http://ly2.com is my site, free url redirect service. i have some money to spend, i mean not a huge amount, but $5-20 a day is cool. so im on adwords now, gets a few signups. i tried signing up with overture but the signup pages wont load correctly for me. i have posted on free hosting forums and i have bought adbrite type ad's. i cant seem to get lots of signups, i get like 10-20 new signups a day. how can i get more?
Patience my dear. Google adwords is 50% based on the amount of money you like to spend per click, but also 50% based on performance. So if you want to hit that first long colored space all at the top, you have to get good performance. Have patience, select good keywords, see if they work, then get a bit more keywords, see how those perform. See on what keywords competitors advertise, exclude keywords that made you get less clicks or no sales, and build a good campaign by spending daily time on it for at least a month or longer. Adwords is not an easy way to the top like many think, Adwords is all based on optimization as well.
there must be a faster way to get members! i am thinking about cloning my site in all languages, in hopes of attracting signups from around the world
You "Tell a friend" is kinda small. Making it bigger might help. What about this. When you do a free redirect is there anyway you could have an interstitial telling people about your service - "Redirecting to .......com in 5 seconds - Free redirect service by ly2. Click here to get your free redirect." Or, after the redirect, could you display the redirected site content as the lower 90% of the page with a frame at the top with your ads and a link back to your site to attract people to sign up? I don't know if I have explained very well.... Hmmmm... Kinda like when you click a result on ask.com and it (at least used to when I last used it) displays the ask frame at the top and the searched site below it. That way you would be advertising your services to everyone visiting your members sites. Throw in a chikita / adsense ad in the top frame and you could make more money as well as get more sign ups.
I use adengage and adbrite i get great results from them. I spent last month nearly $3500 and have earnt more then that back. A cheap option though try buying peoples sigs at busy forums, ones with their own currency. Also offer incentives for your current members to refer their friends to join.
there must be a faster way to get members! i am thinking about cloning my site in all languages, in hopes of attracting signups from around the world do you expect to translate every single post?
Take a look at your traffic stats and see which countries send you the most traffic, in most cases it is the US and the Uk. So it might not be worth the time in attempting to do this.
uhhhh i'd suggest taking this down Text Message Bomb Your Friends Cell Phones! it just makes your entire website look seedy and unethical