How do I get users?

TheSealPortalTeam · July 31st, 2008, 09:56 AM

I have this new website, http://egtworlds.com, a social network for websites and website designers. How do I get users on my site, with out purchasing advertisements? I will if I have to, put I'll loose a lot of money on that if I'm doing something wrong on my front page.

Alex Rehm · July 31st, 2008, 11:21 AM

Getting traffic is the hardest thing at times, this is what helped some of my clients when I was freelancing:

Manually add yourself to many search engines
Provide new and fresh content so Google knows your site is active and updating regularly
Use community sites to put your site out there: Forum signatures, adding comments to blogs and posting about your site on networks like in your facebook, myspace or twitter profile is always a good start.
Submit your site anywhere you can, Feedburner, techie sites and blogs, design related inspiration sites or RSS farms, etc
Programs like 'Article submitter' or 'RSS submit' can help autmomate submissions, but from my experience the results are bad as opposed to manual submission

Hope this helps as a start,

ALEX

TheSealPortalTeam · July 31st, 2008, 11:33 AM

Ok I'll see if that works, thanks.

Alex Rehm · July 31st, 2008, 11:41 AM

This is really just a generic list of suggestions, obviously I may be wrong and it could be outdated a little, but it still helps me on freelance / non-profit projects

TheSealPortalTeam · July 31st, 2008, 11:58 AM

I hope it helps a social network site.

Alex Rehm · July 31st, 2008, 12:13 PM

Well it should, the approach is usually always the same one. What matters now is promotion of your site in as many places as possible to raise awareness of your site and its potential

mbriscoe · August 2nd, 2008, 03:22 PM

"Manually add yourself to many search engines"

Hi Alex, My web designer said that submitting your site to search engines for better ranking is a huge myth, I notice now that after 2 - 3 days SE's pick up on any website changes you have made (used to take 3- 4 weeks). So I guess it really shouldn't be necessary to submit. He says there are a lot of people making money from this "idea" that you have to keep submitting your URL to google etc...

Alex Rehm · August 3rd, 2008, 04:13 AM

Hey mbriscoe, I never said my suggestions were anything but that (suggestions)

Back then when I started working on websites for charities and non-profit organisations (that's how I got into the industry), to make sure SE's picked them up was by submitting sites to SE's to ensure they were picked up. Remember that was 4-5 years ago. These days I think it is more important to submit yourself to blogs, RSS sites and what have you.

Edit: 2-3 days? That is still a hell of a long time these days, it should be almost instantly once your site is seen as a trusted resource. I would look at your sitemap and maybe use a XML-sitemap approach and create a Google webmaster account and verify your site and its sitemap. Makes heaps of a difference

Bocaj · August 3rd, 2008, 06:40 AM

if it's a community, no one joins an empty community, so perhaps you should make some 'fake' accounts with some fake content just to entice people in and then slowly phase them out.

It's like if you start a forum, create a few accounts, create some bogus questions and solve them, people come along, see that your a small community and that you're helpful, so they're more likely to join.

I think that's a bit long winded.... but just a thought.

TheSealPortalTeam · August 3rd, 2008, 10:17 PM

Thanks I'll keep it in mind, I should make some rss feeds and submit them to rss engines.