What's a good way to get people to start visiting a web site?

[DaJe]

Now that I'm finally starting to form a community on my site, I'll need people to start going there and what not. What are some good ways to get people to come?

[simon275]

There are a lot of community's out there on the web. You have to offer people something unique so people who are interested will come together.'

Make sure you are listed on the main search engines helps.

You can try and promote your community in other communities which are of similar interests.

[Spawn-Inc]

offer people xrated materials? be on google? spread the word here or on other popular websites?

[DaJe]

I've owned this site for like 3 or 4 years, and never really did much with it. I mainly used it as just a server. But now, I am trying to form a community at it and doing more with it. I will also eventually be building my own server, once I can afford it. I am going to make a new design, so right now I don't have the content of the site up, but do have the forum up. On the site, I will have a portfolio, possibly do commissions for things like art or site designs and what not. I will also have a game section, since my friend wants to do that, and it'll be my own personal place and such. It'll make more senes once it all comes together. Right now on the forum, I have a general area, a video game area including a forum for Insurgency, as i will be hosting an Insurgency server, and another section for something.

[Eclecticos]

Whats the name of it?

[Ichbin]

For like...google and such, what you do is...kinda word of mouth mixed in with relevency in a certain area.

if its about games, make sure in your URL, your short description, site name...etc has something to do with games so that when someone searches it on a relevancy based search engine, its well...more relevant.

[Crazy Buddhist]

A good search engine optimisation tip is to make sure as many of the words in your description and keyword metatags appear near the top in the text of the homepage.

If you want you can do this without actually showing those words to the public:

- make them very small text and in the background coolor of the page
- or place an image over them using CSS.

Search engines look for "congruency" between the site description, keywords, content and that sites linking to your site are also "congruent". Using this trick helps lift you up the site rankings. The search engine won't know that the text isn't visable.

Also join any communities you can around the subject - and be useful in those communities - then link your signature to your site. You'll get click through's from that.

Best wishes

Matthew

[Commando]

- make them very small text and in the background coolor of the page
- or place an image over them using CSS.

Absolutely positively don't do this. All of these old school tricks will get your site pushed to the absolute bottom of a search engine index and getting back is almost impossible.


The search engine won't know that the text isn't visable.

Yes it will, this is probably the first thing a search engine looks at and will automatically downgrade the rank of your page. The search engines look for a the same colors in CSS files. If they see any background and text colors the same they will screw your site.

Trying to trick search engines can result in being put in Google hell. Which is the bottom of the index and you can't get out without alot of work.

Search engine optimization is key, but you have to be smart about it. Here's some more good tips. (http://websitemech.com/content/view/30/36/)


Search engines look for "congruency" between the site description, keywords, content and that sites linking to your site are also "congruent".
Crazy Buddist is right about this, but there is a right and wrong way to do it.

- Keywords: keep them between 6-8 words that match the meta description
- Outside links help tremendously
- Content is King This is by far the biggest factor. If your site has good content your traffic will increase itself.

I hope this helps.

[Crazy Buddhist]

Absolutely positively don't do this. All of these old school tricks will get your site pushed to the absolute bottom of a search engine index and getting back is almost impossible.

I don't find this to be the case: My website comes out very high in search engine rankings overall. I do put a lot of content on it.