Not sure where to put this, so sorry if it's the wrong place...

Ok, so, I just opened up the new version of my site. In an effort to do good, I've hired a few reviewers. My site now gets 2 new reviews per day unless something happens or the person isn't doing their job...

I'm looking for ways to get the word out about my site and get the traffic going to atleast the xxxx's per day (uniques) and maybe/hopefully more.

People have said my site is great and all and I got OK google rankings but I just need ways to get the site out to more people. What do you guys recommend? What's good to do?

I know to advertise, yes, but how? Banners? Links? I'm guessing banners... What else can I do?

Thanks everyone!

You might want to start trading links with popular sites; nothing much to lose there. Try over here (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=27)

Just curious, whats the url? <<< Sorry. He'll have to answer this in PM. >>>

<< >>

I find links to not be a big help with driving traffic to my site...

buy from 100s to 1000s of pens with your logo printed on them or url engraved and send them out free to all your visitors from your site.. Soon enough the domain will actually engrave in peoples minds and people using the pen will be curious in visiting.

That's a good idea, I may have to do that...

That idea came to me has I working lol.. but don't tell everyone. Very effective if you ask me. You can also introuduce prizes and competitions to your site. Make peoples eyes open.

I don't know about the prizes/competitions, don't know how it would work out with my site... But I might do that pen thing though, that's a great idea! Know any good places to buy pens with engravings/prints?

I've done the pen thing before, with decent results. I wasn't selling any products, but it did have an effect on the amount of traffic my site received.

websitelabels.com/products/pens.html has good deals on pens.

I wonder if you're part of a pen company, Postmaster. Because speak of the devil, I got mail today, a free sample pen and order forms and stuff. I might do that, dunno if I like the pens too much though.

Thanks for the link pacres

There is lots of way to promote a site, best of all host script

Originally posted by philipb123
I don't know about the prizes/competitions, don't know how it would work out with my site...

It would get people talking about and visiting the site, so they could take part in the comp. If they like what they see whilst they are there, they'll keep coming back.

You have a few ways to get the comp started off:
- buy some software to give away
- see if one of the reviewed software could be given away
- get sponsorship for the comp from either a software retailer or a software developer etc. who would give the software away in return for a banner on your site for a few weeks...

What would I make the competition of? Maybe the best review sent in by a user gets the prize?

overulenet: host script?

pens... GENIUS! Have you seen the "this pen has been stolen from: <insert name of wherever>"

They are great, especially when I see them with church names on them. Who would dare steal a pen from church? poor saps.

No seriously, we have pens, we do lots of business with them, everyone needs a pen!

Originally posted by DLee
pens... GENIUS! Have you seen the "this pen has been stolen from: <insert name of wherever>"

They are great, especially when I see them with church names on them. Who would dare steal a pen from church? poor saps.

No seriously, we have pens, we do lots of business with them, everyone needs a pen!

LOL That's the one they sent me.

"This Pen Was Stolen From: Must Have Software"

Then there is a burglar with a pen in his hand running

Originally posted by philipb123
What would I make the competition of?

the easier it is for people to enter, the more visitors - just think of the ones u see on tv, usually it gives a question with 3 possible answers linked to the software/prize

Do you think a lot of people would compete for a piece of software? With all the illegal downloading going on? Maybe I can just do for example a $20 gift from somewhere or something like that...

If you are promoting anything webmaster related, or business related, offer free advertising on the site.

I like the idea of 20 GC for somewhere (ebay?). Software is very niche depending on what you choose.

I might be able to do free advertising, but I doubt it though. I don't think I want to do that.

What do you mean by "Software is very niche depending on what you choose" ?

Well most software in the low cost range like under 30 is usually a specialized product or some sort of utility that not everyone could use or be interested in. You may have alot of interest though if your audience is very focused.

We may be talking about very different softwares though.

Yah. I think the best idea is just to offer something else instead of software. Like a physical prize of some sort or a gift card from somewhere. eBay sounds good too, or Amazon, you can find just about anything there...

Wow, great ideas over here! I´m starting a company and i really like the pen thing!! Brought me to some ideas, another cool idea is a mouse in the shape of you logo, they will never forget who give it to them!!

Yah but that's too expensive heh. The pens though I might do when I get some extra money

just give them a bunch of pens! :D or you create a special gift box, with products with your name on it, a cool sticker, mousepat, pens, button, t-shirt, you name it!

I might do a thing, like first 500 users with 10 posts on the forum get a pen.

Do you think it'd be worth doing 10 posts for a free pen? (A nice one though)

I think pay per click programms are one of the best promotion methods, like google ad words.

I'll try that too... Is there a minimal advertising thing with that?

you can customize the Cost per click there

Well I mean do I have to spend so much money like is there a minimum total advertising cost?

with google adwords you have tp pay $5 setup fee and minimum $0.05 per click.

The only thing with Adwords is that there are so many varying stories about it, some saying they make 0 profit and some saying they get a large increase. It is really up to the buyer, but here is some articles on it:

http://www.sitepoint.com/search/search.php?ps=10&q=adwords&submit=Search

heres a thing with the pens though... how do you plan on shipping them to the people?

what do stamps cost now? .37? That costs more than a pen itself without even factoring in the cost of envelopes, ink for address labels, etc.


However, pens would work great for my site though (US History Resource Site). Just give a stack of like 50 pens to friends that go to different schools in the city and have them pass em out.

Yah that's true. I might go to some computer stores and pass them out to people if I end up buying some.

Thanks for the AdWords info