how to drive traffic to my new real estate investing portal?

bytenram

OK, I launched a new Real Estate Investor Portal called "Flip it Big" which you can visit at www.flipitbig.com.


I have been a website developer for 13 years now.  I am a systems engineer and the one concept I have not mastered is traffic and driving traffic to my site.


How do I get legit posts and members to use my site and its features?


Thank you in advance for your help.



 

DaleKing

Gerald, I hope you don`t get offended by what I`m about to say, but in my opinion you put the cart before the horse. You should have started a blog first to gauge interest in your topic. You could have added lots of useful, relevant content, slowly built up your credibilty and traffic, and then once your blog was successful, gradually transferred your blog readers over to your forum.
 
It`s still not too late to start a blog. Of course, you`re going to have to be patient, because it takes time to build traffic. Or you can try buying traffic announcing your new forum. But I personally don`t recommend that approach either, because buying forum traffic typically doesn`t work.
Dale King

marketraise

Am posting you some tips which you could use to market the new venture.It is an article from an old blog post of mine titled as Marketing Tips For A New Website
1)Tell Your Associates:There is no need to reach the unknown millions of people out there surfing the Internet,instead it would be wise if we contact our friends and associates.Look at your e-mail address book and get the word out, tell your business contacts, friends, relatives and tel them to tell their friends too. Channelise them in a proper way.
2)Link to Your Own Site:If you already have one website, make sure that this site is linking to your new site. A website without any incoming links to it will have a very low page ranking in the all-important Google search engine and will face an uphill battle to be seen in Google search results, especially if you are in a very competitive category.Even when your site is in the construction stage you, or even your web designer can link to the new site from another already well-established site, mentioning that the new site is under construction. If you already have several sites, then link them to your infant site. It will help the new site to be seen in competitive search engine listings even in its debut period.
3)Get a paid inclusion in one of the big search engines:It takes 4-6 weeks to get listed in Google, and other search engines are equally slow. However there are a few fairly important search engines that have inexpensive express inclusion programs. If you join these programs, then your site will be listed in 48 hours. Inktomi, which provides results for MSN and 100 other search services, has an inclusion program which  costs $39 for the first URL that you submit, and subsequent ones cost $25. The value of the Inktomi submission is that they revisit your URL every 48 hours and if you make changes on the page you can see the results in the MSN listings very quickly. Thus, you can tweak your pages and see how it affects your position.
4)Add your site to the Open Web Directory and the major search engines:Quality is more important than quantity when it comes to search engine submission. Forget about the sales hype that tells you to add your URL to 300, 000 search engines. Only a few search engines and directories provide the lion’s share of Internet traffic. If your site is in good shape, no longer under construction, then go to www.dmoz.org. This is the Open Web Directory. Find the category where your site fits, and make a submission. If you are accepted here your site will appear in the many search engines and local directories that use the results from the Open Web Directory. Inclusion in this directory usually takes time but it will help you a lot.  Similarly submit your site to Google, Alta Vista and All The Web, these are the remaining giants where you can submit for free.
5. Start a reciprocal links campaign – Once you have given yourself a link from your other sites or from your designer’s page, you can go out and ask other complementary sites for links.Always try exchanging links with sites that have a good page rank for it indicates that the site has good hits and is often visited.By having a trackback link chances of your site having hits is enhanced.
6.Write an article about your product or service – If you have a website the chances are that you are an expert in the field that your site is all about. Write an article about your product or service, or write an article related to the subject matter of your site. Submit the article online to various websites and e-mail lists dealing with your topic. The publication of your article in a big e-zine, or on a popular web site can get your new site off to a roaring start.
7)Promote Your Site Off-line – Now that you have a site, put the URL brochures, business cards, TV advertising, and circulars.The cafepress.com has a program enabling you to put your URL on these items and even sell them online.
Last but not the least be unique and be promotionally inclined initially for traffic generation.

bytenram

MarketRaise,
 
Thank you for your post.  I started working on a few of those several weeks ago.
 
I have seen an increase in traffic now just to get some content on the site so people will join and post.
 
Have a great day!

shanudi85

Here are some useful tips which you could use to market youe new site.


