Assisting A Newbie

Hi Guys, Long time lurker, not so much poster.

I have built a site as a project, mainly due to being interested in the 'niche' but if i were to make some money off it I wouldn't Complain.

The site is based on a travel destination, the site has 30 pages of content currently such as: Clubs, Hotels, Reviews, Club Calendar etc. I started the site on the 1st March & have slowly been adding that content. So far I have had 360 Unique Visitors & 1400 Page Views. This has all been generated mainly from Twitter, some from Google.

The main 'Promotion' I have done has been through Twitter, currently have 1900 followers. All genuine gained through following and Re-tweets etc. I need help on taking the next step into getting more followers. I have reached the 2K limit for following people.

Google: I have done a little SEO with Wordpress SEO plugin, the keywords used according to Google keyword tool is 'Medium' Competition - I haven't got money at this time to invest in services so can someone advise on free ways to get up the google ranking. also, tools to monitor this if possible?

Making Money: I have a Adsense account and one 250x250 advert on the homepage currently. I have also registered with Amazon and selling accessories related to the holiday destination i.e. T-Shirts etc.

To Summarise: Just need general help on how to take it to the next level, Advertising, Social Media etc. appreciate your help! (Fairly new to this, you may have guessed!!)

Hi Mick Here's some advice, im no expert so take it with a pinch of salt.

In regards to Twitter if you have 1900 followers create a small ebook. Couple together some of your best content and add some unique insight. Make it as desirable as possible. Then set up a squeeze page with a "Pay with a retweet" button. This allows people to retweet your page in order to download the ebook. Then tweet the link to your 1900 followers. Many of them if they are interested will likely retweet in order to get access to more content from you giving you more exposure to their followers.

Next I would create some list posts. For example Top 10 things to in "location". Then add these posts to stumble upon. In my experience list posts do very well there. Also sign up to as many forums as you can relating to your niche and post as much useful content as possible pitching your site every now and then.

I wouldn't advise adsesne in my experience the payout is very low. I'm sure there are hundreds of valuable affiliate offers to do with hotels and flights to the location your writing about that would yield a much greater return.

If you want to go whitehat look into guest posts. If you want to go blackhat look in scrapebox and GSA search engine ranker.

Hope I could help!

Quick response! Thanks for the Advise!

I like the StumbleUpon idea, never used it before but have signed up & will make some good content and then submit. I'll also look into creating some sort of eBook destination type guide. Brilliant ideas.

With the cost associated with Scrapebox may have to wait until we see how successful the ebook/Stumble Upon are

Appreciate your help!

How competitive is the "resort" you are trying to rank for. I mean is there pages of quality sites hogging google for the main keyword and also inhabiting the secondary keywords.

Is your site ranked at all ?

Does your site have an angle or is it just another resort guide website.

How strong is your domain...is it a .com ? is it a longtail is it brandable ?

It's one of the most, if not the most popular nightlife destination. Searching for just the resort name brings up three competitor sites on the main page, the rest are travel agents, trip adviser etc.In terms of 'Angle' I want to try and aim more at the Clubs/Music/Bars than just a general 'resort guide' - With aims to get people involved, own blogs while there to make it more of a community almost.The domain is word1-word2.co.uk (Not sure If allowed to post the link) Using prchecker its is not showing up as ranked.Sorry for the level of novice here, generally a quick learner so hope not to ask too many stupid questions

yeah dont post the link. If its a place where people go clubbing and spend money its going to be hard to get in. Those tripadvisor links ae bastards to budge. One of my niches that I am going to attack has about three pages of them.

You are doing well at the moment. On your social signals Pinterest is getting good traffic and links at the moment but I would als try and put a few youtube videos out there. Keep at the twitter but do facebook and instagram as well.

Start building some web 2.0s. There are lists of these if you search the forum but wordpress/tumblr/bloggir/bravesites etc are good places to start.

Only build manual links to your main site at the moment. If you are going to start using tools point them to your web 2.0s

Brilliant, thank you both for your help!!

I have just submitted too StumbleUpon as suggested above. In a few minutes got 40 odd hits. I have done very little with Facebook so will look into that. shall do Pinterest now!!

I shall look at creating some good quality content for Youtube/Instagram now and then submit when got a bit of a quality content to add.

Appreciate your help, will do all as suggested!! Good luck budging TravelAdvisor!

G+... join groups or communities in which the club or resort is related (lifestyle, clubbing, etc...) or located (australia, us...), interact with the users, do start a discussion and later on you could slowly promote your website.

A little update, following the above help.

since the start of the thread, things have improved a little. Now had over 1300 Visitors & 5000 page views, an OK increase - hopefully that'll get stronger. Twitter followers up to 2.6K - All organic.

Followed your advice guys on the likes of Stumbled Upon etc and getting traffic from there too, started to make a little income from Ad Sense - currently only have one add 200x200. Thank you for the advice and will keep going!

Since you're getting some traffic now you could try to contact some hotels in the area and offer them to rent space monthly on the site. This could bring in some really good money instead of only using an ad or adsense, if you're able to get a deal.

Thats a good idea, give a 'guaranteed' income instead of the gamble that is adsense. I'll wait until the month is up so I have a full month traffic statistics and contact some Hotels / Nightclubs - Thanks for the tip!

Let you know how successful it is!