Hi everyone, I'm looking for some help on proper website promotion. I'm not looking for shortcuts per se, as I know in the long run they do more harm then good, but rather ways that I can legitimately promote my website around the web beyond just creating content. I'm new(er) to specifically promoting a website, though I have ran some in the past. In the past, I never really worried much about building up traffic per se. I would cross-post news articles with other sites in my niche and over time traffic grew and I got increased page rank through Google. However, this isn't really possible to the same degree with my current site (adarkheart.com) because it's a much smaller niche and there isn't much in the way of new crossposting with other similar sites. So what I started doing was linking my own blog posts on other forums where I'm a regular participant. At first I started copying the entire post + link back to my site and reposting it on the more popular forums. This got me direct traffic, but I stopped doing that as it appeared to be duplicate content and Google would reference the forum instead of my site. It also pushed any direct links to my site way down. I've since toned it down and only post direct links, at less places, where pertinent, but it still looks like Google is ranking those forums (where I have a link to my site in my signature) well above mine. I don't know if this is because those sites are more popular already so by default it goes there, but it seems like it's hurting my page ranking and search engine traffic. Now, my site is very new (only 6 weeks) so I understand if it's just a time issue, but it seems like I may not be going about it the right way. I'd like to promote my site more than just passively (creating content and waiting for people to search it through Google), but not sure what will help and what will hurt. My traffic is steadily increasing, but according to Analytics almost 3/4 is referral traffic (from links I posted at higher traffic sites) with only 5% search engine traffic. The SE terms (over 80%) are 'keyword not found' and the rest are all Google caches. So I don't think I'm doing this right. Can you give me some insight on what I should do differently? I feel like SE traffic will ultimately bring in the most new (and returning, based on content) readers, so I may need to change y practices. PS. I have read Google's webmaster guidelines about good/bad practices.
OP you're not doing anything wrong. This is very much a time issue and you're just going to need to keep posting quality content. Things will work themselves out. Also - don't believe that the search engines will bring you the best readers. Your best readers will come from social shares and referrals; it will be those readers that stick around your site the longest and have lower bounce rates.
Continually ensure good quality and unique content. Perhaps publish a few articles or related blogs, and just be patient.
You can use social networking sites in order to get more visitors to your site. The social media nowadays has been very popular and most commonly used by millions of users. You mentioned about your blog posts. Why not post them on Facebook and share a link on Twitter. This will really help get several hits on your site if you have a good number of following base on social media.