how did you go about promoting this site?

[ale]

can you share this info?

I have a website, and getting people there seems impossible.

you've got over 3,300 members here? seems you must of paid for advertising of some type? I'm guessing...

[Gretchen]

To my knowledge it has all been word of mouth. It started as a Yahoo group and Roy offered to setup the servers and software to make it what it is today.

He can drop by and give you more info!

[Christine]

I recommmend this site almost daily.... definitley word of mouth.

[William]

I actually found this site because someone was putting it, and Dave Ramsey, down on another forum.


:jim:

[Gretchen]

I actually found this site because someone was putting it, and Dave Ramsey, down on another forum.


:jim:
That's funny! I guess we're all a bunch of weirdos! It was only a matter of time before we started to get talked about in a negative light!

[ale]

odd how having no debt is weird in todays world.. lol

[CrunchyTXMama]

I recommend the site to anyone I know who is getting out of debt....and a few have actually joined....I heard about it through another site that I'm on www.mothering.com (http://www.mothering.com) --there are quite a few people doing DR over there, and that board has something like 50,000 members....there are quite a few other mothering (MDC) members who've found their way over here.

[splforest]

The best advertising is word of mouth.
I doubt that you are Crown or Larry Burkett. Where's the link to your biz in your signature line?
If you made some good points or were just generally interesting or I was bored, I'd click to see what you're up to.
:angelnot:

Sean

[cjohnston4]

I found this site because I was interested in Dave and was going to take FPU, but also wanted to know the "dirt". So many financial talk show hosts are snake oil salesmen. I wanted to know the good and bad before I got "involved". So I did a google search and came across this site.

The "dirt" I found was mostly benign and from people who had issues with the plan being too simple or people had issues with his scriptural references. I could live with both criticisms.

[ale]

I use to use sig lines, but I've found they don't work very well for getting the word out on a site.

[Roy Randolph]

can you share this info?

I have a website, and getting people there seems impossible.

you've got over 3,300 members here? seems you must of paid for advertising of some type? I'm guessing...

Well to answer your original question, no advertising what so ever, other than a few voluntary links here and there, but that would fall under word of mouth.

Even from day one, it surprised me as well as Lloyd how fast the forum was growing, must of been a God thing no other real explanation.

Actually we are really close to 5000 members that have ever signed up, but the REAL number is how many active members there are on a forum and we are up to over 1600 active members, and thats up form just under 1000 at the end of 2006. (active members is any member that has logged on in the last 90 days)

To keep the database down we clean off the members that have not logged in in the past 13 months and have less than 20 posts I think we are using. (so if your lurking make sure you lurk at LEAST ONCE A YEAR.)

But I do find Chris's comment a surprise about how he found the site by searching. One of the draw backs to keeping the site semi-private, meaning you have to register to see the meat of the forms, the Search Bots (Spiders) can get in and categorize the site. But that is neat to see some one found the site via search. I did a LITTLE SEO work in that area, but not much.

[cjohnston4]

Well to answer your original question, no advertising what so ever, other than a few voluntary links here and there, but that would fall under word of mouth.

Even from day one, it surprised me as well as Lloyd how fast the forum was growing, must of been a God thing no other real explanation.

Actually we are really close to 5000 members that have ever signed up, but the REAL number is how many active members there are on a forum and we are up to over 1600 active members, and thats up form just under 1000 at the end of 2006. (active members is any member that has logged on in the last 90 days)

To keep the database down we clean off the members that have not logged in in the past 13 months and have less than 20 posts I think we are using. (so if your lurking make sure you lurk at LEAST ONCE A YEAR.)

But I do find Chris's comment a surprise about how he found the site by searching. One of the draw backs to keeping the site semi-private, meaning you have to register to see the meat of the forms, the Search Bots (Spiders) can get in and categorize the site. But that is neat to see some one found the site via search. I did a LITTLE SEO work in that area, but not much.

Roy, since it was over a year ago, I don't remember what I saw. I just remember doing various searches to make sure I was doing the right thing to make sure this Dave Ramsey guy was on the up and up and somehow found a hit linking to here. So I searched around using the limitations of no user name for a while and finally logged in.

[wannabefree]

Someone on the DR site told me about this site, and I've told many, many people about it as this is a great place for support. Word of Mouth, baby.

[spyweb]

I had begun reading the iVillage Debt Support Group. Some folks talked about DR, but I didn't really know much about him. The tmmo forums cost money so I skipped that. Then someone (endomagazine, maybe??) posted about this forum starting up and I signed up. Borrowed Financial Peace from the library, learned about DR and knew this was the path we were taking to solve our debt problem.

Build a good site, with useful information, and people will come. Become a part of the user communities of the subject of your site. Like yahoo, or ivillage. Google groups. Become a respected member of the community of people that would be interested in your website...put your web site in your sig. I know that's how my sister built up her website numbers. It's still on the web, getting good numbers of visitors even though she died nearly eight years ago. I may add a message board. Content and word of mouth. www.hugs.org has like 1700 recipes that my sister put up. It's all about content.

Good luck and sorry if I rambled. I have to admit that I miss my little sis.

[ale]

Im in the TMMO forums too, but i've decided to cancel.... im not paying $9/month while in debt...

[Gretchen]

I have a website, and getting people there seems impossible.
I guess it is impossible if people don't know what it is.

This thread has been viewed over 230 times. If you had a link to your site or told us what it was about -- I'd probably click it out of curiosity or boredom. I wonder how many others would too.

[Roy Randolph]

I may add a message board. .

And you should!

Content and word of mouth. www.hugs.org (http://www.hugs.org) has like 1700 recipes that my sister put up. It's all about content.



You hit the nail right on the head!

[finallyonboard]

I guess it is impossible if people don't know what it is.

This thread has been viewed over 230 times. If you had a link to your site or told us what it was about -- I'd probably click it out of curiosity or boredom. I wonder how many others would too.

:yep: Yeah, that. I'd still have it in my siggy line like Splforest recommended. You said you had tried that route but it didn't work...but what's the harm in leaving a link in your sig? I'd think you would get a few folks wandering in here and there from it.

[ale]

just read in a book that search engines is how most people find sites... 87%...

word of mouth was like 50%...

[~~Darci~~]

But you STILL haven't provided a link...interesting.

I found this site when lemony mentioned it on the family finances board on www.babycenter.com (http://www.babycenter.com)

[Sandy M]

But you STILL haven't provided a link...interesting.


I was thinking the same thing - And as Gretchen said how many times has the thread been viewed? :noclue:

[ale]

well, I didn't provide a link cause I didn't want to exploit this site trying to get traffic to mine.

getting someone to click a link and look is one thing, getting them to join a forum and post... that is hard I have found.

[ale]

link now in my sig... now that I have something to show. :wtg2:

sig removed. didnt realize they had rules against it. :sorrysign:

[endomagazine]

Hello,

I had begun reading the iVillage Debt Support Group. Some folks talked about DR, but I didn't really know much about him. The tmmo forums cost money so I skipped that. Then someone (endomagazine, maybe??) posted about this forum starting up and I signed up. Borrowed Financial Peace from the library, learned about DR and knew this was the path we were taking to solve our debt problem.

Yep, it was probably me. I used to visit the IVillage Debt Forum often. I visit occasionally now, but there are a few folks that promote using more debt to "fix the problem", like using a HELOC to consolidate credit card debt. While I try to post my opinion, reading so much advice that "goes against the grain" wore on me after awhile. I pop in every once in a while to see how people are doing that I enjoy talking to there..