How to increase "word of mouth" interest in my site

[wordmunger]

I've decided to spend the next week trying to generate "buzz" about my Web site, and I'm wondering if MR community members have any ideas about how best to do it.

Here's what I'm thinking about doing:

1. A press release: write a press release to local media outlets explaining what the site is about. (I'll probably post a draft of it to this thread before I send it out).

2. Identify related sites around the web and e-mail their webmasters asking them to take a look at the site and link to it. I think the key here is not to target blockbuster sites with massive readership. They're not going to have time for my li'l ol' blog. My thinking is, a lot of links from little sites is just as good as one link from a big one.

3. Post announcements in online forums such as MR (probably not here though, since you people are very likely sick of me already )

4. Since my site is a blog, I also want to look into ways to syndicate it onto the major blogging communities, such as livejournal, blogger, etc.

5. Avoid spamming at all costs. I want my appeal to be very personal and directed at people who are likely have a genuine interest in what I write.

So, what do you think? Have I missed anything?

I'd particularly appreciate suggestions of similar sites for me to visit/contact (you'd probably want to visit my site and see what it's like first).

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Macs R Us]

Well go to Google there AD works , are great... It helps me... Well that and Links from other sites and banners... my 2 cents...

 

[Mechcozmo]

I like it. Write to the news, get a loudspeaker and shout out the URL, and heck even get someone to Google-bomb the letter "a" (or w??) for you.

You seem to have it rather well covered.

 

[wowser]

If your site is strong enough, people will come to you.

 

[wordmunger]

If your site is strong enough, people will come to you.

I agree. There's no point in all of this if the site itself isn't strong. I've been getting about a 20 percent increase in traffic per month, but I'd like to give the site a little "push" in the right direction, with the goal doubling my traffic in the same amount of time.

I think Apple (to pick an example at random) does a very good job of this: their products are excellent in their own right, but they also do everything they can to generate "buzz" about their products.

 

[Counterfit]

You could always rant about stuff like Maddox does...

 

[edesignuk]

You could always rant about stuff like Maddox does...

You could try, but I can't see anyone being as good as it as Maddox, it is "the best page in the universe" after all

 

[jackieonasses]

You could try, but I can't see anyone being as good as it as Maddox, it is "the best page in the universe" after all

agreed, of course, MAM (Mothers Against Maddox is ridiculous and I laugh hard at her attempts to bring Maddox down. And Wordmunger, i read your site all the time!

 

[wowser]

I signed her pertition!

 

[wordmunger]

You could try, but I can't see anyone being as good as it as Maddox, it is "the best page in the universe" after all

My graduate school adviser once told me that it wasn't worth the effort it takes to be the best at anything: there are too many compromises involved. He said a better goal was to be second. Think about it: Second richest person: Warren Buffett. Second most popular computing platform: Macintosh. Second most popular search engine: Yahoo.

So, it would be fine with me to be the second best page in the universe. (Though I think my site is better than Maddox )

 

[FlamDrag]

I just read the first page and your content is a good read. I'll bookmark it.

However, minor requests:

1. The yellow is killing me. If it's your thing... then fine. Yellow's your thing.

2. Can we lose the E X C E S S L e t t e r s p a c i n g? If you're in love with it, keep it in the menu; but in the post titles there's just no reason. You know what they say about people who letterspace lowercase letters...

Cheers mate,

FD

 

[wowser]

I too find the yellow a bit garish, but the rest of the layout / styling is superb. I really love simple, but stylish pages.

 

[jeremy.king]

Exactly why do you want visitors to your site? Its a blog What benefit would I get from reading it? Whats the value to me? I have to be sold....

 

[wordmunger]

I just read the first page and your content is a good read. I'll bookmark it.

However, minor requests:

1. The yellow is killing me. If it's your thing... then fine. Yellow's your thing.

Yeah... it bugs me too. It used to be green, but people had difficulty reading the menus. I'm open to alternate color palettes, but I'd like it to be something visually striking, not just the usual blue/white.

2. Can we lose the E X C E S S L e t t e r s p a c i n g? If you're in love with it, keep it in the menu; but in the post titles there's just no reason. You know what they say about people who letterspace lowercase letters...

Some of us happen to LIKE SHEEP (jk--couldn't resist that one).

Seriously, though, I really don't enjoy spending time on my site's design. I think it looks okay, and it definitely could look better. I do think ol' Goudy needs to loosen up a little, and even he says it's fine to letterspace uppercase. A lot of designers now feel it's okay to judiciously use the letterspace with sans serif fonts. I'll give a whack at decreasing the letterspacing in the post titles, though. That's an artifact from back when they weren't in a contrasting color and needed SOMETHING to stand out...

Thanks for all the suggestions!

 

[wordmunger]

Okay, here are a couple alternative color schemes? These any better? Any preference?

 

[wowser]

I'd opt for the purple one, but neither grab me. How about something more along the lines of (and this is only a rough 'colour replace' job in ToyViewer:

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Hey Word Monfer, I really enjoyed your site Saddly enough Im on the same wagon as you.. Trying to push my site to people , If you figure a way to do it effectivly (sans spam) then hook me up Keep up the good fight


/edit I forgot to mention something thats worked great for me and might work well for you... "Google ads"... I am spending a dollar a day on google ad's so roughly 30 a month... wich has given me quite a nice boon in visitors and return visitors..

 

[gekko513]

This is an interesting topic. I, too, am and will be in a situation where I wish as many people to know about my site as possible. My situation is a bit different since I'm trying to establish a shareware company, so my main goal is to get people to download the software and that doesn't necessarily involve my own site, but still spreading the word on the site isquite important.

How to play google right is a big issue. Any ideas on this? As far as I can tell, it's very important to have links out and links in from sites that have a high "rating". So, the thing to figure out here is how to get people to link to your site. Being pushy seems wrong both because the motivation is not to push people to link to you unless they actually like your site and because I think people don't like to feel pushed How to spread the idea without coming off as pushy, that's the question for me. I suppose submitting the link to places where you're supposed to submit links and using some time to find and select places/webmasters to contact that would have an interest in your particular site is the way to go.

Edit: And I really enjoyed your blog!

 

[crazzyeddie]

I really like the site. The content is original and very well written. Im bookmarking it.