Making an image hosting service famous (Advertising)

I've created an image host with quite some unique features I haven't seen on another websites. It's secure, has a lot of features, is quite social, has comments, allows sharing and a lot more. The quality is outstanding.

My problem is I don't know how to proceed. I've put my website online and I don't know what now? How to I get some fame and start receiving users? I know that once people come over they wont leave so quickly, but how do I get them to check it?

I'm a programmer and all, but I have no clue when it comes to advertising. I'm willing to learn for sure. The usual suggestions for advertising do not apply to me since all people say is "Build good content", but my site isn't about content now, I just need to attract people to use my image host. The first months will be rough, I know, so I need all the advice I can get to fasten the process of getting known.

I do have ads, but no popups or something that might annoy the user. A simple banner hosted by AdSense is all I have.

Advice would be appreciated.

URL to my image host:
http://imgzer.org

 

You are entering into a competitive market so it will be hard to make your website be popular. You will need to offer new features that your competitors do not offer. As for traffic, there are many ways to get it. Some of the most common ones are buying PPC ads from sites like Google Adwords and Search Engine Optimization. Just search the forums if you want some examples of how to do SEO.

 

Need a link or we are flying blind here.

N.

 

What you need to do is to get links, and i mean links in form of users sharing their uploaded image.
You could implement some sort of bonus feature for people who share X amounts of images or something like that.

Forums are a great source of traffic for image uploads as some forums doesn't allow uploading of images, or at least uploading of larger images.

You might also want to try to upload some generic "funny images" and post them on reddit, a few people might click your link and start using your service instead of imgur that everyone seems ot be using these days.

What's your website url btw?

 

Am I allowed to provide an URL to my website here? I guess I am. Check the first post .

As for the uniqueness, I think I kind of meet that criteria. I have added features other image hosts do not offer. My website might still be prone to some bugs since I couldn't test it heavily myself, therefore I gotta rely to some testers I have sent in to test my website and also I gotta rely on people who are nice enough to contact the website when they find a bug.

Thanks for your help!

P.S: I'm all ears to suggestions. May it be UI suggestions, new features,... anything.

 

I think your site need contents (in text) for searching from Google or sharing from Facebook. Now, your site has few pages indexed on Google. So, traffic from Google will be less. I have a website http://cloniz.com which is similar to your site. First of all, my site has only upload image feature. I soon recognize that my site need way to marketing it. So I add writing blog feature. I post game news to make more contents for website http://gamews.cloniz.com . I also make some interesting collection like Shark Tank video collection http://sharktank.cloniz.com

I hope my experience can help you.

 

How are your writing skills? You may wish to guest blog on some photography blogs to get you a little exposure (no pun intended). Maybe also write some articles about situations where hosting your images remotely is helpful. If you write up a few "how to" articles explaining how to use your site, you may even talk some web hosting companies into adding the articles to their site.

If you have the budget for it, then a contest would probably also help, maybe with a camera as a prize. Something like whoever posts the selfie that receives the most shares/likes will win. This will get people uploading photos as well as promoting the site (by asking their friends to vote/share).

Lastly, have you made an app for your site? Most people take pictures with their phone these days. An app to make it easier for them to get their photos onto your site will help.

 

How about a targeted PR campaign? I would suggest that you take your camera around where you live and try to get a picture that will be unusual and controversial. Publish it on the site and then write a press release that discusses the picture on your site, why it is controversial/unusual, etc. Then pitch the story to your local press (depending upon the subject of the picture, you will need to target the right media and reporters. If you get the story picked up, it may introduce your site to a lot of people who may first go there to see the picture and then stay to use the service.

 

Thanks a lot for the new responses. I'll be starting to put some of the new suggestions to action pretty soon.

@Foxxy My article writing skills are pretty good. The issue is to find those blogs that will actually accept my articles. My website has also its own blog which I've tried to adapt to the main site (the looks). I'm not keeping it very updated, there's only one post. I don't have a lot of time to take care of it because I have to keep the script bug free and start coding in the new features. Could you link me to some photography and web hosting blogs/sites?

As for the Android app, no, I don't have one yet. I can't afford a developer as I'm kinda broke. I can only handle my hosting and that barely. I might get an Android app very soon though as I'm going to create it myself. I'm in the learning process of Android apps. I guess the app should have its own Camera button trigger that will start the camera and directly upload the taken image to my image host. Sounds great!

I have tried to make my website as "social" as possible. There are comments, likes, dislikes, favoring photos etc. In future version I'll also add the possibility to see who exactly liked/disliked/favored your photos. There are also profile pages which are very describing if filled in nicely. The albums features are also extraordinary useful - Some Dropbox like features but only for images.

Anyway, I feel I have what it takes to be on top of the image hosting market, I just need to make sure people see what I'm offering them and I surely wont disappoint.

Looking forward to more helpful advice.