I need a boost...

[Richieboy67]

:wave:

Well, My site seemed to be doing really well before I installed my portal. I was getting new members daily and I always had many visitors on my site... Now my site is just about dead and I am barley getting members.

I don't know what the problem is.. I have added most of the redirects for the dead links that are listed and things picked up a little after that but still I am really slow....

I am currently doing ad words through google and I have done some other small promotions with very limited results..

Can anyone offer me an idea to get things going a little??

One idea I had was for every person that come into my site and makes 15 good posts I will put a banner ad up for them on my sponsors page..

I have not decided on this yet but do you think it would give me a bit of a boost???

Does anyone have any other ideas that could give me a jump start without me having to spend much money??

Thanks,

Rich

 

[adam_uk]

remove the portal. if it was working without the portal why change it? imho i hate forums with portals. all portals basically are is a page where it displays a certain forums topics and has logon details and stuff and to me its just nto needed.

 

[Richieboy67]

Unfortunatly that is not an option... All the time and work that was involved installing that thing...lol No way is it going...

I just wanted a main page with more content... I know the portal page still needs work but I am still trying to figure out how to do certain things. One of the things I wanted to do was to have previews of new articles there from the article section of my site. I have no idea how to do this... I know I also need to out some sort of a bigger link or button for the forums so people will have easier access...

But as far as traffic is concerned can you tell me anyway that I can get some going again?? What do you thing of the banner posting idea I posted about??

Thanks

 

[Aryden]

as a browser, banners annoy me, as a designer/implementer they are great for making that 1 extra cent a month.

inall actuality what you should probably do, that is free, is do some searches for special interest groups sites like yours, and then do a banner swap with them to try to get their traffic to you.

 

[Richieboy67]

I tried to make the banners small and unobtrusive but I do know what you mean...

I really do not think my site is a special interest site though. My site covers many, many topics. Actually, this is the reason it is so hard to promote. It cannot be pinned down to one specific categorie..

You suggest banner swaps though??

What about having people who want a banner on my site having to first join and make a certain amount of posts?? On top of that they will have to link back with a small text link... Right now my site has 5 google rating so banners on my site might help others a bit...

 

[Aryden]

well your only issue with making them join and posting is that you will get 5, "random post" posts. nothing to do with you or your site probably. what i mean is that you take certain aspects of your site, lets say part of it is architecture, and you go to sites that talk about architecture and do a banner swap with them, then pick another topic and find groups for that swap, you get yourself a rollover script and put all your banners up there and have them cycle through. also you would be linked with those guys so if someone goes to their site to find something and cant or just gets annoyed witht the people there, they may hit your link.

 

[Brian]

Just took a look through the site. To me it was very hard to navigate, and read a lot of it.

Before you go and start promoting you are going to want to make it user friendly first. After that, start doing link swaps with websites, then maybe buying ads at other sites.

 

[hotrod12]

You might want to try and go on forums related to your site and just post your link in your sig and in various posts.

 

[Richieboy67]

Thank you all for the feedback, I am not sure when you all checked the site but I have recently changed my portal to VBAdvanced... I also took away many of the banners and I added more link bars for easier site navigation....

Brian, could you please take another look and see if my changes have made the site any more appealing to you?? Also, what resolution are you viewing the site at and what exactly is hard to see??

Thanks again,.. You all are great for helping!!

 

[GJ]

I think the portal should be taken off, I hate them.
Also Mass Email all the members to get them to come back.

 

[Mystic]

people spend time all the time testing things, my forum started growing, 20-40 posts a day then started going up, i installed portal and there aint been a post in 2 weeks, im removing it, it may be a lot of work, but if its keeping your members away, its worth removing, people spend time all the time testing things, not everything works, and maybe join a few SEO forums and get some directory links and submit your site to them, my proxy site is slowly growing since using seo forums

 

[Richieboy67]

I think you guys are right....

I think I will keep the portal but I will just make as an optional page to visit and not the main page.....

I really think the features are cool but my site is just sucking ass lately..... going downhill bigtime...


Thanks for the help guys....

 

[Richieboy67]

OK, I followed your advice.. I got rid of the portal... I actually pretty much redid my entire site.... The portal is now a news page and is an optional page to visit...

The best part of this is that now my site width is fixed!!!!! Now you do not have to scroll sideways to see the whole site!!! Yippy!!

I am going for a simpler approach this time...

I would love more feedback if you guys don't mind....