Hey guys I've been working on my Guns N' Roses website for a while (4 months). And I'm trying to get more traffic to it. I'm indexed on google, yahoo, msn and some smaller engines. I also try to link to as many sites as possible especially the two big GNR sites, sadly only one linked to me. I'm in webrings and I try to join directories. I'm usually getting 40-60 hits a day but its dropped to around 30 lately. My friend tells me my niche just doesn't get enough traffic. If anyone has any suggestions to help get hits please let me know, all I can think is I need more content. http://www.bestofgnr.com P.S. I havn't added adsense yet if you get don't see it on my site and get confused. I don't want to add it until I get enough visitors to justify it, plus I have an actual interest in the topic so I do want to create a nice informative website.
Maybe your friend is right? Ask the top site how much traffic they get and gauge your own site from there. Other than that, you could just wait a year as you slowly but surely age and move up the SERPs. Have you tried SEO? Since you're not selling anything, I don't see any reason to buy traffic. Other than that, I'm not sure what else you can do... P.S. Have you tried opening a forum? With "info" sites like this, you don't usually get a lot of repeat visitors unless there's something for them to keep coming back to, like a forum to talk to other like-minded folks.
Have you thought about running it on some type of blogging platform. Seems like the way you add your content is right up the alley of a blogging platform, which would make it easier to add content for you and probably help bringing traffic from tagging and blogging resources on the web. I don't think you are going to have any earth shattering numbers with a GnR site to begin with (I am a fan), but I think you might pick up links more easily and get traffic from Web2.0 services out there if you used something like Wordpress to run it.
Your friend is not right. The niche gets ample traffic. The problem is the competition. According to Google, you're up against almost nineteen million competitors. You'd be hard pressed to make a site with that kind of competition a winner right out of the gate! EDIT: Also, is your content original? The reason i ask is that this excerpt from your site: seems like a cut and paste job gone awry. If so, you may be seeing a "dupe penalty" holding you back.
Chachi Are you saying I should make it on something like blogspot for just the news section. Or saying that I should download a content editor for my news. Mister Tut. Well I try to post new news everyday, and usually I'll have an article and try to just retype it if I'm in a hurry in my own words. Looks like that one has some word for word stuff though, looks like I'll have to try harder at making it my own. But what exactly do u mean by "dupe penalty." Thanks for the help guys, and I think I will try adding a forum and doing some SEO stuff.
The duplicate content penalty. There is some disagreement about what exactly it is and how exactly it works, but essentially, google penalises you to a certain extent if your content is not unique.
Well I've havn't had the site for too long and it takes effort to make money so I'm not just gonna throw in the towell. I'm gonna keep bothering those big pages till they link me, add ONLY unique content and be much more careful about it, think of more that I can offer visitors, start a forum, and if anyone has any other suggestions I'll gladly take them. I signed up for adsense today though, havn't got the acceptance email yet but I just couldn't wait any longer, I'm hoping that first nickel may be able to inspire me, thanks for the suggestions all.
My opinion - duplicate content is not as big of a deal as most are making it out to be. Many top sites have very little original content, but draw on other sites information. JamesIsHere, keep building links into your site and updating content. If you haven't looked at optimizing your site for search engines...then find a good read on the subject....like going to www.seoelite.com (not an affiliate link) sign up for the free guide in the drop-in window...great information in there. Keep working at it...four months is hardly enough time to think about throwing in the towel on your site. Take Care!
Some cool content to add might be some of the GnR videos from YouTube. You can embed them right into your pages. I did this on some sites and in fact ended up listed on YouTube and got hits in return, as there is a list of pages that link to the videos. Here is a ton of GnR stuff http://youtube.com/results?search=guns+roses&search_type=search_videos&search=Search
Thanks Alberta. I think thats what I just gotta do, keep pestering people for links (I do ask nicely and link back to them), and trying some better search engine strategies. Its just so hard when google takes ions to re-index my pages. I'll also be sure to check out that SEO link you posted. Thanks Browntwn, for the link, I've never heard of youtube, but the only reason I havn't added any videos is I wasn't sure about copyright issues. Are we free to use the youtube videos no strings attatched or are there stipulations? I'm signed up for adsense as of now, just got to add it to my site. Sigh...If only I didn't have midterms tommorow and all next week.
YouTube is sweet. They host the video, although it shows on your page. If there is a legal problem, youTube will need to pull the file from their server, and your server is always clean.
you know the drill, more unique content, submissions, blogs, articles and the whole nine.. be different attract to you consumers make them want to buy now.... Make the decision for them research on how the top sales pages do it.. scott www.personalpowertraining.net
Thanks for the advice again Mr. Tut and Personal Trainer too. I added a video section using your idea today Mr. Tut, I think that will help a lot.