Website Growth Question

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Peggy said:
Ok I am at the point where I'm ready to get some flyers printed up.

Should I use an online flyer creator? Purchase a software? Or go to a printer?

Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

I don't know if you have Microsoft Publisher installed but I use it. If not so professional it gets the job done with templates that can be edited with bunch of formats. OpenOffice should have something similar but I'm not sure.
 
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.....

I went by Staples after dinner, and they'll do 100 flyers for me for $10 on white paper, or $11 on color paper.
I supply the logo, and the text (what I want it to say) and they'll design it for me.

GREAT deal!
 
Well, I know nothing about the Mahoning Valley - living in japan I have never heard of it but your website doesn't describe where it is. I think if you have a certain amount of general info on the area then maybe random people will pick it up on google just to know what the area is about. In my head I'm thinking of something like brogan has at cliptheapex.com where he has some stats and maps etc.
 
I think your site needs an About Tab ... explaining a bit about the site.
I'd move the Help Tab to a subtab on the forums (where it should be).

I think you might start some discussion topics about popular places in MV.
"Went to the Walmart on Adelaide Street Youngstown ... got some great service"
"Fun Birthday party on Rosedale Bowl - Thanks Rhonda"
"Fourth of July @ Spencer Park in Akron - Beautiful Fireworks"
Maybe throw up some pictures with the posts.

The more popular entity the better.

People aren't going to go to your site to discuss walmart in general, but they might talk about happened at the Walmart on Adelaide in Youngstown.

Make a list of the 50 most popular "things" or "topics" people want to know about. Try to start some threads on those topics.

People will find your site by googling ... Mahoning Valley Walmart

Obviously try to get other sites to WANT to LINK to You. To do this ... they'll have to LINK to some content.
Get a wiki going with some lists that will be helpful to MV residents. Hopefully people will link to them.

Read the local paper and comment on some of their articles ... Maybe the local paper doesn't want to allow comments on their articles .... let your site be the comment engine.

I might also just use alot of content from other Mahoning Valley sites.

Google Mahoning Valley ... get content from all those sites !
I certainly can see your "Competition" by this search .... what content do they have ? Use some of that content ! Ideally tweak it and make it your own :)

You also need to mention the city names alot ... that help the googlebots find you.

Hope that helps !
 
I really do not want to copy information or stories off of other websites and try to make them my own, tweaked or not. I'm trying to post original information, news, and stories. Getting stuff from the local paper is a good idea.

I'm going to make an About Mahoning Valley Talk page using XF's page feature. I also have a few other pages in mind.
Then I will make a navigation module for the homepage and a block for the forum sidebar with links to those pages.

Thanks for the suggestions, DD.
 
Peggy said:
I really do not want to copy information or stories off of other websites and try to make them my own, tweaked or not. I'm trying to post original information, news, and stories.
Click to expand...
I'm talking about freely available information ..
Dates of Events.
phone numbers to call for whatever.
Lists of garbage pickup days.
Whatever.

I'm not talking about pretending non-original content is yours.

Tweaking it would be making the information more organized.

When someone googles garbage pickup youngstown ... you want the city's site to be the first hit, and yours to be the second.

The city probably won't allow discusssion of garbage pickup ... but you can.
 
One thing I did not see anyone mentioning is the car window/bumper stickers. As a matter of fact I am currently researching the best way to do them (price/materials/style/vendors) for my current project. I know I always pay atention to those (good looking ones) on other people cars. It makes you interested and you try to read it. If the car looks good the people who are into cars would look anyways and thats 1/2 of the battle.

I also have reservations about only having a forums and not forums and CMS/Blog as front page but thats just me.
 
what i find is going to similar sites to you own and becoming an active member on their sites, affiliation and handpicking potential members to invite to your site is a good way to get new faces, you also have to offer something the others don't.

i'd also consider using fake users to fill your forums with some posts (this may involve regstering a few accounts of our own and chatting to yourself) to get people interested and show potential visitors your forum is active, get friends to help out. invite your family to join and advertise as much as possible, where ever possible may it be facebook, google ad's, affiliation, newspaper ads or flyers. starting a forum and getting members is the hardest thing to do, once you've got a few solid members who are active enough, encourage them to bring their friends on and promote the people who give your community a boost with priase and anything else you feel would encourage them more. word of mouth will also help you once your repeat visitors get used to and enjoy your site.
 
Is it a good idea - or not - to place adsense on a new forum?
I would only be placing this on my homepage to start.
 
Peggy said:
Please explain?
Click to expand...
Its a personal preference. I do believe that you have to use platforms for what they are best at and designed for. Forums are designed to be just that forums. They are fast and reliable bulletin boards. When people start asking the developers to make them capable of operating the NASA space shuttle you end up getting a bloated product or not well thought out one since its hard to change the foundations for the most part of any framework as far as software is concerned. I do think that the WP as a front page and xF/VB/(you name it) is the best for a big site (or a site that you want to get big eventually).

The model gives you the best of both worlds and the support of both communities when it comes to resolving issues. It also gives you the most flexibility. The hit you take is with integration but there are plenty of big sites (VERY BIG) which work using that model and are quite successful.

As I said its a personal preference. I know many will disagree and argue that the Forums software should park your car as well as cook breakfast in the mourning while walking your dog and making plans for your next vacation.
 
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