Okay this is my (work in progress) site: http://healthylifejournal.org/ I am just looking for a steady income, nothing fancy yet. I have about $100 per week to invest into it. I am just not sure the wisest place to spend it. Should I hire someone (via rentacoder or similar site) to find me quality one-way backlinks? Outsource directory and/or article submission? Pay for some quality articles (where would you recommend placing them on my site?)? Or hire someone to blog for me? I just want to know what you guys would do in priority, I don't have a whole lot of time on my hands, just 2-3 hours a day, but I can do at least one thing by myself. Thanks everyone!
Your main priority should be to get the best quality content you can. One great way of getting good backlinks and improving SEO (which would get you serious traffic if you ranked for a good search term) is to write beneficial and informational articles into your blog. Most of your posts seem to be based around news stories but blog posts with beneficial content will prove much better use in getting interest and backlinks. The budget isn't that high and to be honest I think social networking would be the best way to build up traffic and word of mouth (via communities, blogs etc). You could enquire such websites and see if they would accept payment (or maybe even do it for free) to give your blog a small review or mention. You could even spend your budget on hiring someone to do this kind of networking for you. We have a service which could really benefit your circumstance I think, it's well within your budget too and you can find more information in the link on my sig. Just thought I'd mention it if it could benefit your situation
If you want the kind of traffic to either quit your job or to pay most of your bills, advertising is the only real way. Even if it's just steady income, like you said. It's not backlinks, signatures, paying bloggers, press releases, and other such overrated methods. The big sites did it through advertising and word of mouth. Period. Social networking can also work, but do you know how to really do it so you aren't seen as a spammer? If you are looking for just steady income for now, you still have to advertise, and get that word of mouth going. Before advertising, get others to critique your site and your ads. Would they buy from you? Would they even click on your ads??? You may want to consider starting off with simple pay per click ads in search engines as these are cheaper, and you don't need a lot of money up front with many of them. Google MSN Yahoo Ask (AskJeeves) AltaVista MetaSpider Vivisimo PlanetSearch SurfWax qbSearch ProFusion Proteus Go2Net MegaGo.com WebFile MyGO MegaCrawler Jayde Burf Search-O-Rama Cipinet InfoTiger G7K TowerSearch RealTech Miva Chitika VCM LookSmart NnSeek iWon.com Exactseek Jayde ScrubTheWeb Search.com MetaCrawler Dogpile Mamma C4 Canada.com Ixquick Infogrid Query Server WebInfoSearch 800go Debriefing Highway 61 SearchAve Aesop GoTo Mixcat Abacho Igwanna SearchEngine Find Once Search-The-World Beamed SearchPixie GoClick Abcsearch Pageseeker Lycos Insite SearchFeed 411Web GenieKnows Searchfeed Search123 Overture A9com FreeEmail123 Amfibi 37.com OneSeek WebSquash Now, you may, MAY be able to make a small amount from each source, or one-quarter of them, but if you add them all up, it can, well, add up. You can get your inital $100 back, along with a small profit. Then go out and repeat it. Take that second small profit, along with your initial $100 and that first profit you made and go out and repeat it. Repeat, repeat, repeat..... Once you have enough saved up, like, $1,000, start advertising in Websites where its visitors may like your product(s). If you haven't already by then.
I see... but what if I am not selling anything (or have no products)? If I just want to get enough traffic on my site to get a fair amount of ad clicks, do I still put it all in advertisement?