The problem of members viewing site but not logging in or adding content

[Traddie]

Is there any solution to the above. Hundreds of visitors ever day according to analythics but not many signing in or adding content.  Any solutions ?

[Damien Hannah]

Hey Scott, how goes! :) Looky lou what I did! lol http://addictapic.com

[Armani Rouse]

Love this Damien great job! I have a script already ready and written for something like this, how did you go about creating the splash page? I'd like to create one finally for Well Kunnected :D

[Damien Hannah]

I wrote the splash page from scratch using Dreamweaver on my Macbook. I then uploaded to my file manager, made it my homepage, and voila! (Make sure the "enter" buttons are leading to "http://yournetwork.ning.com/main" and also go to "tabs and Pages" and change your "main" page to "http://yournetwork.ning.com/main" or you'll get a deadly loop to your splash page! lol, trust me, I found that one out the hard way. lol.

[Armani Rouse]

Perfect! Working on my script now, thanks Damien I'll show you when Im done :D

[Troy Marquis]

agreed i get 20 sign ups a day since i closed my site

[Traddie]

Scott

The site was closed and I opened it last June in order to get up the google rankings and also to have good visitor stats should i at some future point seek advertising revenue.  Got to page one based on my key words. To close it would upset this plan.How about closing it for a day ??? every now and again

[Jordon McGee (Jords)]

To close it would upset this plan.How about closing it for a day ??? every now and again

I wouldn't recommend that. Your members may think the site is having technical difficulties with it going from public to private all the time. And it may become an annoyance for them with the sign-in changing location frequently from the main page in center to the column.

[Damien Hannah]

I offer points and ranking for interaction, using Elson's eRewards2 script. It helps, some members are approaching 30 000 points already, they love having top spot.

Also, try providing quick post links, and make them available front and center on every page. View my network and you'll see what I mean. Every bit of navigation or site usefulness is right there, never need to scroll back up or anything. Make it so easy they can't help it, and they will interact.

Most new people find these Ning Networks confusing to grasp, there's a lot there for them, especially if you've crammed every Ning Template feature into your site as you can.

Provide a tutorial page/video showing how members can get started and set up easily. Live/video chat with them to help them, be there for them. Leave them on their own, they'll join, take a look at the controls, and be discouraged because they don't want to learn.  Things are made easy for everyone these days, any amount of thinking and they'll move on to the next drone opportunity that will benefit them.

There's no secret ingredient, if people are not joining your site, they don't "need" your site, so you need to make it a necessity of whatever niche you're in.

Keep at it!

[Jordon McGee (Jords)]

Check your data and see what is most popular. Lock down those sections of your site from the public.

[Traddie]

Jords. Does that affect google indexing and if you do that on your site can you provide the url so i can see it.  Thanks

[Jordon McGee (Jords)]

I believe it would affect the indexing on those specific pages. However, I think I found a better solution for your dilemma and will post it shortly. :)

[Damien Hannah]

Are you using traffic builders? Like Ilovehits.com or linkreferral.com?

If this is where a lot of your traffic is coming from (again I say, if..) then you're wasting your time. Every person passing through is simply getting click credits to further advance attention to their site. These methods are useless and disappointing.

You need to advertise, and advertise properly. This doesn't come cheap. I pay more for advertising then the $160/month it costs me just to stay up and running.

I still don't get a lot of traffic, and photography is a very hot topic. You have to be patient, think outside of the box, and never give up.

You also have to love what you're doing. Are you doing this because you love it, or because you need money from your couch? Personally, I don't care if I only ever have 100 members, I love what I'm doing and a so proud of it, the member count doesn't matter. I'd rather a strong sense of community than millions of members that are scattered and unorganized, wasting my network's/communities' potential.