Low Budget Traffic Generation?

W

WalkedAirplane

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 19, 2005
Messages
378
So I run a music website, completely not for profit (so far we've lost about $2500 on the site and its only increasing ), but for the benefit of bands.

See, we feature unsigned metal bands, provide download mp3s for people to listen to, photograph live shows from time to time, etc - all for the bands, and people seeking to expand their musical tastes.

Problem is, we're still trying to generate traffic so its not all loss (not for money, but we've invested a lot and dont want it to be worthless). And we've got virtually no budget.

Could anyone care to make reccommendations?

- We have purchased a few banners, but high traffic sites are extremely expensive.
- We do take any opportunity we have on various forums (appropriate threads mind you) to link to ourselves
- We're trying to hook up a partnership with a record label at the moment.
- Most bands we help out are kind enough to link to us

We have considered (note: I work in a datacenter so I have TONS of hosting, I've got 3 servers right now, all on 100mbps connections):
- Running a game server of a popular game, and in the server welcome message offering a link to our site.
- Trying to hook up a partnership with a small record label
- ???????????


We're really trying to get the name out there, and we are running dry on budget and ideas - anyone care to offer suggestions?

Thanks!
 
You didn't mention the url of the site and it's not in your profile. It's okay to post it here in W&P, it's not considered site pimpage if you are asking for webmaster help with it.

Without being able to see the site, I can't tell you anything for sure, but odds are it's not well optimized for search engines. SEO (search engine optimization) is the best thing you can do for "free". Some places will charge you big bucks to do SEO, although it's not entirely rocket science, but will take some study and effort on your part so that when someone searches for *certain keywords* at google or wherever, they'll get your site in the results.

Another thing is if you are using a flash "splash page", there's really nothing for the search engines to index. And while not all SEs use them, meta tags are still worth caring about.

Post the url and I'll be happy to take a look. :)
 
You have no meta tags whatsoever.

Page titles are very important with SEs. Keywords in page titles carry more weight, so use them wisely. Your page title is "uuMetal.com". That is not a term someone would search on to find your site.

Your home page reads more like a blog. No one really cares about your server migration, that's not why anyone would want to visit your site. Perhaps move that stuff to a "what's new" page and concentrate on making the home page more of an "about" page that describes the site's purpose.

Use descriptive "alt" tags appropriately for images, don't try to keyword stuff them, but used properly, they can help a bit.

Like I said, SEO isn't rocket science, but it does take work. There are numerous webmaster forums out there that specialize in the topic. One term you'll learn is "keyword density". Irrelevant fluff (like talking about server migration) will only dilute the important keywords on your page.

Good luck with it.
 
Thanks, the title tidbit is helpful and would explain why we are higher in search rankings when searched by the band name of some bands we feature.

I'll start tossing in some alt tags on images for sure, thats easy enough.
I do intend to diverge things out of the blog sorta style we have going now into multiple pages and everything, that should help I'd hope :)

As for keyword density, should we essentially start trying to use a greater ratio of the words we want to be pulled in searches for?

So for example a few times through each article, mention "unsigned <sub-gene> metal" where appropriate?

Thanks for the help! It's not IMMEDIATE results, but in the long run it will be helpful I can imagine :)
 
You can do what Steve did and have a section of nude models(look at his site and you'll see what I mean). Anyway you can always put a bunch of key words at the bottem of the page to catch the search engine. Other then that you can try to get some blogs to mention it saying free metal mp3s etc. Other then that I really don't have any ideas(haven't messed with site design in a while)
 
WalkedAirplane said:
As for keyword density, should we essentially start trying to use a greater ratio of the words we want to be pulled in searches for?

So for example a few times through each article, mention "unsigned <sub-gene> metal" where appropriate?

Thanks for the help! It's not IMMEDIATE results, but in the long run it will be helpful I can imagine :)
Click to expand...
It's a very delicate balance. If you overstuff your keywords, you could end up being penalized by the SEs for it.

The goal is really to make your site for your audience, but also make it friendly to SEs for better indexing. Take this as an example:

- We are committed to bringing you the best *whatever* products.

vs.

- *Company name* is committed to bringing you the best in *whatever* products, including brandnameA widgets, brandnameB wihatnots, etc.

See how in the second example you use your name and also get some specific brands/products in there? Those will get indexed by SEs.

You will not see immediate results and will have to wait for the spiders to crawl and update. It can be frustrating, but in the long run, you'll get better results.
 
swatbat said:
Anyway you can always put a bunch of key words at the bottem of the page to catch the search engine.
Click to expand...
Oh, no! That is keyword stuffing. If the words are not used in context, you can end up banned by SEs.

There was a time when it was considered ok to place a bunch of keywords in text color same as the page background so they wouldn't be seen by the human eye but would get indexed. SEs are smarter now and will definitely penalize (if not outright ban you) for that crap.
 
swatbat said:
You can do what Steve did and have a section of nude models(look at his site and you'll see what I mean). Anyway you can always put a bunch of key words at the bottem of the page to catch the search engine.
Click to expand...

Either this was a joke, or you know nothing about SEO at all.
 
It was ment more as a joke poking fun at Steves nude model section but yea what lethal said is right.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top