Hi everyone I am an Oracle Consultant and have started an Oracle Forum for other professionals like myself. Now my problem is for a generic sites there are a thousand places and ways that you can market your website, but since my site is in such a technical niche field what's the best way to increase visitors? Any comments appreciated. Also if you have any feedback/suggestions for my Oracle Forum, I would be grateful..
I would market it in network and oracle newsgroups, althrough newsgroups are rarely known for the average internet user they are widely known by system administrators and often frequented by them as a source of questions and answers.
Promote your forum with a Street Team may help, though, erm, I'm not sure of techies would be interested in doing that for you... but some may. Directory submissions can also help, just be sure you put the link in the correct category! Keep an eye in your server stats and webmaster tools for inbound links, then promote those that link to you (Promoting your site by promoting someone else's) Search for blogs & forums related to your niche (forget about follow or nofollow, it's traffic you want!) and make content rich comments in them. When possible leave a link to your site IN the comment. (How to get backlinks from forums and blogs and not be labeled as a spammer) Content is king! Reward good posting members with forum perks. Hold contests based on quality post counts. Good members can make a forum jump from being tiny, to being the best in the niche. Write articles and host them on your site, link to a forum thread that deals with the topic of the article for discussion. Then re-write the article (so it's once again unique) and post it to article directories. Good luck! Q
Thanks malcarada, newsgroups is a brilliant idea... Amazing that i read dozens of articles and no one mentioned newsgroups! I will definitely work on it. Also thanks Qryztufre, good tips Any other comments?
I assume that many of the people interested in Oracle would have at least some type of webpage. If you enforce strict posting guidelines (against pointless posts) then I suggest Revenue Sharing... as that can be a way to thank your members for providing quality content to a site they are posting on anyway. A "Fun & Games" or "Diversions" forum can often keep members around while not distracting the flow of the rest of the board (though, I'd stay away from an arcade, as that IS distracting). I have one on my Occult Forum and it can certainly keep me around checking new posts when the rest of the boards are crawling along... For an idea of some of the thread you could have check out my Fun & Games board, or search at WIKI for Forum Games... Even if you do not want an entire forum dedicated to such nonsense, at least start a few threads in your Chit-Chat board. Stay active as an Admin, and if you have mods, make sure they are happy-go-lucky, as no one likes an iron-fisted forum, as it takes too much away from the family/community aspect of a successful site. And ALWAYS place your members first! A happy memberbase will continue to grow! Try to get them to talk about the site in their blogs. Have a contest to see who can get you the most links or something. Maybe give special stats via the vB promotion system for referred members? Your members are the greatest asset to the forums... and it's wise to remember that.