Building Traffic

I couldn't find a forum specific to traffic so this'll do...

I've been to several forums specific to websites and SEO and on several occasions I have read posts where people are getting 10's of 1000's of visitors a day...and some even into the millions ( they claim )...

and these are relatively new websites asking questions on these kinds of forums...not well established entities like Cnet or Tucows...

my question is...how do you get traffic? My site is already no.1 on MSN, no.2 on Google, and no. 31 on Yahoo...but the traffic is virtually non-existant...I got more traffic promoting my blogs with half as much effort.

I've personally listed my site on several ( over 25 ) directories, have a few other incoming links from websites and forums, Google is crawling the forum part of the site, i've made the occasional automated submission, I've become a member of some significant websites such as Cnet and About...

and all this has made us get picked up...but NOT drawn in the traffic...do people who claim these big numbers buy their traffic? I was told that is a waste of time because it's not the good traffic you want.

How...do you get people to come to your site? What can you do to draw the traffic in? And how long does it take before you see a significant change?

Eg

You say your not getting lots of traffic yet you say



I would thnk that if your community consisted of this there would be some decent traffic, not non existant.

Hi typhon,

We have the members but the members we have are ' invited ' members not incoming traffic...for the most part our membership consists of friends from a computer security/networking site.

The intro you quoted is true of the present membership...but like I said every member that we have we invited personally so it's not reflective of any incoming traffic.

Right now we get approx. 15 pageloads to the website and 200-500 pageloads to the forum...per day ( edit: yesterdays results are 6 and 267 pageloads respectively )...and I estimate virtually all of that is from the present membership.



I would think so too, I believe we have a good site with a good group of members...unfortunately...traffic is, for all intense purposes, non-existant...and I don't understand why...or how to rectify it.

We are only two months old...so that may be a factor...but how much of a factor that is I don't know either...am I just expecting too much too soon and in another six months the traffic will start pouring in?

Eg

Link popularity website: 2419...it's dropped from 2642

Pages indexed website: 1001...going up

Search Engine ranking website ( using just the title as search term ):

Search Engine Position
MSN Search.................1
Google........................2
Yahoo!......................31
AltaVista.......Not Found

Strange forum. You have a category for Networking, and another one for the Southern Zone. I understand that they are in different group, but they are in the same Taz Forum.

Is your target market "Artistic Computer Geeks That Like the Dukes of Hazard"? You might want to make it a little more specific, like IT stuff or Art Stuff, or writing, but not the whole bunch.

I am always trying to get more traffic. My site has always been growing, and it seems like the more I target my audience the better long term results I get. Maybe pass out some flyers at the next hi-tech job fair in your area...or something like that.

I started off doing small ads on web that were just basically garbage. Then I stopped thinking about getting traffic by advertising. My whole game plan has changed, and am focusing on Public Relations. If MonkeyMeter is going to be huge it's not buy getting million hits one day from pop up ads. I want people to come back, I want people to recognize the name, I want people to use the site.

I just released my 3rd press release the other day. I announce it now when I update the top 100 road rage cities. Each time I do it I get more hits...not just in site traffic, but in the press calling me. MonkeyMeter, has mad a couple large city newspapers, one major radio station in Washington D.C., and then a few other smaller radio stations. I believe that is because I am building my public relations. The press is beginning to recognize MonkeyMeter and its rating, and by continuing to supply them with my results I become an expert in road rage. Then my course is wide open...or one would hope...Anybody got some extra hits to throw my way....

Hi comp185,



The ' James Forums ' section you're refering to is a closed section...a friends forum suffered a few major set-backs and is presently unavailable...so we decided to try to help out by making a temporary section in our forum specifically for it's members...an effort to keep their forum alive...unfortunately, the James Forums crashed and burned before we could get the e-mails of the members and notify them of this...so...it presently sits idle until we can figure out a way to contact them.

We started a tutorial section in the last week in order to draw people in...but maybe we need another gimmick...FREE BEER!

We actually do already offer a lot of services...computer help, tutorials, chat, games room, free classified ads to members, free ads on the main website to members, and the forum itself is member-controlled ( the members, not the administrators run the place ).

For all intense purposes we should be crawling with traffic...but we're not.


Eg

Press release? Should we do one everytime a new tutorial is added? And where?

Well i wasnt trying to as cynical as it sounded this morning when I re-read it. Anyway Since you do have a good members base, ask them to help promote. If they have websites get em to link to the forum. Make a couple of buttons/banner type images and have some code so you can catch the referers. Make some incentives. What type of incentive Im not sure.

First person to refer 100 people get an Ipod shuffle? I dont know.

