How can we make our websites more popular?

Question

I know everyone here who is using the Q2A software on their website want to generate more traffic and popularity to their website. The question is how? How can we as a community help each other?

Stackexchange is changing from charging for their software to helping a select few with great idea's become a new website sensation! I think if Question2Answer can adopt this mentality, we could all help each other out.

Comments

Apparently no one wants to work together to make each others website more popular.

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Bobby, I do not think so, I believe as community we have a real chance to make all our sites bigger. Especially by making gideons microformat more public. The one with the most popular question/answer microformat will be the winner. Besides, it is 100 times better to exchange links with other QUESTION sites then with any other site. And, if Your sites becomes extremely popular, and You are linking to me, I would be very happy.

Answer 1

Do some link bait  ,provide free service ,software , invent some innovate solution

Comments

Those are just normal tips for trying to generate traffic to your website. What I am talking about here is how all of us question2answer.org users can do, and that is help each other by registering and posting question on all of our different websites.

Answer 2

its great idea Bobby....but how we can help each other?

one thought...
Do you think Q2A sites directory will help? it can be created using phpld free version.

http://www.phplinkdirectory.com/articlescript/phpLD_version_2.php

Comments

agree with Dakota, some knowledge is required on the subject of the site. I dont have any knowledge about gaming software so dont know how can I help.

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Very true, so how can we help each other then?

Answer 3

I would suggest, after your site is up, seeded it with sample questions , has a little activity, and you have given it an attractive design, that you then hit up some popular podcasters and bloggers in your field to give it a mention. Perhaps offer to post a story on their page, and get the plug indirectly (so-and-so is a web developer and creater of SuperBigQuestions.com...) or record a short interview with them. These two communities are often very aware of the importance of networking and ready to give a hand to those who seem deserving.

I would also suggest plugging it by speaking with local groups (clubs and such) that might be interested in the site - you may be able to just go along to a meeting and hand out some cards, or perhaps do a talk or something, and again it may not be directly related to the site, although it could be - instead it might be that you plug the site indirectly while talking about something related.

It's marketing and networking, much like anything else :)

A final suggestion would be to make sure that if there is a hot topic in the community related to your site (for example, say you have an iPhone QA site, then the recent prototype hoopla would be pertinent) that you have at least one question related to it on the site. If a user doesn't ask it, then seed it yourself. If you can, be particularly specific, so that there is room for other users to ask further questions about the issue.

I also like the idea of a featured site on question2answer.com mentioned by Bobby, and a directory of sites for people to search through as mentioned by ProThoughts.  It won't hurt any, should be fairly easy to implement, illustrates  that question2answer is being used and used effectively, and shows up member sites so that you may get some traffic just from interested parties browsing. Also the cross-links can't hurt any for SEO.

Comments

Excellent points. Unless your site is about building websites, it is unlikely that most Q2A users will be much help, certainly not as much help as good seeded questions. And even better answers.

You have to focus on your niche, not your website-building mates.

Having said that, if you are old and gouty, then I'm just about to add Q2A at Gout-Pal.com

Answer 4

As I am as well a Q2A user I want to give out the information I think is the most helpful.

It includes some investment, but not as much as You may think.

First learn about buying expiring websites / domainnames. There is plenty of information in the web.

Second search one with high count of incoming links and/or traffic, ideally related to Your websites topic.

Buy it.

Than, set up a new page with some valuable information.
Than, add a questionform like diskussed in several threads here allready.
This form sends the question to Your q2a site.

Done.

Now You can see how questions are dropping in.


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The directory idea as well is an excellent one, if there is interest I would set it up with an original phpld license I still have unused.

Just let me know. Would be free for everybody, obviously.


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Than, I asked a similar question here:

http://www.question2answer.org/qa/1967/

It would be a feature through which siteowners could offer an extended search through "friendly" Q2A sites.

I hope one can understand what I mean, but this I think would be really a good one.

Any comment or related ideas are very welcome !!!

Comments

Maybe we can maintain an index page sorta like craigslist. A good thing for branding purposes would be to incorporate a domain and franchise off to members the subdomain and have the TLD act as the index.

Any lawyers nearby?