3 replies to this topic

[Jarret]

First of all, great forum Have been lurking around for a bit and reading quite a few of the posts and learning some things that I did not know before.

Anyways, onto my question.

I have a domain name that I believe that I could develop into a very useful site. My plan is to have users submit articles/tutorials relating to anything and everything about computers.

However, right now, nothing has ever been developed on the site and it has just been parked since I have had it as well as since the original owner registered it. A whois shows it was registered in July '07 so it is less then a year old.

My concern is, how do I go about actually getting people to submit their content to my site? What can I possibly offer them to make them want to take their time to write an article and put it on my site?

I was thinking about offering a link to their site at the beginning of the article as well at the end allowing them to use whatever titles that they wanted for the links.

I have also thought about offering a deal where the authors can add in their own banners within their articles and they would obviously make money from when people clicked through. But I am not really looking at having banners spread across my site, as I myself find them very annoying and I personally think that they take away visually from the site.

So if I don't offer authors a way to make money, and I don't have any traffic as of yet or any PR for that matter, it is looking like I may have to shell out some money and pay for some articles/tutorials.

I'd like to get some of your opinions on what you would do in my situation as I have never really encountered a situation like this before.

P.S. Sorry if this is in the wrong section, feel free to move it.

Edited by Jarret, 28 April 2008 - 11:32 PM.

[don h]

There are email groups and forums for writers you can become involved with. You can use your signature line to promote your site, or answer questions to writers looking for places to submit their content, or some forums may have a place for you to announce your site.

You can also try getting involved with an article distribution site. You'll probably want to look at all the articles submitted to your site though, to check their quality, which may be a lot of work.

[Jarret]

Yeah, I would for sure be reviewing each and every article, whether or not it is a lot of work I am looking for quality information on my site.

Thanks for your suggestions, I will look into finding some forums today.

[jagrmeister721]

One issue is moderation. If you're confident that you can manage the incoming content, that's one thing. There are case where webmasters open up their systems, and get inundated with spam- and whereas a captcha alone might have saved the day, today work is being offshored, and real people are involved. That's harder to moderate.