The site is www.iwaslazy.com I've been advertising on adwords/stumbleupon which has given me a big increase in uniques but not more readers. I want more subscribers. What would you guys do? My advertising budget is somewhere around ~$200/week I made this site to motivate people. I've worked on it for hours on end the past 3 months. I'm not in it to make money. Thanks for the help!
If you aren't in it to make money... Then why in the heck would you spend $200 per week to advertise it? However if you want to empower people, and not make money, offer a free report that reveals more info or something. Get your visitors to take action. Get them involved. I looked at your site for a minute so I may have missed something but give them a reason to keep coming back. I'm still perplexed with spending money on advertising if you don't want to monetize your site.
Getting traffic is the easy part, getting them to stick around and even come back is more difficult, and money is not really going to help you there. You have to build a community around your blog that people can get involved in. Somethings you might consider are: 1. Adding a rss/feed subscription form in the sidebar. You already have the links in the top sidebar, but in the past I have increased feed subscribers as much as 50% or more by simply using a small form rather than just a link. I am not sure why it works that way, maybe it is more friendly. 2. Build communities outside of your site that link back to the site. MyBlogLog is a good example, start up your own group and use their traffic and popularity to build interest around your site. By building a community there, they are more likely to then come back to your site and join. 3. Try writing some top 10 lists, etc., since your site seems to be built around working out and exercising, maybe you could do a list that is "the 10 best muscle building supplements" or "the top 20 exercises that strengthen your abs". People love lists and they are viral. In other words, people link to them and people come back to read more. 4. You might incorporate a user poll, "whats your favorite protein bar?" or something. By getting your readers involved, they feel like they are a part of something bigger and will want to come back. 5. Entice people to get involved and leave their comments. At the end of a post about your workout that day, say something like, "how many repetitions do you do a day" or "what is your work out schedule, let us know in the comment section?". Giving them a question to answer is one of the best ways to get people to leave a comment. 6. If you are seriously not in it for the money, you might consider dropping the adsense ads on the homepage until you build up a strong following. Many people coming to the site, especially when your in the health and fitness niche may think that you are only in it to target keywords and make money. By dropping the ads you might make yourself appear to be more genuine and thus user friendly. 7. Are you including your blog in sites like Technorati? Are you pinging various rss services to let them know you have updated your site? These are more great ways to build your popularity and bring in traffic. 8. Rather than spending your money on adwords and such, try buying a months worth of advertising on related niche sites. It may be cheaper in the long run, and you know that the traffic is well targeted for your niche. I am sure there are more ideas, but that is what I could come up with at the moment. Hopefully it will help.
Remind people to bookmark your site, subscribe to your RSS feed, and subscribe to your mailing lists. Different people remember to go to their favorite sites in different ways. I never use RSS feed, but I have subscribed to some blogs so I get an email when the content is updated. Include this information on every article you write for your site.
if you already got some visitor but they never subscribes maybe most of them don't like the way how you motivate them. why not analyze your way again.
You are maybe being a bit naive. You are either in this business to make money or not, inless you are George Soros or Little Billy gates or someone.
I think Jason here really hit the nail: why would you want to advertise/promote your site? What's the goal of that site? If it's "to give great success story", then contact some newspapers - and get them to do a story about you