How to help promote this site.

[Atrosity]

We need to find a reason for people to come here, other than "fewer ads" or "faster servers" or "screw so-and-so". Exclusive content (articles, highly respected individual posters or experts), contests, coolness factor, etc. One strike against this site, at least for me, is the unfamiliar navigation and forum layouts, as compared to other sites. Loyalties are or could play a big factor in which site people visit. I think the first wave of new members here were loyal to Alan or had strong dislikes against forum administration elsewhere. Many people are indifferent, and just want to go where they can get the best support or most pertinent content. That is the audience for which we need a strong incentive to look here.

As an example, I am a Home Theater enthusiast. I only visit AVSForum, because of the quality of posts, the quality of members, industry experts, and the friendships I have developed. There are a handful of other sites dedicated to HT, but I only visit them rarely, and that may be because I am searching in the classifieds, or a search engine found a thread/post related to a topic I was researching.

Unfortunately, I don't know any good way to advertise our existence on other sites, without simultaneously contributing to their content or risk being banned.

Maybe alan can promote something email worthy to the 3si email list he has? Something that does not come across as spam but a good promotion that would give new members an incentive to join and post.

I'll help advertise. Obviously. Alan, return my PM please, you're bad at that

hahhaa! yes.

[Alan92RTTT]

3) Many forums have a spot for "homepage" or "webpage" in your profile add this site there. People will see it and it provides links to the site to help get us ranked in google.

I just wanted to point out that from what I can see 3-4 users have done this.

This action generated over 500 inbound links to our site.

Imagine the number of links that could be generated if we all did it?

Unfortunately, I don't know any good way to advertise our existence on other sites, without simultaneously contributing to their content or risk being banned.

Actually you have helped. You added this site as your home page one several forums and generated a bunch of the links I just mentioned.

[ChargerX3]

Ill tell you what...10pm every night i know where im at.

[GTOJOE]

LOL I tried to change my homepage on 3si to 3sgto... got censored anyway I have done this on 2 other forums as well.

[Alan92RTTT]

It will only be censored on some pages. A few links will get through.

[Mikes2nd]

we are up to page 2 on bing!... searching on "3000gt forums"

Google on the other hand is a byatch.. farkers probably want money. I actually type in "3000gt and then 3sgto"...

I make sure I search going to 3sgto...

[DocWalt]

I added 3sgto to google's crawl list and added it to a bunch of my sigs. let's see what happens, lol.

[green-lantern]

I just wanted to point out that from what I can see 3-4 users have done this.

This action generated over 500 inbound links to our site.

Imagine the number of links that could be generated if we all did it?


Actually you have helped. You added this site as your home page one several forums and generated a bunch of the links I just mentioned.

So Alan, I should do this on all of the forums I'm on?

[Alan92RTTT]

Yes its giving us a ton of link backs.

Every post you make on any forum will then have a link in it to this site.

[brutten]

we are up to page 2 on bing!... searching on "3000gt forums"

Google on the other hand is a byatch.. farkers probably want money. I actually type in "3000gt and then 3sgto"...

I make sure I search going to 3sgto...

Tweaking the meta tags (description and keywords) and registering the domain for a long time will help a lot as well. Currently the site expires in less then a year and that will really hurt Google ranking algorithms

Allen - bust out a few bucks and register the domain for 10 yrs and ask somebody better then I to volunteer to optimize the site for SEO.