vitop** · Apr 11, 2005 09:11

Hi all, on our website, we have very few images. A large directory of essential oil suppliers, its all mainly text.

Some time ago we added an affilate program, with text links. The program did ok. Well during a revamp of the site I though,

'What about adding an image of what my visitors are hunting for in the ad'... after adding a picture, Bingo! People started clicking on the add more. It's an attention thing, if there is an image of what your looking for, next to some keywords, visitor are more inclined to click through there.

**hello2paul** · Apr 29, 2005 10:41

Now that....... is a very clever idea

I'll give that a try some time - thanks Vitop !

**aix4200** · Apr 29, 2005 22:01

Hi all,

I recently started a website and i was able to get listed on Google and yahoo , but i have no luck with google.

i would appreciate any suggestion or help ..

Thanks,

Andy

**Rev** · May 1, 2005 06:35

get listed on dmoz

**Vitop** · May 5, 2005 21:46

I just thought of another one. This is for the guys (and girls) who run larger websites.

Bigger websites have more content / information and stuff that appeals to visitors. Visitors love it and just keep coming back. However as they keep coming back and the website grows and more content gets added. There comes a stage where only so much it hard to educate new visitors on content, before 'User Interface Design' issues prop up, i.e the inform is too clutter, the font size is some small you need a magnifing glass to read it.

So if your site is getting this way, my idea is this...

Build a banner ad system for your website... WHAT!!, yes that right build a text based banner ad system across you whole website, but, here's the catch... only advertise your products and services, even advertise content sections that your not making money on. Why? Because visitors need to be educated on your website and the wealth of information it offers and services they don't know about.

**Consider-This** · May 5, 2005 21:50

Hi Vitop,
that made me stop and think.
I'm on my way to check out your site
and see how it looks

**Consider-This** · May 5, 2005 22:16

Originally Posted by Vitop

I just thought of another one. This is for the guys (and girls) who run larger websites.

Hi Vitop,
I really like your site... I hope this isn't too off topic. But does the forum increase your traffic?

How hard is the forum program to use?

How expensive is the forum program?

Again, I totally love the way your site looks!!!!

**ckandes1** · May 16, 2005 16:52

My site is completely new (i just started the forums like 3 days ago) and i am attempting a small means of promotion just to get the first 15-20 members. After this i will build on the same idea to get more members. I'm simply raffling off free stuff. In order to enter the raffle, you need 2 "meaningful posts". Since it's a new site that is a fair request. i will end the raffle after 10 elligle entries have been request. Next raffle i will up to 25 elligible entry request with 5 good posts, and after that 50 with 10. Does this sound like it should work well?

Right now i am raffling off System of a Down's new album, Mezmerize.

**I, Brian** · May 18, 2005 06:52

Hard work
Hard work
More Hard work
A bit more Hard Work
A touch of genuis

You can promote yourself without trying to promote yourself - satisfied clients can do some of your promotion work without you asking or trying.

**ckandes1** · May 18, 2005 12:45

I don't have clients persay though. It's a bit different for an informational site with a community. Especially when it's new and doesnt hold a whole lot of information yet.

**COTR** · May 23, 2005 14:55

What I have used is giving away t-shirts with the website posted on them. The key is to have cool looking t-shirts that people actually like to wear.

**Consider-This** · May 23, 2005 20:06

I really really like your idea with the tee shirts!!!
Who's doing your art work?
Or are you multi-talented????

**ckandes1** · May 26, 2005 11:40

i looked into that but it looks like the only good place for a starting website's t-shirt is a site like cafepress

**internetservices** · Jun 18, 2005 12:18

I am a great believer in content over advertising that way you have word of mouth and returning visits of course you do advertsing but more time in content.

thankyou

**Consider-This** · Jun 18, 2005 13:07

Originally Posted by ckandes1

i looked into that but it looks like the only good place for a starting website's t-shirt is a site like cafepress

Couldn't you design the teeshirts, then have a few printed at Kinko's ?

A lot of copy places offer that service now... I don't think it's all that expensive, and you can get a few... like, limited editions

**amberstar702** · Jun 18, 2005 14:11

I get a lot of traffic from being a prolific poster in select forums. I use the same name in all of the forums and the same avatar. When forum members see my name around frequently, they know I am not a scammer who joins just to ask for business. While I am not a webmaster, I try to be as helpful as possible in responding to other types of questions/posts. Since I am a content writer, I always read my posts over thoroughly before hitting the submit button. It would reflect poorly on my professionalism if I had spelling errors and/or typos.

**bigp** · Jul 13, 2005 14:20

I've used many of the techniques discussed here, but I'm still not satisfied with my traffic. I do, however have a few strong competitors that I must "fight" for eyeballs with. Anyway, the forum postings have been quite helpful, and the search engines have picked us up for a few keywords. I just ordered a few shirts from CafePress and I'm going to give a few out to my users. I'm also thinking about hitting some farmers markets and handing out giveaways like pencils, etc.

The last thing I'm thinking about also related to t-shirts. I did a charity race (AIDS Walk), where a fashion designer was giving away t's devoted to the march. The front was related, but the back had his URL on it. I checked it out, as did many others, I'm sure. I'd like to try the same at some future event - make 50 shirts or so, and just give them away.....

**latatokhi** · Jul 14, 2005 03:21

Holding a contest (themed or seasonal) and promoting it appropriately helps a lot, especially when you need an immediate boost in traffic.

It works all the time for me.