I am lucky enough to have a connection in the hosting world, so it really doesnt cost me as much as you would think..

I am not really one to get into numbers on a public forum, sorry :(

But it does profit for me yes.

#1: buy bicyles
#2: get business cards
#3: go to a club and staple a sample on your business card and pass it around to everyone

but you might have already done that though :(

LOL... ok ... if TGP's are your thing then go for it. I have been doing this 9 years, have tried advertising in everything from mainstream magazines, to bulk email, to spamming usenet, spamming ICQ, TGP's, cu-seeme, AVS and so on... I have also been on the local news (in several states) and in local papers, if its out there and I thought it worked I tried it.

The one, most important thing I have learned, above all, is to get traffic from outside of the popular circles and to get traffic from as many different sources as possible.
what I mean about outside of your circle, is if you have links to a few people who all link to each other, instead of only linking to the same circle jerk traffic, link to a few them concentrate on traffic outside of what they try to get, get that fresh traffic in. Amateur sites are real bad about this, they all have the same "friends page" and they all link to each other waiting for the signups to roll in when what they are getting is basically circle jerk traffic, the same people keep going around in a circle with a very limited amount of fresh traffic.
Get outside of the same stale traffic and get fresh stuff, when the fresh starts comming in go back and do more work on the stale stuff, but keep the fresh flowing in.

just a tip I learned the hard way.

V

here is a little thing that was on the local news about my site - this was in 1998
http://216.158.136.80/news.asf

WTF, what board is this and what have you done to GFY?!?!

good advice venus.. I personally am not a big fan of "link exchanges" for paysites.. it just looks unprofessional IMO.. would rather not have many outbound links.

link exchanges used to be the best way to get good traffic, they still are but fewer people are doing it or hiding the links.
sending traffic out that is going to leave anyways, you might as well let them go somewhere that will get you something in return.
the other option is to spend money to buy traffic, usually shitty traffic. But my goal is to keep most of what I make.
but you will figure out what works for you, or fold up like the thousands of others I have seen along the way :)

right right, I'd have to assume that link exchanges are not a *HUGE* money maker though, I mean you're sending away a ton of your traffic, no?


I Have some pretty good ideas for traffic generation. Just making sure the site will hold it's own first :)

link exchanges still make me lots of money and I still solicit sites to exchange links with, but they are always sites that have the traffic I know will convert for me.
For example, a site that only get 500 hits a day of targeted traffic, to me is worth more the 10,000 hits from a tgp.

people are going to leave anyways, your not going to convert everyone, you can try, you can try even after they leave(I do), but they are going to leave, if they like your site they will be back, if they dont they wont. Since they are leaving, where do you want them to go...

so you *DON'T* submit to tgps/mgps? Seems like a waste of money not to?

http://membres.lycos.fr/princeadam/m...letor_1024.JPG
welcome to greyskull

we sell content for monthly lease...

well as I said I have content :)

But thanks for your meaningful post :)


and thanks everyone else for the GREAT advice.. really love this forum :)