Attracting Visitors

Hey I am a newbie and I run a console gaming discussion forum. http://www.console-crazy.com I am trying to figure out how to get my name out there more, I submitted to search engines and stuff and still no real luck. Can anyone help me with tips? if this is the wrong forum I apologize in advance.

Thank you.

You got a nice forum.

Forum always take time to build up the visitor base.
1. Link Exchange with related sites.
2. Put your site in your signature.
3. Paid advertising.

Try google ad-words (pay-per-click)

Check out http://www.webmasterbids.com.

Hope this helps.

I have google adds, they dont get me visitors

Google adds NO way cos there is no return on expenditure.

My brother has a website you may want to exchange links with at http://www.whatconsole.co.uk

Do that then do more!

I sent him an e-mail

I would continue to read the other threads in this forum. They share a great deal of information on what needs to be done to have a successful site.

Google pays you to display ad-sense on your website. Dosen't give you any traffic.

Mayble you're thinking of Google ad-words, where you pay Google to be a "featured listing" on the top or top-right of the search results, which should give you more traffic. (ad-words is PPC)

There is much more involved than just throwing up Google Ads. You have to do keyword research (so important!), track your click through rate, your conversion rate (if possible) and measure results.

One thing you can do off the bat is change that homepage title. You can keep the site name but put it at the end. Find what phrase best describes your site and see if it is searched.
This can help you (also with Google Adwords):
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchi ... uggestion/

Also, make sure you submit your site to DMOZ as well as other directories for better free search positioning.

Alot more information all over this forum.

My personal opinion is that all the above help, but paid advertising pays off the best. BUT make sure that if you spend money, don't go the cheepest route - make sure that you money is going to be worth it.

If you want free links, try this: write an article, then post it on http://www.articlecity.com. Make sure that you link to yourself at the and of the article. It's a good way to get a free link... and since it's got a Google PR 6, it'll help your popularity in Google.

Also, try submitting your article to the following list of sites:


http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Internet/Site_Management/Content_Management/Content_Providers/?il=1

I disagree. There is no ROI (Return on Investment) on pay per click for TheNotoriousMogg console site. Unless you sell a product. My brothers console web site gets plenty of visitors from Google without pay per click however they never spend anything on the banner advertising.

Very good point - search engine traffic is often better than ads... and you don't pay anything.

Point well received.

I think it all depends on the product your trying to sell. I have many clients that have a 5-10% ROI, and I have a few that have a 25-30% ROI. And then the branded clients I have very low ROI because they only compete with their own free listings.

Pay Per Clicks are always good in the beginning when you have no web presence. If you are looking for people to sign up on your site and you have no free listing presence, you can try it. There are also other ppc engines that have worked well, but cost 10x less like enhance.com. You won't get the traffic of Google, but you'll spend a hell of lot less.

I would stop focusing on the amount to spend on PPC, but concern yourself with optimizing your pages (title, description, h1 tags...). Also exchange links with other relative sites, forums. I think I stressed this earlier, but submit to directories such as DMOZ.

Good Luck