How did you get so big?

[Steve_S]

This Poll was inspired by this great thread.

New members of our Community and even some veterans are often shocked at some of the huge trafic numbers that other members post. It can be intimidating and to some exstent frustrating. It would be informative and a valuable lesson in site promotion to see exactly how you did it.

Please note: This is a multiple choice Poll. Which technique or techniques were most valuable in building trafic to your site? Which ones do you continue to use today? Please tell us why you use these techniques and share your results.

Please insure that you don't engage in advertising your goods and or services, since this violates our Rules and Posting Guide.

Your Help: If you have a suggestion for a new Poll, please only use our BB Feedback Form and send me your ideas and details. Some of our best Polls come from members, so your comments are always appreciated.

[dwergs]

If your product or content is suitable for "Word Of Mouse", try to kickstart the process by suggesting WHAT your visitors should tell their friends and HOW to put it. That way, people spread the message you prefer.

Tell-a-friend forms are great, but don't forget there are other means of communication on the Internet than e-mail. In fact, just remember these two words: INSTANT MESSAGING. Especially if you're targetting a young, dynamic crowd.

[Jan]

Originally posted by dwergs
Tell-a-friend forms are great, but don't forget there are other means of communication on the Internet than e-mail. In fact, just remember these two words: INSTANT MESSAGING. Especially if you're targetting a young, dynamic crowd.

Indeed, I like the "word of mouse", whenever I made a new page, I sent the link to a few on ICQ, (especially the habitual URL forwarders ) and that worked for me. But the TAF services are great too....*thinking back to the good old days of Mailbits*

[jokearound]

how did I get so big? id love to say I was born that way..but then I know im just lying to myself

ahem!

I mostly use coregistration to grow my newsletter which in turn brings traffic to my sites..thats my (pretty much only) strategy for now..Search engines/linkswaps are not bringing me much traffic, but I guess I have to work on that some more...

[dapslyrics]

What gained all the traffic for me was those sites where they rank you depending on the amount of hits you send them? I know everyone knows what I'm talking about. But I say my traffic now comes by word of mouth because I'm not really ranked high on search engines.


DapsLyrics.com - Lyrics to the hottest songs being played on the radio today.

[EvDeon]

What gained all the traffic for me was those sites where they rank you depending on the amount of hits you send them? I know everyone knows what I'm talking about.

Tops... "Tops 100 blahblah sites" are good source for easy-to-get trafiic but I am doubtful about its quality.

But I say my traffic now comes by word of mouth because I'm not really ranked high on search engines.

I know what you are talking about. Returning visitors! They are the Key. No matter where your visitor has come from (search engine, tops, etc.) - the visitor has come to your site to see your content. If it is good, unique, superb, up-to-date content - this visitor will come again, right to your site (through bookmarks, type-ins, etc.), and may be with one (or two) friends <--- That's the main source of traffic for me. And it isn't depends significally on search engine rankings (although I'm ranked surprisely high).

[Webdude]

How did you get so big?

You know, I think it's because of all that chocolate cake I eat (as if you didnt know THAT wasnt coming..LOL)

34,000,000 pageview per month and and even an Alexa rating under 20,000. It's because of all the women who want me

Actually I was posting not to answer the question....but so that someone could tell me more about this "co-registration". What is it? How does it work? and how does it get you more traffic?

Let me explain my thoughts and the situation I am in. One of our services (the free hosting part) is booming. Unfortunately, free hosting isnt really a profitable game. It's good (terrific actually) for using as a promoting ground for other free (or really cheap) services. However, I wish our pay hosting got as many hits or signups as the fre side does (which aint never gonna happen), but that's dreaming anyway. I can at least make deals to increase it's signups.

Let me explain what I am "thinking" it is. Someone signs up for our free hosting.....they are then automatically registered with someone else? If that's the case, what would I gain from it? I dont gain anything by that person signing up with my free hosting except increased cost of hosting yet one more person for free. So if I have the idea of this right.....there could be other arrangements made, correct? For example, you put ads on your pages fro my "pay" hosting in return for a membership gain from co-registration in our system?

Will someone please let me in on this co-registration knowledge?

[trenzterra]

Search engines for me. But recently I've been losing hits.


Last time my site was popular whenit was first listed in Yahoo!

[mp3PRO]

When I first read the thread How did you get so big?, I was getting just a few hundred hits a month. But things have gone better lately, going over 100k hits last month!

Dec 62889
Nov 108821
Oct 66061
Sep 82554
Aug 88728
Jul 59930
Jun 15676

Sticking to it, was the best lesson I learned on this forum. Link exchange and DMOZ/Google are the most important for me today.

BC

PS I have never spend any money on promotion, all submissions done by hand.

[firstmark]

Interesting poll.
If done in a through fashion search engine and directory traffic is tied to ones link swapping initiatives.

Google relies heavily on ODP. A good ODP listing is boosted even further with a few links pointed to the site in question.

Also with link trading if done on a large enough scale that too can be word of mouth.

I doubt very few sites can claim one thing that made them popular exclusively unless they lucked into a good yahoo listing in the past for something really popular or something along these lines. Even with Yahoo using Google now that built up traffic will have lead to links, and bookmarks and things that aren't easily undone.

[georgec]

One of the hardest things I've found is not necessarily getting big, but mantaining that drive and not get complacent once you get there. I've forgotten alot of the things I used to do, like actively contact other sites to exchange links, optimize pages for SEs etc. One of these days it's going to come back and bite me in the hehe.

[sjjs]

Originally posted by Jan
Indeed, I like the "word of mouse", whenever I made a new page, I sent the link to a few on ICQ, (especially the habitual URL forwarders ) and that worked for me. But the TAF services are great too....*thinking back to the good old days of Mailbits*

I'm fairly new to ICQ and don't like it that much at the moment, but can I ask if it's effective to get the ball rolling?

I mean, how do you go about finding people to send to? Is it just a matter of getting out there and pressing the virtual flesh or are there juicy shortcuts for those in the know?

[jokearound]

Webdude : Very simply, CoRegistration is sharing one set of details with more than one company / site.

i.e. I signup to a newsletter. They have a few checkboxes beneath the signup form saying "do you want to sign up for xxx newsletter, yyy daily ezine" - if the user clicks yes, their details are sent and I get a small referral fee.

you get cash, they get a potential lead.

heres an example : http://www.joke-around.com/pic/100 (disclaimer - thats my site. its not adult. there is advertising. you may see...gasp...a popunder) - look at the tell a friend form at the bottom. it has the little check boxes I mentioned earlier.

[b1ing]

Santa? are you okay?