What advertising and promotional techniques do you engage in to help drive traffic to your site? What kind of registration turn out do you experience with these advertising methods?
I've always found that advertising by word-of-mouth has been the most effect method - it's proven to have a fantastic registration turn-out.
Yes, signature links have been working extremely well so far ever since I put a link to AA in my sig on a few other websites.
Word of mouth between members, like Chris said can be very effective. I've had friends which told their friends to join, then they told their friends to join, and so on.
I go for word of mouth, signature links, Xbox Live bio section and limited use of Google AdWords. I think if you can build a community by word of mouth or by posting w/ signature on related sites, you attract individuals most likely to join.
The word of mouth method will also tend to grow and branch out as you get bigger. Think of a family tree that never stops. It's basically what you're doing, if your members are willing to help, of course.
Personally, I'm finding it a little challenging when it comes to advertising and growing my membership. My topic can be controversial for one thing. You either like firearms or you don't. This makes finding people who will allow you to advertise some what limited...even placing a link in your Sig can draw heat sometimes. I signed up for Google Adword but even Google is cracking down on firearms. They no longer allow PPC ads on gun related items. As long as I watch my wording I can get by with my ad. Then I started joining these advertising forums like crazy. When I get the chance, I rent some banner space as well. Now word of month really helps...about 75% of my members are locals who has spread the word but we live in a small area. A new thing I started doing was placing a watermark on my pictures I take for reviews. The watermark is the sites web address...every little helps I guess. Anyways, It sounds bad I guess but I love a challenge
I like signing up to friendly forums, earning their trust, then spamming the shit out of them. JK I also do word of mouth, but not too many people I know are into MMA, so that's hard. But we do have a Myspace, and Facebook group, as well as banner and link exchanges. And some members are beginning to link us in their sigs on other forums.
I Would Say Join A Friends Site And Steal Memebers By Getting To Know Them. Then Talk Them Into Your Site. That Helps For Me Also Playijng Games, Helps Advertising Your Site. Tell People About It. It Seems To Help ALot. Describe You SIte To THem, They Might Be Interested.
Signature links are great, but they can be troublesome for forums that do not show sigs to guests. Of course there's always a way to insert your site into a post without it looking like spam. You just have to have a good post and contribute to their forum. I don't mind if someone does it on mine or one I work on.
I may've snuck my own site into posts on other forums once or twice where advertising isn't exactly allowed, but still can get away with it because of the way it's done.
