I have been told I have a good site, but no one stays

If you cant afford to hire anyone then you should just create lots of accounts for yourself and then start lots of posts. If you can afford a overclocker I know a good enthusiast that would do some posts for money.

I Think that you should have the signup on the front of your site saying "signup its free" see http://www.facebook.com/ you will def get more people to sign up if its on the front page.

 

Alright, I will try that JohnUK. And that's a good idea too, about the posting in my own forums! I can't believe I didn't think about that!

 

The best way of drawing users is actually having good content on the forums. Maybe start conversations on your latest news or something?

Also, you might want to clear out the comments which say " testing the comment system" - they are the sure sign of a startup

 

Alright well I started a revenue sharing program in my forums, once you reach 20 posts you share 50% of the total Adsense shown. You think that will get my forums some members?

 

The hardware and computing industry is pretty hard to break into as it is over-crowded these days and even to get a few hundred signups is pretty difficult. Maybe your taking the wrong approach to this though? I've got a site reviewed on my website (URL in signature) which might help you out because it's speciality is success in crowded markets.

 

Few quick thoughts.

There is no reason to sign up. Anything a person would want (i.e. the articles) is free. In fact I didn't even realise you had a forum at first.

Offer some freebies for signing up or allow people to post comments without signing up just yet, then make them join when the activity builds up.

 

okay, so my content isn't bad, there's just no reason to register? And isn't the revenue sharing enough incentive to register? Well, thank you Andrew!

 

Thank You Andrew!!! Holy cow folks.... I'm connstantly amazed at how often fundamental online marketing principles are overlooked.

Jacob you don't need to hire anyone to make posts to your forum. It's your business enterprise and YOU should be the one in charge of it. You'd be better off spending (investing) your money in learning how to market online (there are a handful of reputable resources that are no and low cost). It's really not that difficult

The content you have is okay, but IMO the page is a bit cluttered and lacks focus for what you're trying to achieve (getting people to sign up right?).

Visitors to your site have zero incentive to to sign up. What are they signing up for? Why? What Valuable, exclusive, special Thing are you giving that is worth them signing up/being on your list? I can't tell, and "FREE" isn't a good enough reason. If there is no preceived value by your visitors they won't sign up. I'm guessing the "revenue sharing incentive isn't bringing peolpe in droves the way you expected, right?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the competition in your field (target market) isn't what's holding you back as someone mentioned earlier. Nowadays what industry isn't "over crowded"? Case in point. My first primary offline business was music lessons. When I opened my studio years ago friends and family said "that's a hard business to make money in" because there are a lot of people teachng lessons.

Well guess what? I'm making money and have been building my business steadily because 1) I have a quality product/service, 2) it's targeted to a specific type of person looking for music instruction, 3) I've learned how to market my business offline AND online to reach that group and keep them by giving value they aren't getting elsewhere. And speaking of marketing online, there's a field that's "over crowded" yet people that take the time to learn online marketing skills ARE and DO make money (and I'm speaking from personal experience).

Anyway, back to YOU You have specialized knowledge and expertise in your field. Do you have a few unique insights to solving a problem your visitors may have but haven't seen mentioned elsewhere? Do you keep up-to-date on the latest delevopments in your field? If so, let people know that by joining your forum they'll have inside access to that exclusive information I know ZIP about tech stuff but even I'd sign up for that...

Add MORE value by letting people know that you are (will be) an active participant in your own forum. It's like they'll have a direct line to an expert... and that's just scratching the surface of free ways to get people to join your forum. And this is why I keep coming back to why you'd want to ...


... Take advantage of some free online marketing courses and you'll be on your way to achieveing your goals (and maybe even more).

Good luck!
ZM

PS sorry -- this ended up being waaaaay longer than I expected.

 

i didnt read the entire thread but you arent giving any incentives to your user to sign up. it just says "sign up its free".. sign up for what? newsletter?giveaways?tips? etc.. hope that helps

 

I only looked at your site for five minutes and didn't realise you had a revenue sharing system in place.

Form my memory there were some informative articles and a box asking me to register. For what for I don't know.

We net surfers are a fickle bunch. If you don't get the point about your website over in a few minutes then they are gone.

Now you could say that I didn't read your site well enougth. However the reality is that many people will do the same so you may want to take this in mind when designing your page.

 

Hell, I didn't try to tune my website until last week!
And to be honest, it's not even close

Using the Google Website Optimization tool, I found out that people were clicking into the top-left corner and blowing off the rest of the website.

Could be happening to you. Where do your visitors go?