Hi, I'm looking for some specific type of advice. Here's my problem in a nutshell ... I have s amall network of free, content heavy sites, but can't get people to join. The sites are in realtively specific niches. Because I'm hoping for some quality advice (not that quality advice isn't the norm here, but one wonders, sometimes . . .), here are the sites: http://www.analects.org http://www.bookoffiverings.net http://www.wudangquan.com and a couple of other very specific, dictionary term keyword rich domains. The upside to to this is that they are profitaboe. I get a good amount of traffic on these sites relative to the investments I've made (none!). With this specific subset of domains (and it is sort of an intentional mini-net, I guess), I had a very specific strategy in mind. That was - Build huge content heavy sites with content that is public domain (historic texts that nobody specific owns the copyrights to). Get good domain names that will rank higher than others Get a decent amount of links in Realiizing that my competition was huge authority sites like amazon.com, and that it would be difficult to outrank them without spending alot of money, I built sites that were good enough to be listed on their relative pages on Wikipedia and have the links last. They have. So, I am getting a decent amount of traffic on these sites. And it's more than profitable. I make not so much, but enough from PPC, etc. I also have a somewhat large (not mahalo dude large, but ...) network of high quality blogs that are pr5 and so on. Here's my dilemna: All things being equal (PR, alexa, in bound links, etc.), I can make literally 100x more per month from a blog doing paid posts than with these nice content sites. And I know why that is, I think. It's because I'm giving away all of the content for free, up front. What I would like to do is promote affiliate products to my visitors. I am very familiar with these niche's. Basically in alot of ways my offline life revolves around them. I also know the associated industries, and know how to find stuff to promote to make a good amount of money, or where to get stuff that my market is dying for, that I can brand as my own. And I know to do this I need to create a mailing list. WIth the CMS (Joomla) that I'm using, I can automatically mass mail the userbase. But I can't create a user base becauise everything is available for free. I should create a free product and give it away. I know. The problem is, I don't have time. So my final question is: How can I easily push a large percentage of people who come to the site every day, and all of these pageviews that I'm getting to register without sitting around and taking up alot of my time that I need to spend doing work IKNOW I'll get paid for to register? I know, that ultimately I should probably scrap alot of the on site advertising and offer something for free to registered users, but what I WANT is an easy way out.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but your sites are not appealing. Boring, in fact. On top of that you have products that most are not interested in. Sorry. In addition, you don't have anything in front of their faces to sign up. In fact, I don't even know what you mean. What do yo uwant them to sign up for, anyway? All I could see was a tiny link that goes to your forum. Is that what you mean? And on two of your sites they have to click on a link again just to get to the homepage. Why? Anyway, there it is.
Well, what I want to do is get them to register, and there's a registration module that's right in the navigation. I mean - technically I know how to do this. That's no problem. What I'm really looking for advice on specifically in a way to incentivize the registration without spending alot of my own time or money on sites that are currently profitable and don't otherwise require any real work or expense. Thanks
Although the registration module is right there in front of them, people will not join for at least these two reasons: 1. There is no call to action. If you don't tell them to join and you don't spell out the benefits of joining, they will not join. 2. People have no reason to join because you have made all the content readily available. As you are using joomla, you can set some of the content to be available only when someone is registered. You could even start a content item as 'Public', then after a paragraph you request the reader to login to read the rest of the content. On a side note, I am very much into Oriental Philosophy in general and the I Ching, in particular, thus I find your sites particularly appealing. So you can count on me to sign up, if only to be empowered to leave comments (only registered members can comment, the site says). Good luck.
I would offer a free template download, or ebook download which you can only download if you sign up. I did this through www.joomlatemplatestyle.com free joomla templates, and i get around 40 new users a day.
Here's some tips: 1) Two of your sites require to click "enter" even before they can get to the site. I think that stops some people from visiting your site at all. 2) The samurai site layout graphics could be improved: the login font & module is somewhere hidden (was pretty hard to spot) so it means people won't register 3) You could think more about the benefits you offer. Like... instead of saying "the analects of confucius" you could use some sentence Confucius has said (some bit of wisdom) - and translate that into a direct benefit that excites you & your visitors. 4) Like solavar mentioned: give people incentive to register. Give free report or SOMETHING for those who sign up. Clearer layouts, clearer benefits and call to action. That's a good way to start
Thanks for the feedback ... As far as things not being interesting ... In some cases we are talking about texts that are thousands of years old. I'll have to think about some ways to make it more interesting, but I don't have a ton of time for them . . . As far as the front pages needing a clickthrough to the main content I think I'll go ahead and fix that now. Thanks.
What does that have to do with it? Most people are not interested in it, which, of course, affects your sign ups. As is, getting quality sign ups is hard, anyway. It's less than 10%. Contrary to popular belief, out there. Yeah, I sometimes wonder why some Webmasters do that. Good luck with it.
I think thatwould be great place to start with. You have some texts that are thousands of years old... why not display that as the incentive to register? "Discover wisdom from texts that are thousands of years old..."