My 1st Endeavor

getting started with my 1st site

[J_RaD]

I do have a website now, but it is just a place I use to keep my tech skills sharp and help normal everyday people at the same time. After reading and visiting here I'm using that site to cut my teeth with SEO as well. I enjoy learning and helping others with my choosen topic and as I've searched for similar sites I didn't find anything really good for the average joe.

The ones that are good have a good forum and nothing but a forum. Some have both but normally nothing is great. The content only sites seem to be the worst.

Im writing as much as I can and I started a small forum(following the guidelines stated here a while back).

Im getting stray traffic and random forum visitors but nothing steady.
This is where I need some help.

[Clinton Labombard]

I'll assume your site is usable, has no code errors, and will get people to keep returning.

You'll need to engage in some gorilla advertising. Advertise your site, complete with an accurate and enticing description, in any medium you can get your hands on. When you e-mail people, include a link to it. When you post in other forums, include a link to it. When you go to the library, laundramat, public restroom, police station, emergency room, etc, inadvertantly drop a business card. Put an ad in certain likely magazines (the little ads in the back or better if you can afford it), get other sites to link to you with high-profile links, make sure it's included in the major link directories, etc, etc, etc. If it's worth it, do that.

It will take a little while for visitors to really start coming in, then you'll get sudden rushes, and finally the number of people coming to the site will level off and you'll have a long phase of cyclical fluxuations. That is, unless a lot more people start using the net.

In order to get people to keep coming back to the site and forum you'll need to supply content (duh, you know this). Don't give all your best content all at once, but drip it in. If it's just you, then one or two good articles a week is just fine. As for the forum, you'll need to build up quality posts before the forum can really 'take care of itself'.

All this, of course, requires a bit of patience, timing, and diligent work, but if the site is really worth your time you'll have plenty of visitors.

[asquithea]

[You'll need to engage in some gorilla advertising.]

Make sure you're targeting the right demographic ;-)

[J_RaD]

What do you think about allowing others to submmit their own articles for reviewing?

[Clinton Labombard]

Sounds interesting. If you intend to display those articles, just make sure they've given you permission to do so. And keep in mind that if your site really gets off the ground you'll be swamped with submissions. It could turn into quite a chore.

[J_RaD]

Yes it def would become a task when it takes off. But for right now im thinking of it from more of a helping market standpoint.

If someone writes something for a website, of course he is going to want to show it off, and it also takes the pressure off myself for creating 100% of the content. It would also really give it a community feeling to go along with the forums.

And maybe it could be something I do for a year or so then cut it off or only take it from users that have submitted quality peices in the past.