Finding Traffic for Non-IM Site

15 replies
Okay let's start the ball rolling here.

I have a dilemma...

I have a site that deals with the subject: Anime

Now getting traffic to my other sites are easy, since the resources and avenues are available to me, but dealing with anime fans are a bit different.

I do not want to spend money on adwords and I have tried the following methods:

(lurk and post in forums related to anime with a signature linking to my site- which either gets me banned or I am simply told I cannot link in any form to my site. Anime sites are a stickler for competition. I do not advertise in forums so that has never been my problem, just having a simple www.mysite.com in my signature will usually get me banned.)

(Offer a freebie on the subject of How to Draw Anime to potential people, and trying to draw them in. Problem is most forums/sites will ban my account immediately if I do that. Hence why I did it once and never again.)

(Worked on a few sites like Stumble, furl etc. Getting no attention in that arena.)

Problem is anime fans either gravitate to:

a) Sites where they can download fan-subs
b) Frequent forums.

Once they get into a forum, they rarely leave.

They do not like being told about other sites unless it deals with downloading fan-subs. Believe me I know what you think... getting fan-subs onto my site... problem with that is I would need a server and a hell of a lot of bandwidth. Not interested in getting sued either, because at some point fan-subs usually get licensed and then I would need to take it down. What usually happens is that anime fans keep sharing it, even if it's licensed.

The only way I can see getting traffic is if I use adwords, but I am just not willing to spend the money on it. I tried articles, but it's quite rare that articles dealing with anime are being read. Usually anime fans just go to their favorite forum/website for that.

So in order to receive traffic I would need something of value, original and interesting. Something that no other site has.

At this point in time I am clueless. I need to get back to the site and get it advertised, but would appreciate to get some feedback from people who are creative.

In your opinion, what would a social site need that is totally different from anything else? What avenues of traffic to the site is available that is a bit different from normal mainstream sources like adwords?

Comments and Ideas appreciated.
#anime #finding #networking #nonim #site #social #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author KenJ
    I hve no idea what anime is but have you tried answering questions on sites like Yahoo answers. If your answer is picked as the winner you will get traffic from that.

    The other thing is to fill your site with keyword rich content. Loads of it so that the search engines pick up your website
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    • Profile picture of the author Sarah Harvey
      Okay for people that do not know what anime is:

      Remember back to when you were a child and watched things like:

      Samurai Pizza Cats; Yu-Gi-Oh! (more recent), Pokemon (also more recent), Transformers (animated series), and then recent series like: Death Note, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Wolf's Rain etc.

      Pictures related to anime series are:





      Example of an anime game: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...3-16-49-32.jpg

      One of my older desktop backgrounds, featuring anime characters and while I was loading up one of my software programs.

      http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...mine_weird.jpg

      A rough anime character drawing: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...becolored2.jpg

      Stuff like that. And here is an anime character drawing I did:



      So if people don't know...it's animated series that kids/adults watch- it originates from Japan/China etc. Usually is subbed and a few good titles that have been brought to the english side of things are series like 'Naruto' and 'Pokemon' etc.

      'Final Fantasy' would fall under anime because that is exactly what it is.



      Edit-> Thanks for the info Topgun. *writes it down*
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      • Profile picture of the author Ian Jackson
        Hi Sarah

        There's another name for this, but unfortunately it escapes me (you may find something on You Tube...?)

        My suggestion is articles (FREE!); write/submit as many as is inhumanly possible...

        Ian
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        • Profile picture of the author Mike Williams
          The straight dope:

          In order to answer this question we need to answer a question that you should have asked yourself before you started this business. What need is your site filling for these people?
          What are you offering them?

          If it's something they want/need they'll come to you from the forums, from Youtube videos you make about what you offer, from articles submitted to goarticles and ezinearticles.com and it will be worth it to spend money on PPC because they will shell out money for what you offer.

          If you don't offer anything they need or really want then your business model is broken.

          Maybe you should replace your current site with a new anime forum. It sounds like those are doing well! I'm 100% serious about that last comment.

          If you would've found my course first you wouldn't have run into this problem. Oh well.
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          • Profile picture of the author Eswar
            Submit articles. 10 to 20 articles can be bring you 100 visitors laser targetted traffic to your website.

            Eswar
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            • Profile picture of the author Sarah Harvey
              A forum is linked to the site already.

              As for what the site is targeting- a social site where anime and manga fans can join, discuss, roleplay, review etc. The site itself isn't the problem. Usually people that do see the site signs up.

              It's actually getting traffic to the site that is the problem.

              I wish I knew what places to target that would not mean a ban for me ... is what I am saying.

              I am very particular about my name online, so I am not willing to risk it. Not my real name as you see on this forum.