1 News Groups
News groups are like-minded people who gather at some cyber spot to discuss a topic of interest – everything from competitive cycling to dentistry. These news groups are accessible through portal sites like Yahoo and AOL, and there are also directories of news group activities available when you Google ‘news groups’.
Now these sites are usually focused on very narrow topics so do some research first before you barge in and start hawking the wares. If you run a rug cleaning business, why join a news group made up of would-be actors? Instead, hook up with realty and home improvement news groups.
Once you’ve become a member, don’t push your site too hard. Bring it up in casual discussions as a potential resource for the other members of the group. This is not the place for the old hard sell, but it is a free way to spread your URL.
2 Social Sites
Sites like myspace.com and youtube.com offer free advertising opportunities. Create a profile on myspace, or one of the many other social sites, add some pictures and personal information and be sure to provide a link to your site. If links aren’t possible, at least print the site’s URL so your on-line "friends" can find your hand-made jewelry site and make a purchase. It’s not just a great way to build your business, it’s also a great way to make new friends.
3 Press Releases
With hundreds of thousands of web sites out there, you can imagine how much copy is needed to fill all of those site pages. So, routinely issue press releases whenever something newsworthy happens in your industry or on your site.
There are on-line businesses that will distribute press releases either free or at minimal cost. And don’t forget to include your URL at least a couple of times in the PR. It’s another low- or no-cost means of spreading the word about your site.

sipmarketing

Here`s some ideas...hehe
- Search Engine Optimization
(SEO)
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Campaigns
- Affiliate Marketing
- Joint Venture Partnerships
- Many Forms of Web 2.0 Traffic
- Viral Traffic / Word of Mouth
- Performance Based (CPA) Network
Traffic

- Contextual Campaigns
- Text Ad Campaigns
- Social
Bookmarking
- Social Networking
- Directory Submissions 


- Article Submissions
- Article Trading
- Signature Linking
- Forum Posting
- Download Site Promotion 


- Video Submissions
- Video Promotion
- Reciprocal Linking

Stellasmith

Here are some tipsArticle submissions Directory SubmissionsBlogging with linksUsing keywords in hyper linksSubmitting articles to social bookmarking sitesPromoting websites in social networksAdding the URL to various forum signatures
_____________Budget plannerStellasmith6/2/2009 2:53 AM

SanDiegoRealEstate

I have to agree with the preceeding opinions.  There is no magic bullet for attracting visitors and followers to your site or your blog.  The key is consistent attention and hard work.  Every successful real estate blog on the internet today was built by people who dedicated lots of time and energy into the process of building reputation.  I`m just a small fish on the web, but the effort that I`ve put into my San Diego real estate blog is returning dividends in the local market.  Most real estate searches these days begin independently on the web.  When people go to buy San Diego property or luxury homes in La Jolla they will come to the people who offer the most relevant information about the topic.  There are very few Realtors and real estate investors who are willing to invest the time into publishing ideas and opinions on the web.  You`ll have an outstanding opportunity to show your expertise and display your knowledge to your target audience.  I`m sure you can succeed with it.  Good luck!
SanDiegoRealEstate7/25/2009 1:53 PM

clubvin

I agree with you! you can not get a magic wand that will divert the traffic to your site. here the key is consistency. you have to put in daily efforts to drive traffic in. this could be through article writing & submissions, maintaining your own blog and telling people about it in social media. joining like minded forums and telling the fellow members about it etc
devote just an yhour a day and this can do wonders for you... the traffic will come automaticallyclubvin7/26/2009 10:03 AM

mltl

You may want to consider article marketing...where you can post interesting articles that are useful to your potential clients to hundreds of article directories and pre-sell them before they come to your website.

sweetdeboo

if you want good traffic then spend some money and take help of PPC. PPC is the best way to generate traffic for your site.. otherwise you go through with social bookmarking networking forum posting, question and answers and much more.

WebJunky

idea: develop a section just on free helpful articles and write away - optimize articles for search engines. do some internet marketing over 30 days . . .
drive organic, free and ever growing traffic
cost: time and brain power

nachiketkhanna

If you more and more traffic then go and do paid advertising with the help of PPC you got more and more taffic.

macthomas01

Link building is a good source for generating good quality back links as well as traffic. It is generally used for generating the back links. However social networking sites are also good place where you can promote your product and generate heavy traffic.
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ellislee

According to me, seo is a one of the best way to drive traffic to your new real estate investing portal and it is very simple and easy method

isaiahsparrow

As per my opinion, Email marketing is a best way to drive traffic to your new real estate investing portal and it is very effective as well as nice internet marketing method