As far as a press release. You could announce everytime you get a new tutorial posted, but wouldnt that possibly be a lot of announcement? Maybe a monthly newsletter, some of which could be directed to some local press agencies. But I would think that the press releases would be more along the lines of overhauls/upgrades to the site/major up comming event. But if you havent had a press blitz since you have been up and running you could talk to local newspapers/tv/radio about advertising or how to get mentioned in a story.

Local access cable is a possibility. One of the local news shows has mom and pop type folks on the morning news on Tuesdays I think. They feature local bands sometimes etc etc. Just something to think about.

Hi typhon,

So...basically, as the members are participating in it's promotion, you're saying we are doing virtually everything that can be done?

That a newsletter or press release would add to the mix?

Can you give me a rough estimate as to how long it takes ( generally speaking ) for us to see some significant improvement in traffic?...from all the things we have done to date.

We started the website and the forum for all intense purposes on/about the middle of January.

This will give me a rough estimate as to when to start worrying

Eg

I'd like to know the answer to that. I've been shooting for 15% growth on a monthly average. I have been able to do that so far. I am sure that number will start shrinking down the road. I think 15% is pretty good, but it depends what your starting number is. 1k visitors a month is only 1,150 next month. You should be able to do better than that. I started with 5k my first month, and one year later am finally breaking 30k a month. Is that weak? I don't know.

Hey you two. I just posted in the suggestion category. Both of you input or support would be great. Here is a link: http://www.ozzu.com/ftopic60283.html

Hi camp185,

You mentioned you're getting 30k hits a month...at the present rate, the forum, will do 10k at our site ( like I said...98% of it from our own internal traffic )...and the website maybe 1k...

i'm beginning to think it's just luck...we've worked hard at getting traffic at our site, did virtually everything that others suggested...and are still struggling to get even modest traffic...
whereas I've read posts on various sites where some sites are getting 100,000 visitors a ' day ' and they haven't really done anything near the effort we've put into ours...

the only logical explanation is that they buy the traffic from these outfits who say they'll send 1,000,000 visitors to your site for $19.99 a month...



what I'd like to know is how OZZU got traffic started on their own site...how did OZZU get traffic?

Eg

Bumper stickers, t shirts, buisness cards, magnets, anything you can put your site adddress/forum address and maybe a slogan type thing is always a good way to go. You can even silk screen your own shirts yourself, it isnt very difficult. And sometimes you can find deals on t-shirts and come out real cheap. Ask about the members if they would consider kicking in a few dollars each to help with the cost, and give each member a shirt (well each contributing member).

But Im all about using the above mentioned technique as well as flyers that can be posted on telephone poles, laundry mats, school bulletin boards, etc etc.

just thought Id throw that out there.

p.s. this is my first post on my brand new/used G3 tower, gawd I have missed my mac!

Hi typhon,

I could see some benefit to it if I lived in a city with a substantial population...but I don't...sure it would draw in some traffic but nothing close to being substantial...Canadian cities are small in comparison to their American counterparts and the mentality is very much different...

eg...as a graphics designer for a silk-screen outfit we would easily sell 1000 tee-shirts/hats at a college or even high school sports event...the Canadian counterpart we'd be lucky if we sold 25...

so...the things you mentioned would not work as well here as in Memphis.

They would have some effect...but a much lower percentage than the effect they would have on your side of the fence.

Eg

Hi EG,

You say you are #1 on these search engines, but for what keywords? Your company name? Most new clients aren't going to be looking for you by your company name...

There are lots of techniques to getting you higher listings based on keywords that will draw revenue yielding clients to your site. The best thing you can do, if your budget allows is have someone qualified in SEO reconfigure your site... so it brings in these paying customers - or whatever traffic needed to complete your site's objective.

My company offers these services, as do thousands of other companies...
http://www.bradymills.com. And, yes, some of these companies ARE paying for visitors to their sites, using payperclick programs offered through the various 1st teir and 2nd tier search sites. You can, however, optimize your page to generate traffic through organic search too...

One of my clients just signed a contract for almost a million dollars because of organic optimization I did for their site. Now, they have a huge budget for investing in PPC programs.

Hope that helps.
Brady

Oh and also...

Some site owners say they are getting 10's of 1000's of visitors, when they are really misunderstanding their analytics... Some people base this number off the number of "hits" on their site -- and a "hit" is much different than a unique visitor.

Thanks,
Brady

Ok so you live in a smaller town. the flyers etc could still help out, especialy if you make one that the members could print out and they could post them up where ever they live. (I dont know how eager they are to help build traffic or if they just use the site). But then I guess if you were going to do some sort of a press release you wouldnt be just doing it locally.

As for the SEO optimization, before you think about paying someone large sums of cash, check out the Search Engine Forum on this site as well as the other forums in the Internet Marketing section, and see if you can get some tips in there.