December 03, 2005

Curious George- How to get people to go to your website? Hi everyone. I've been scarce on mofi lately. I've been been busy working on, #1 getting my company website up and working, and #2 putting together a spec cooking show. We need people to go to our tv show site so we can use their stories.

I'm now looking at the problem that a lot of web developers have. How to get people to visit your site? I will be emailing friends, business associates and former clients to announce my production company website, but my main problem is how to go about getting people to go to our television show website. You see, our cooking show is casting about for locations and groups to profile. The show's basic format is that we will go to a community or group and have them cook an entire meal of their very best recipes and while doing so, uncover the background of their community and the family stories behind each recipe. Sort of a combination of a cooking show and "Antique Roadshow". We want to get churches, cultural organizations, womans clubs, cooking clubs, visitor bureaus, chambers of commerce, etc. to go to our website and contact us about their best recipes. How do we do that? There seems to be a lot of internet savy folks on mofi. How would you suggest we get the word out and get them to go to our site?

posted by squidranch 19 years ago
  • linkage, linkage, linkage Offer a space for places to have links of banners and hope (or set up an exchange) with them to put up your own on their sites. If there is a blogger group in your area they may be one of the first ones to run with. Especially if you feed them. They'll blog about it probably and linky to you.
  • Search engine optimization, link exchange with as many other sites as possible, word of mouth promotion to friends etc., there are also various advertisement options (by which I mean paying money, of course) to drive context specific traffic to yr site. you may also want to search for relevant directories/listing services. many are free and of course they are also context specific good old fashioned "flyering"?? I would limit this to attendance at events with relevant groups/guests, but try to always have biz cards or small flyers with you and chat with people you meet, after all you are looking for people to put on tv!! good luck!
  • Give out donuts with your url iced onto them!
  • um "iced" should be translated to "frosted" in Seppo Speak
  • Register sock puppets here and at the blue an fpp your site.
  • I hear MySpace is good for that sort of thing. And if you have a podcast, it'll drive some traffic to your site just by its existence, but of course that's extra work.
  • If ya'all want to see the new business webpage, check my profile for my personal URL.
  • welcome back, squiddy! be sure to let google know your page is there!
  • Wow, you've been up to quite a bit. Sounds exciting, will definitely check out your site. Good to have you back.
  • Squid, I have no help to offer, but when you get a chance, update is requested here.
  • Chain email? "If U go to this website within three minutes, Bill Gates will send you 25 cents and purple unicorns will dance across your screen. If not your head will explode!" It might be good to join some of the bigger food and/or recipe interest groups at someplace like Yahoo!Groups and make some friends to get the word out there, too. Some groups don't mind if you post your site, and many allow members to post sites in their "links" section. The show sounds really cool, too! If you want me to start that chain email, just let me know.
  • I am neither a web developer nor a food blogger, but in the vein of gomichild's suggestion, I've come across some really well written and (I think) well read food blogs on MonkeyFilter and elsewhere. Some of them share occasional stories and history along with the recipes and photos. Buying an ad on one or two, if they don't respond to requests for free publicity, might be worth it. Or perhaps you could pimp their projects/books in exchange for some linkage.
  • So Guava, that leads me to this question, how does one find out what the top food, cooking, recipe and culinary blogs are so I can buy an ad on them?
  • Hi, Squid! I have no advice to offer. Sorry
  • Well a kinda mate of man has this foodie blog - he is based in Oz but links to quite a few other places. A bit of a clicky session round a couple of foodie blog rings and you'll hit some neat ones I'm sure. Also you may want to check out the food groups on flickr.
  • erm oops "mate of mine" that should be
  • Are you looking for groups who will cook, or people who will want to see the cooks at this point? Will this be a Los Angeles area effort to start, or do you you want a broader area? Will the cooks get some sort of pay, or will they donate their time and food purchases? It seems to me that there are lots of factors that would influence your recruitment and marketing tactics. You have a good start with your efforts for Irvs. Wouldn't they be a good location/community to start with? In fact, the little-guy restaurant threatened by crass development might be a good starting theme, though purely of local interest. However, I'm not sure that they'd be the sorts who were searching the internet for a site that would showcase them. Until you get some kitchen credit, might you need to find the worthwhile contributors? Sort of like investigative journalism?
  • Given its current advertisers (Nokia and something with a picture of Martha Stewart), I'm going to guess this would be out of your budget, but here are the stats and prices for C & Z. Foodblog Ad Network via sliceny.com's sidebar, gives pricing for many more such blogs food porn watch - looks kind of like weblogs.com for food blogs la.foodblogging.com - maybe more of a review site, but the people who write and comment there sound like folks who might be interested in participating in your project hope some of this is helpful
  • Sommat tells me squid knows how to get people to go to his website. :)
  • May I respectfully suggest that you post photos of you in your MoFi t-shirt on the site. That'll get the girls visiting, in any case.
  • Good luck with the new show, squid!
  • Thanks for the info guava. *blushes at Skrik's complement* Thanks swacky!
  • *waves at Squiddy* *contributes nothing*
  • *salutes the capitan* You know, there just might be somebody that posts my television show site on mofi. I'm not sure that I can control my countless fans...