When to start advertising

[Richard Hayes]

When running a website and/or blog when would you start advertising it. Would you do it after you have made your first blog post or would you wait till you have a decent amount of content first, so as to give new visitors plenty to digest?

I currently have the main pages of the site done and so far over 10 blog posts but usually wait till I have at least 10 before officially promoting it on various sites. I do post backlinks on Twitter and Facebook to get the word out and on Twitter I have also been using hashtags so the links are shown to the right people and so far it has worked, what has worked for others?

 

[Gizmo]

Good question 🙂 I always advertise prior to the board being opened in exchange or private paid post format. 🙂 Just so I can work up some activity. That is what I did for FC.

 

[Richard Hayes]

So you advertise it to the general public before it is even ready? Surely that is a bad move, especially if it is a forum as you would want to iron all the issues out and get all the sections full of content before going live.
There is nothing worse then going on a new forum and seeing empty sections or finding the admin has not finished installing mods or plugins and then makes a hash of it and either has to start again or decides the look is not right or opts to swap software, I have seen it happen before and most forums that start life on the wrong foot never last.

 

[Gizmo]

So you advertise it to the general public before it is even ready? Surely that is a bad move, especially if it is a forum as you would want to iron all the issues out and get all the sections full of content before going live.
There is nothing worse then going on a new forum and seeing empty sections or finding the admin has not finished installing mods or plugins and then makes a hash of it and either has to start again or decides the look is not right or opts to swap software, I have seen it happen before and most forums that start life on the wrong foot never last.

No no. I have all that done. I only give out the link through PM (I get them to PM me so it's not PM advertising) until it's ready. I've never had any problem with people giving the link away. :great:

All my staff created enough content to bring in backdoor activity.

 

[XcapeX]

I start advertising right away.

 

[the1]

I think it is better to get some content going before going live. Give people more of a chance to interact.

 

[netsavy006]

With a blog, I promote it right when I open the blog and have the first post up and running.

Advertising is good for blogs, but you have to remember to continually add content (posts) on a consistent basis to maintain your current visitor base.

I notice for me that traffic goes down a little if I don't update content that past day or 2.

Good luck. 🙂

 

[Richard Hayes]

No no. I have all that done. I only give out the link through PM (I get them to PM me so it's not PM advertising) until it's ready. I've never had any problem with people giving the link away. :great:

All my staff created enough content to bring in backdoor activity.

Right I understand now, although is your site open yet or not as I found a link to it on here yesterday, interesting site by the way.

I start advertising right away.

So you would start advertising without any content as soon as you got the idea for your site?

I think it is better to get some content going before going live. Give people more of a chance to interact.

Exactly my thinking, I have slowly be back linking on various sites as I add more content, adding content to a blog is not as easy as a forum so it takes time to build up a decent amount of content.

With a blog, I promote it right when I open the blog and have the first post up and running.

Advertising is good for blogs, but you have to remember to continually add content (posts) on a consistent basis to maintain your current visitor base.

I notice for me that traffic goes down a little if I don't update content that past day or 2.

Good luck. 🙂

Thanks for the well wishes, I would never promote my site with only one blog post on it, I currently have 14 blog posts, having added one per day since it went online and will continue to do at least one a day if not more, when I get to 25 blog posts I will start advertising it more and more, to increase traffic and user interaction.

 

[sadikb]

My idea is that Advertising should be taken up when you have nothing else to do... 🙂 By that I mean all technical aspects of setting up a new site are completed, sufficient content has been posted, all free promotion methods are well on their way...

 

[Acorn]

You start advertising as soon as you have a site that can deliver the goods you are advertising.

 

[Richard Hayes]

You start advertising as soon as you have a site that can deliver the goods you are advertising.

A fantastic reply and agree with you in a way but I like to think there is plenty of content for new visitors to look at as well before advertising too much.

 

[Gizmo]

No no. I have all that done. I only give out the link through PM (I get them to PM me so it's not PM advertising) until it's ready. I've never had any problem with people giving the link away. :great:

All my staff created enough content to bring in backdoor activity.

Right I understand now, although is your site open yet or not as I found a link to it on here yesterday, interesting site by the way.

Been opened for around a week for the public and was worked on for around a month beforehand. It was down for two days due to issues with phpBB causing me to convert to MyBB.

And thanks.

 

[Richard Hayes]

I see, well I will keep an watch on your site to see how it grows etc.

 

[Fiona1964]

Before I started advertising I got a few members I new well and trusted to help post topic ect and when I had 200+ post I then started advertising I would never advertise with not posts or topics as it does not look good

 

[KMRock]

It is very important that you set the website up correctly first, ie, create some blog posts/forum topics, set up the sections, have a great theme, have a quality banner, some unique content, domain etc. Once you've set your site up it is time to promote. I recommend promotion as much as possible in the first few days as possible to saturate the market with your site and aim to get off to as good start as possible.

 

[Richard Hayes]

KM Rock some of what you said is basic stuff to be honest, everyone knows that you should have a theme and banner done, it should really be one of the first things you do. However I don't agree with saturating the market as you put it as there is such thing as "Over Kill".

 

[KMRock]

Yes for sure, you always have to be careful of that. but if you just promote on one forum and hope to get activity, it'll never work. It is important to post it on a large number of forums around the same time so everyone finds out about your site. They may go to one forum and see it and think "ah, maybe look at it next time". The next forum they go to they find it there as well and think, "its work a look". Anyway just trying to help man.

 

[Richard Hayes]

Nice point well made and will take on board your comments. Thanks

 

[KMRock]

No problem and good luck!