Promoting the paid site on US web market

methodes of advertising and gaining the users for a paid site

[Carlos_BS]

Hi, I would like to gain something about 4 000 new paying users, for our site. Most of our users are basically from Germany and Switzerland, and thats still far from the ideal.
I would more prefer kind of franchising solution, not to pay for clicks, which is something I don t believe to. Do you have any further experience with such promoting on U.S. market?

Carlos

[rogerd]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, Carlos. Is this a community site you are trying to build? Is there a free component to the site in addition to the paid portion?

[Carlos_BS]

Well, basically I have a problem where to place this topic, as its a very much business oriented issue.

[rogerd]

Promoting paid sites is a challenge. Most communities with a paid membership began as free communities to build critical mass, and often keep much of their content in the free area to build traffic.

If you want to develop free search traffic, you can't hide all of your content behind a login screen.

[bradley phil]

given the sheer quantity AND quality of content contained in forums, it's amazing it's so hard to get revenue proportional with that merit. Perhaps it's something to do with how badly search engines handle forums