Brion, a teenager that runs http://www.youngbusinessnation.com sent me an email asking:

…I just would like to know how can i put my website out there, so people can know about it and so that it can be as successful as yours? I also have a blog but need more people to view it. Why should i blog if no one is going to it…

Hi Brion, welcome to the internet!

Getting your website “out there” isn’t easy.  A lot of people seem to think that all you need to do is barf-out a website, and the world will come running – but as you’re probably seeing, this just isnt the case.  Building a successful website takes a lot of time and effort and building a successful forum/community such as yours is even more difficult and sometimes (ok, always) frustrating

There are a lot of things you can do (some of which I will list here), but you are already doing one of them:  Let others know about your site.  By you simply sending me an email, I am now posting a link to your forum for the world (and Google) to see.  Getting links from other websites is one of the foundations of “SEO” and one of, if not the most important thing you can do for your website.  You actually have the advantage of being a teenager, which is unique and will probably get you a better ‘hit’ rate for getting mentioned in someone’s blog or getting a link to your website/forum.  Although there are other teenage webmasters already ahead of you like Stanley who runs eMillionsBlog.com (15 years old) and Ashley who runs WhateverLife.com (i think she was 16 when she started the site, but she’s probably an old lady by now).  I even heard a rumor that buff-arm-exercises.com is run by a 14-year old.  Sometimes just writing to another webmaster/blogger and saying “I’m xx years old and am building my website/blog about yyy, can I interview you?” is an automatic IN – look at this post at eMillionsBlog.com – that kid scored an interview with Jeremy Schoemaker - shit, i cant even do that, and Jeremy knows me !

Making posts in other blogs that are the same subject-matter as your forum is another way to get ‘free’ links and drive people to it .  If you make those posts on “doFollow” blogs, Google and other search engines will also follow those links, helping your site to get indexed in the search engines and eventually helping with your “ranking” when someone searches for something like “jobs for teenagers“.  That does not mean you should go around and start spamming yourself in every blog that you can.  If you did that to my blog I would throw you into Aksimet-hell, but if you make meaningful and helpful comments on blogs or even other fourms about jobs in general, teenagers in general, or better yet helping teenagers find jobs, it’s sure to drive some traffic – and most webmasters won’t mind.

Remember though, before you start driving people to your forum, there needs to be something there for them to see.  Nobody wants to click onto an empty forum – that’s like going to a restuarant at lunch time with no other customers – “what’s wrong with the food here?” you ask yourself.. “Screw it, I’m going to ‘donalds” .. You don’t want that happening at your forum, so you need to get some posts in there and give people a reason to read, and better yet a reason to come back.  You might ask some of your friends to sign up and make a few posts, or maybe throw in a bunch of new threads yourself to get things started.  There are even forums dedicated to new-forum owners building posts in each other’s forums.   When I first opened the forums at GrownUpGeek.com I allowed ANYONE to make posts anonymously – no sign up or anything – just type and click. This made it very easy for anyone to create a new thread or post a comment without having to bother with that whole ‘sign up’ thing, and really got things rolling.  It also very quickly became a haven for trolls and spammers meaning more work for me to keep things under control – but it was worth it because it netted me all sorts of good, free, unique content (forum topics and comments).

Another thing that I learned very quickly when I first started is that I didnt know anything (not that i do now), and since the internet changes all the time, as soon as I did learn something I had to re-learn it a week later.  That’s why I think it’s important to interact with other webmasters at sites like WebMasterWorld, the DigitalPoint Forums, and maybe even WickedFire (if you fit in with that sort of crowd).  And read a few “make money online” blogs like ShoeMoney, Garry Conn, and Nickey Cakes (Nickey pretends to be a badd-ass, but he’s really a sweetheart.. Don’t let him scare you).  You’ll have to sift through a lot of BS and wasted space in the forums and some of the blogs, but there is a lot to be learned there.  When I first started GrownUpGeek.com I spent almost as much time reading (and posting in) forums and blogs as I did working on the website.

Re: Your Blog.. Blogging and building blog-readership isn’t any easier than starting a forum – and at the beginning you have a bit of a chicken or egg thing.  People wont come if you dont have anything posted, but why post anything if nobody is coming to read it?   The only way around this is to just preach to an empty room – It’s kinda like talking to yourself, but you get used to it after a while.  Keep doing those same things to build links to your forum, for your blog and eventually people will start to show up and the search engines will start to send traffic.  A few people will like what you have to say and keep coming back.

Well about that’s all i have for now because my head hurts from eating too many cookies and drinking diet-cokes for the last few hours – and I think i’ve exceeded my A.D.D. limit for one session.  Good luck to you in your internet-empire building adventure..  Please dont forget me when you get rich and famous.

–Rb