generating visitors

[james438]

What is a good way to generate visitors to a personal website? I am not interested in spam and I am not so sure as I want to generate visitors at this time. My site is really just a casual hobby site and a way for me to keep track of things. I use it as a way to document coding tricks I have learned or write reviews of dvds.

Still, it has potential in that visitors can register and write articles of their own, so I can see how that could appeal to people.

[djr33]

Websites start slowly. Placing a few well targeted ads, or perhaps better, trading links with other similar sites, will start the process. Contact anyone you know personally and try to get that going as well. And of course start some basic content yourself to make the site feel active.
Next, keep the site active. Monitor it and do whatever you can to make it useful and engaging. If a site dies, it will be all but impossible to bring it back. Instead, keep any activity, even if it's minimal, and help it slowly grow.
Eventually, the site will support itself. This is the great part of the web: visitors will start randomly finding your site and expanding it, and soon you won't need to do anything to keep it going. But still remember to not let it start to fade, or it will be very difficult to reverse that.

At least that's what I've observed. I hope that's not all too general.

Remember one more important thing: a few good users are far better than many bored users. If you have a few users who do a lot, they'll keep the site moving for everyone else. If you get a lot of random hits but no real activity, that won't do anything and in fact can quickly turn into no hits at all. So put your efforts toward making sure that at least someone is happy with the site.

[james438]

That is quite helpful, thanks

[Beverleyh]

I agree with Daniel about working on getting a few good, quality users who support and contribute to the content of a site. Its easier said than done though.

From experience, both on personal website's and through school community websites that I work for and develop, about 10% of visitors contribute occasionally, and only about 1% of users contribute regularly. Everyone else just visits a website for their own gain - to get information that satisfies their own needs at that particular moment, and they rarely think about giving something back in some way. Its not a critisism though and we all do it every time we surf.

That still doesnt stop the disheartening feeling of watching the majority of through-traffic just take, take, take, so once you've identified the "contributors", I think its a good idea to try and develop a relationship with them and maintain it with regular emails or feedback for their volunteered involvement (comments on blogs, etc). If they feel appreciated (as you do for them taking the time to acknowledge your website) they will come back to again.

Ultimately on the web though, quality content is king, and free, (useful) information, tips and advice, that is updated regularly, is what keeps people coming back to a website.

[jamesjones]

Hi James,

Your post struck me as a bit ironic...

I'm new here, so maybe this frowned upon, but reading your post and your description of your site made ME want to check it out. I'd love to learn more about some cool coding tricks!

But you didn't provide a link, or have a link to it in your sig file.

Like I said, I'm new here, so maybe that's frowned upon here. But it seems to me that a great way to get traffic, and a source of those 1% of serious, contributing readers is to post information on forums like these - either descriptive or beneficial - with a link.

[james438]

Thanks for the suggestions. I am not sure when I want to generate visitors, but I wanted to know what the best way to go about it was when the time comes.

jamesjones, you can try this with other users of this site: if you click on the name of the poster and then "view user profile" and then "contact info" you will see the user's website, if they posted one. I have one posted in my profile page, but not in my user sig, because I am not so sure I want to actively generate visitors yet.

For me, learning the best way to generate visitors is another good coding trick. My site really is a hobby site anyway.

[traq]

I'm not a champion of "social media" (I could do without it, honestly), but I have to admit that it is a good way to generate interest. My facebook page is mostly content from my actual site, and it posts to Twitter automatically; I get a decent return with little effort.

Actually finding clients is a different matter - being active and helpful on community sites (like Dynamic Drive) actually brings more prospective clients than FB (of course, I don't buy any ads on FB).