help! noone is visiting my website!

i created a book discussions forum and am perplexed about how to drive traffic to it. adsense seemed to work pretty well but i dont have the budget right now. i've been posting around in other forums about relevant stuff to that forum then i include a little signature with a link at the bottom. that was actually my motive coming here, then i saw there's a topic for this kind of stuff and i needn't be so sneaky that gets me a little traffic here and there but noone is actually registering and participating. does that just mean the website is no good? i mean everyone reads and has opinions about books, why dont they share them on my site? it hasn't been up very long, but still i'd like some progress. the few posters i have are more or less friends, not people who did it on their own initiative. so if anyone has some smart marketing ideas for this they would be much appreciated, thanks!

here's the link: http://spot86.com

tim

 

Your domain name doesnt tell me anything regarding what the site is about.

 

funny story about that... originally it was a forum for people who serve tables in a restaurant. i thought maybe it'd get traffic as a site where waiters can get on and share their anecdotes and experiences serving. i hated the site and was just doing it simply to get traffic then sell advertising space. i took it down after a week and now im running a forum on something that i actually enjoy which makes a big difference. for any readers who haven't worked in a restaurant 86 is slang for when your out of something, like the mash potatoes are 86ed. so no real significance to the name, just a number that all servers would recognize. so the moral of the story is im too cheap to buy another domain name right now. i realize im shooting myself in the foot by having an irrelevant website name, but i have to be frugal right now, maybe in a few months i can transfer it to something that actually makes sense but for now it has to be spot86

 

Also your forum needs useful content worth to read with considerable number of thread and posts. Try to organize 3-4 people from your friends and start posting some useful and interesting information that will attract visitors/readers.

 

Give useful content first. May be you can register it in forum directories and other public lists. You should have more posts before. Find some links to it. Try other cheap PPCs. Some of the companies are giving you free credits to try them. This is a good way to find returning visitors. Offer a bonus for members who reach specific number of posts.

 

Try seo that's the long term

Optimize it for Search Engines

 

What to optimize without any content?

 

Maybe you can try some paid poster to come around to get things started.
Also buy some advertising.

I have some advertising that I can offer you

 

You should realize that there are a LOT of people out there who wants to talk about BOOKS !

Yes - surprising - but there are. Given an oppurtunity - I would give a whole speech on some of my favourite books and how different a PDF is from a book.


Dont give up Dont yell .

Loan some cash, throw a contest to get started. Dont fill your site with advertisements. Book Reading folks are a little conservative usually - so get a good looking yet sober theme in your forums. Hire a professional to do the job if neccessary.

Refer to THIS article for more .. .

 

The name is difficult to even guess what the site is about. What is your budget? You can always try to BRAND the site's name (this will cost a lot) with pay per impression ads and what not..... Also the name is just generally bad to SEO.. you need your keyword on your domain.

 

1. Buy some content.

2. Think about a better domain name more related to your subject matter (books)

3. Encourage people to post in your forums by starting discussions.

 

thanks for the advice everyone. as for the domain name i agree it needs to be changed. i will probably do that some time in the next little while. i do like the idea of paying people to post, buying activity seems more appealing to me right now then buying advertising. so what's a practical way to go about that? you think people will post 5 times for 5 bucks? 10 bucks for 5 posts? do i have to make a big long list of rules or can it just be a simple explanation? i'd be willing to spend 50 to 100 bucks to get 10 active posters. anyone has suggestions on the pay to post id like to hear. thanks again everyone for the advice.

tim

 

If you don't have much money just use a sub domain, http://books.spot86.com or something like that. I don't think the domain is the big problem though, getting good content on the site should be your major goal.

Clint

 

Here's an idea. Write 10 posts here and get a signature. Then go around DP and promote your site

 

I would change the domain to something that has to do with books/reading. I think people are looking at your site out of curiosity just to see what it is, cause the URL does not tell them.

 

i suggest change domain to be more niche. add more content or even do a contest to make people participate. those might help.

 

thanks for the ideas everyone. i just wandered across the forum for buying content, as soon as i've made enough posts i'm going to post in there and buy a little bit of content. that should help. also i'm going to probably get another domain name, spot86 doesn't make much sense for this site. now i just have to post enough so im allowed in that forum

 

Awesome thought
To fully complete the above line, u need have 10 posts and 7 days time spent in dp

 

give a try, stop displaying the number of posts till you get a decent number of posts for your forum.

Just remember the sheep's trend