I literally just launched my website lastnight. And I know I'm not going to be receiving many users. Our site is in the same niche as fmylife, textsfromlastnight, mylifeisbro, etc.. Those sites all seem to have a decent amount of traffic and I'm just wondering what to expect. What are some steps to take to reach a large amount of users. Would advertising on facebook be a good choice? what advertising publisher company should I go with to begin (I'm leaning towards xtendmedia, but they require 20k impressions) Any advice would be great
Creating a website is just first step towards the success. If you don't continue your work, expect nothing to happen. But if you continue to work, results will come. Maybe you could share your website with your friends on facebook, ask them to enter their stories and promote it to their friends. I would not suggest you to advertise empty website, make it look busy first, then advertise it. Build backlinks, join forums, introduce it to the world...., get creative, try different stuff and see what happens. Large amount of users is not something that comes overnight (unless you hit Digg front page or something like that ), it comes with time and hard work.
I've heard very bad things about Facebook advertising; I've heard that they can be dishonest, and that people's figures from their own, trusted analytics tend to show much lower rates of clicks than Facebook is charging them for. Facebook is certainly not transparent, and their customer service can be awful or non-existant. What's the address of your site? I think many people here would be curious to check it out. Honestly, sharing with your friends is probably the best place to start. The key with a site like yours is to make the site be good, so that people want to use it. Sites like those succeed mainly by being viral, not by much in the way of deliberate marketing.
my site is myroommatesucks.org there are a few minor things we are looking to change. But overall it is pretty finalized in how it is set up. And I am doing just what you guys have said, telling friends. I actually printed off a few hundred flyers and will be handing them out around local universities. So I hope that generates a little more traffic. One major conflict I am having however is whether or not letting guests post stories..obviously signing up for an account can be a hassle, but I like having the chance to track down who posts what exactly. What are some thoughts on that?
I really like the site. The flyers around campus is the ideal way to promote the website (and very low cost). Once the site is generating some income, you could advertise on student union websites? I think you are on to a winner with this niche (at least for some traffic and a little income) so keep promoting, in a few months this site could be worth $XXXX. Edit: I would allow guests to post until the site is better established to maximise visitor interation.
Just because people say negative thinks about facebook advertising doesn't mean it does not work. No, I don't use it msyelf, but unless you test everything for yourself firsthand, how will you actually know? Just asking a thought provoking question.
OMG, another billion dollar company that cheats and lies to people... how come I did not know about this sooner? hahahah....
You should expect traffic over night - you need to work on and get more content up. The key is to supply your visitors with more content than your competitors - and also, in what ways are you going to market your site? Also, are you going to write your own content or hire writers to help you? The key is to advertise your site once you have enough content for people to come and enjoy - why? Nobody wants to view an empty website.
Just checked it out. It's a good website (concept and design) I agree that you need need to get the content up then promote it. Seems as though facebook would be a naturally good option considering your demographics Best of luck!
Thank you! It means a lot to hear stuff like that. This is my very first site and if things go well I am planning on launching a line of sites all similar to this (concept wise) I've gotten about 350+ unique views in roughly 24hrs. That's without any real advertising. For now I'm actually having friends I know from college write true stories, as well as using a bit of imagination. The issue is making believable content without overdoing it. I'm also wondering when I sign up for ads with xtendmedia, what category would I choose for that. None of them really fit the style of site I have, entertainment would be the closest, but then the subcategories consist of basically music and videos. So I'm a bit lost on that. Thanks, I think I have decided that I will wait maybe a month before I promote with ads (via whatever it may be) I'm also going to try facebook, just throw a few dollars worth of ads up, I mean it is worth a shot, any traffic now is good traffic.
No doubt attractive contents must be one of the most important factor on promotion of site, however, I think that is not enough, because visitors must get to our sites first, and then they may be interested in the contents, that means we also need to do link buildings.
If there is some way you can add a sharing feature on your site. I think that would be great. I liked the site and can think of many people who would find it funny as well. I wanted to see if there was an easy way to share it to a friend's facebook or e-mail it but didn't see anything.
That is actually one of the plans for 'near future' development. We have quite a list of features that we divided into 'now' and 'later' type deals. In my opinion we need to keep releasing new features and content to keep users attracted to the site. We will also be taking polls to see what users want
let users be able to upload roomates' pic or video it'll be more interesting.where did you get tos statement?
I really like your website and agree with the poster that mentioned passing out flyers around campuses.
I actually wrote up the ToS with my uncle who does a lot of legal business with companies. Also regarding the videos, again that is a later plan of ours. We have a youtube channel set up already which will be more prank based I suppose. Always gotta save some surprises Thanks, yeah it's been raining horribly so haven't had a chance to really get out and advertise, however we still have received 1k unique views and 15k hits just via word of mouth. So I have a good feeling about it!
If you have launched it recently, then I would suggest you to give it some time to get it enrolled in the online system I would also recommend you to start creating new accounts in all the bookmarking sites which are show up on the "addthis" widget button. Later start posting each page of your site to all these bookmarking sites, these will eventually get you some long term genuine backlinks as well as traffic. Also remember to cross bookmark the pages/articles you post in these sites. Next step might be just start a fan page on facebook with the same name as of your site and link it to your site. Keep posting some attractive images with some catchy titles and content, everyday on this fan page. Share and tag it with your friends on facebook so you get the most number of eyeballs from Facebook. Make sure you give your facebook fan page reference to all the social networking sites too. The college stuff which you did was smart enough and you can also try to visit some local internet cafes in your city and request them to make their computer's homepage set to your website . So whenever a user opens a new browser, you site will be displayed at the first glance Above ALL, REMEMBER, as many of us say, CONTENT is the KING. So irrespective of what you do and how much traffic you achieve everyday, YOU HAVE TO keep posting new content and updating your sites regularly. Hope this helps, honey, ALL the best !!!
Maybe you need a common heart , keep doing your job well , do some seo jobs , like writing a blog , froum posts , social network , social bookmarking . I belive u will get more visitors if you keep doing !