I know we've talked about this in the past, but I need help.

Signups for me free host have decreased about 50% each day and are now down to almost nothing. I suspect this initial signups were from posts in various forums about my opening.

The question now is where to promote? I submitted to all the search engines on Saturday and I'm not listed yet, and probaly won't be for a while. I submitted to every hosting directory I can find. I'm also going to buy some keywords on Goto.com.

However, this results from all this have been minimal. Maybe some banner advertisments somewhere? I don't really like link exchanges as they won't fit well with my design. Anyone else have promotion idea's for a new free web host?

buying some space on freewebspace.net would be a good idea.. they have a lot of traffic.. you should make postings on there free space forum too...

other then that, I think you should give it time.. your current signups will refer you to there freinds.. and you will grow...

Hopefully onc I get some more people, "word of mouth" advertising will start to spread. But until then it's been slow going. I'll have to see about some ads at http;//www.freewebspace.net .

Im not trying to bash on your company, you look great but I would say the #1 thing you could do is change your URL or at least register a different one, syanet sounds way to corporate to signify a community free hosting site, I know its the first negative thing that popped into my head, made me think of pyramid schemes for whatever reason

I've had a quick look at your site, I agree with cbaker17 about the site looking very corporate - but I wouldn't say that was a bad sign. I managed to get quite a few signups for my free service by offering a limited number of free UK domain names with the first 10 or so people to register. If you promote this offer in forums and the usual places, you should get a very positive response - might be worth a try?

Now were talking. I'll run giveaways of free domain names in the near future :). Anything else?

"We also offer live help over AOL instant messenger on the screen name syasupport."

When are you usually on?
I have something that you'll be interested in...

Usually 3PM-Midnight Monday through Thursday.

syanet, Post your e-mail or ICQ #
so I can contact you

I don't have ICQ, but you can e-mail me at syanet@neo.rr.com

can i ask how are you actually gogin to make money off this?

The ad bar. View it at http://www.syanet.com/adbar.htm. I also plan to offer the same service, but without the ad bar, for $4-5 in the near future.

You need some form of incentive for people to register now and not when they're ready. Another suggestion might be to let anyone who registers at a certain time on a certain date not have to use the adbar. I know you wouldn't make any money of these customers through the adbar, but you'd certainly generate traffic and maybe you could benefit from the traffic by having a banner ad at the top of each page just for that week? Are you on webperf.net? If you think the hosting is reasonably fast then you should signup there so that everyone knows you're a fast, free host! I guess you could also do something along the 'refer a friend' lines. Offer the ability for users to turn off their adbar if they refer 5/10 friends to you?

How would the ad abr work in a frames based site? Is the adbar required on all pages?

How about offering mySQL and PHP4.0?

John

The bar would have to be placed on each page. HOwever exceptions can be made. I often let user break it into 3 parts and place it where they want as long as it's near the top of the page. Offering MySQL and PHP4.0 is probaly to much for a small free web provider. Maybe once I turn a profit I'll change some policies around.

There's some linksubmitters out there you may use. It might work since you're offering your stuff for free. Look at http://www.davecentral.com for any shareware.