              Well at least in the anime/gaming industry my online persona is unique and everyone that knows me, respects and appreciates what I do.

              So all I was really asking, is if there are any unusual places where traffic can be targeted or generated from that would fall within anime and manga side of things. It can go towards people who enjoy games and comics, but anime and manga is the primary target.
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              • Profile picture of the author Rupps
                Have you done some keyword research? This will show you what people are searching on. I would find it hard to believe that theres not at least some searching going on for anime.

                Use your findings for your articles, SEO, etc. I would think Stumbleupon would bring in some traffic as well as digg and some other similar sites. Anything where you can get a ranking or list your work should help.

                Finally a blog with frequent content will get picked up by google.

                Have a product that appeals to ebay? Utilize that for inexpensive traffic as well as sites such as craigslist. Some creativity here will get more eyeballs to your site.

                Some good vids or slideshows at Youtube could propel visitors to your site.


                Best of Luck!
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                • Profile picture of the author Rupps
                  btw,

                  I love your drawing
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                • Profile picture of the author Sarah Harvey
                  Yup, you are right about youtube.

                  I guess the only thing I hate about youtube, is when I take a video I created and have to save it and where it converts it etc. Looks absolutely horrible at times.

                  I guess when I can get a good tutorial on what format to save the videos in and where the file is small enough so it doesn't take ages to load is what I am looking for. Most of the general camtasia tutorials are crap and not worth anything as far as I can see.

                  Oh, by small I mean less than 60 mb.

                  Thanks for the compliment Webrunner. ^__^
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  • Profile picture of the author jbsmith
    Sure - lots of suggestions. First, have you a clear plan on how you will monetize your site?

    To know whether you have a top traffic plan for your business you need to know BOTH if you are getting the targeted traffic you seek, but also what techniques are actually resulting in the best conversion.

    It sounds like you are already tracking conversions in terms of signups, but how will you monetize these visitors?

    Now, on to the tips:

    1. Head over and use the free Adwords keyword suggestion tool - perhaps you have already done this. Anime receives millions upon millions of searches. They key is to develop content around related keywords of which there are hundreds (probably thousands). Many of them seem to do with specific anime characters.

    2. Start a blog where you are optimizing daily posts around the keyword and keyword combinations from your research above. You will start to see some traffic right away, and more over time.

    3. Use press releases - create a press release on a specific top within anime that is especially popular right now driving people to your site AND creating strong backlinks into your site that will improve search engine positioning.

    If you can really begin to build your content around guided keyword strategies you will notice some strong traffic coming your way - then it's a matter of tracking which keywords and content pages lead to the best conversions.

    Jeff
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    • Profile picture of the author Sarah Harvey
      Brilliant answer jbsmith. Thanks to everyone else for their answers as well.
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        • Profile picture of the author Houcem Rihane
          Hi Sarah,
          Try video marketing.
          Make videos around the top series... something like remixes and trailers of your own and watermark them with your site and a motto or so to entice people to visit it.
          I can tell one anime that you can laverage for the moment: It's One Piece (I guess you know it). It's the third most popular anime of all time (1st place is for Dragon Ball ).
          A new episode is broadcast every sunday evening in Japan so you will get a peak of searches around sunday morning or so (us time).
          People will be looking for the raw video. That's where you will be able to leverage this search volume if you do this correctly.
          Don't forget to upload your videos to the most popular video site especially youtube, veoh and dailymotion.
          Then the people are going to be searching for the subbed version and since it lasts sometimes up to 7-8 days to get it out, you will find some questions on yahoo answers that you can answer and get people to look at your website.
          You will not need to upload the videos on your server. Just wait for it to be uploaded on veoh and forward the info to your subscribers or visitors.
          I promise you that this is going to work if you commit to it and do it with the other top animes.
          Hope I could help.
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          • Profile picture of the author xmx
            If you know what manga comics are then you also
            know what anime are.

            Anime are the animations, the one you watched on
            TV and cinemas.

            Manga are the ones on paper.

            Normally they come from Japan, or Asia.

            About getting traffic, you could look for all the top
            sites available and submit your artworks.
            Normally in one top sites are present many listings
            of other top sites, so you can find these others too.

            And you can easily add your own top sites feature
            to your site, and get many back links from sites of
            your own niche.

            You can also submit your own art works to all the many
            sites that acceps submissions of original graphics.
            And I think there will also be forums that are focused on
            this kind of exchange.

            You can also target squidoo and hubpages with some of
            the keywords of your niche and link back to your site.


            regards

            Gian
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  • Profile picture of the author Tuzic
    Banned
    Hi,

    Go to yahoo for asnwers, ask.com, & add, add , add content to your site so search engines pick it up.

    I liked your anime explanation post, explains anime pretty well. good luck.
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