Need Some Advice.

I want to get my site out there and I'm kinda stuck. Well I have 54 Registered users on my website. But I would want to have a consistent flow of users.

Should I go and pay around $200 a month for SEO? Or are there other options. My site runs on a custom script, have a WP Blog, and a vBulletin Forum.

Also, should I focus on the forums and then the main site?

Any advice would be great. My site is HookedRides.com.

Thanks,

 

Lots of people are interested in cars and other vehicles.. so you wouldnt worry about traffic, dont use the precious 200$ yet, advertise it manually to different people. Add it on your profiles, social networks, ask your friends to tell other friends and so on...

 

I second the motion with goldyweb888. However, I think it's hard to promote a site and forum simultaneously. I suggest you update your blog regularly and include a link to your forum or talk about it frequently. You may also want to hold a contest to increase your forum members.

I am not sure if you heard about Car Advice. Alborz Fallah and his team are the best car blog that I know so far. I think you can check his blog and use it as inspiration.

Hope that helps.

 

Firstly, remove like 90% of the different sections on your forum. Instead of having all those sections under "Performance/Tuning" simply have a "Performance/Tuning" board. My oldest/most successful forum (100,000+ posts) started with about 4-5 different boards for users to discuss things. This keeps the conversations in a tighter space and makes your forum look more active.

 

Focus on your own blog and spend some time on your forum. Spend $50 to hire some posting to make some new thread, then allocate $50 to implement some contests in your forum.

 

Definitely decrease the amount of sections on your forum! $200 a month in a lot, I would start with a more modest advertising budget. Focus on creating great content for your blog that will drive people to your forum. Also, try advertising through free online classifieds like Kijiji, Craigslist, etc as well as submitting your forum to free directories. If you do have cash for marketing you could try adwords and look for unique, low cost (a few cents per click) keywords. Good luck!

 

You can post an article about your product and submit it into article directories.. You can create a video and upload it into youtube, you can promote it into free directories, free social bookmarking sites, and much more...i hope it helpful for you.

 

Directory submit could work for you

 

We all do... make sure you have consistent flow of good content - that helps

You can consider it, although I think you might want to first think what you want from your site & visitors?

If it's the forums you want to build, then wouldn't it make sense to perhaps show only forums - and put other stuff under it? If your goal is to get people to write & act then put major focus on the forums.

Or... do you think your visitors like to just check out the front page & see some car pics (and whatnot)? Could you try creating some sort of viral campaign... make it easy for people to share your car stuff with each other? Have videos?

Site layout & looks is good, only small complain is that the header section takes quite a lot of space. I would consider taking 30-50% of the "header space" (the top about 300px) and making it smaller.

I'd also consider saying in one sentence "what your site is all about" (like in the header - it's good that you have it in your site title already)

Good luck with the site

 

I am always in the favor of professional help.

 

Wow this is great information for me. I will try to work on some of these things you guys mentioned.

Thanks,

 

spend the time and learn seo yourself. it is worth it.