Starting up a new Website/Blog - Where and how do you advertise?

[Jon]

There seem to be quite a few sites being created around her recently. Great Stuff!

But how do you go about getting people to notice you new fantastic site?

With The Money Shed I have always (rightly or wrongly) spend zero on advertising and instead invested from within. If the World Cup contest goes ahead I will have spent £100+ on prizes alone on this site but why don't I take that £100 on spend it on SEO marketing or paying for sponsored blog posts?

I personally think that investing from within is the best way to do it. Happy customers or members are more likely to recommend. The obvious knock on of this is that growth will be slower but I feel the quality of members/shopper/viewers that you get will be much better. If I take that £100+ and invest it in SEO then I can't guarantee what that will bring.

So how have others that have started sites built up their audiences?

 

[alditoharrods]

My traffic seems to come from my "following" already. Competitions are great for boosting numbers on social media sites, and blog followers, and then hopefully some of them stay on to become loyal readers. Since I was a finalist in Savoo's Smartest Shopper UK 2013 contest, I got to meet some awesome bloggers (A Thrifty Mrs, Miss Thrifty and Savvy Annie) so they kindly retweet my tweets. I've found writing guest posts for other blogs is a great way to generate new traffic.

A lot of it is about mutual commenting, visiting and RTing. When I spend the time commenting on blogs as MMWAJ then I find that the bloggers read the comment and visit my site, also commenting. It is a really time consuming process though.

Pinterest is also really important for my blog traffic. I try to include nice images with my posts and it drives a lot of traffic my way.

 

[RedAlix]

I have spent a small amount on Adwords, only £20 but it didn't really lead to many more sales.

I do have my links in my signature for every forum that allows it (that seems to becoming less and less forums these days, not sure why people don't allow it)

 

[Blackpepper1]

I do try and visit other blogs and comment then they will take a look at mine. I must check out Pinterest too.
I am pretty active in the green site and have stats of my earnings in my signature and that has meant people have checked out my Profile and visited my Blog then signed up for things on there.