Web Sites-How Can You Draw Users To Them?

Muad asks: "Suppose someone had a really cool site like /. - how do you get the word out? In other words, once the work is done, how do you build the hype and let your potential users know that the result of so much of your hard work is finally online? Granted, you could use a lot of money, but the really interesting question arises when you don't have a large marketing budget, or none at all." In the absence of an advertising budget, and after you've added your site to every search engine you can find (accurate entries, please) you still can't beat the word-of-mouth method as a way to get folks to visit your site. However, you will soon discover that the hard part isn't getting folks to visit the site...it's getting them to come back.

Comments

Some techniques

[Rob Kaper]

• Use meta tags.
  It will take a long time before you appear in search engines, but meta tags will help you get a better position. And thus more visitors.
• Word-of-the-mouth.
  Mail your friends, colleagues, friendly webmasters of other sites.. stimulate other sites to link to you by offering buttons and banners or by linking back to them. Spread the word some more on mailinglists, newsgroups etc (but keep it relevant, spam doesn't work!)
• Advertising.
  If you have the money, advertise. On TV, radio, the Web or whatever you can afford. Or advertise by sacrificing advertising income using a banner trade program such as LinkExchange on your site instead of regular ads.
• Spam.
  Just kidding. ;-)
• Maintainance.
  Keep your site up-to-date. Alive. Fresh. Cool. This might even be the key element.. build it and they will come. Maintain it and they will keep coming!
• Reverse engineering.
  How did you know about the sites you like best? Somehow you became a visitor. Try and determin what they did (think, ask) and copy their methods.