how to get people to find your website

[signfrog]

how do you go about having people find your website? im getting to a point on my page where im about ready for people to start seeing it, but im not exactly sure how to actually go about putting my page out there in the first place?

a related question is what is proper etiquette for exchanging buttons with someone? 

not the most socially adept person so im not very sure how to successfully interact with people on the internet at all, much less how to have people view my site

ty!

[cynderthekitsune]

ooh, i think there's a multitude of ways for that!

advertisements
not commercial ads, but ones like DimDen's navlink and various others are great for this.

some examples:

• navlink
• johnvertisements
• translink
  

there's also Sidelink and various others too, but i currently don't have the URLs for those ._.

webrings
webrings are another way for people to come to your website.
get into a webring you like, whether it be a topic you're into, or really anything else.

there's plenty of webrings, not all of them are old and dead. though you might need to dig if you want a really specific one.

badges
lots of people have buttons, like mine has.
'buttons' are small rectangular things that some people put on their website, usually they might link somewhere, or it shows what they're into, etc.
most buttons are 88x31, with that being the resolution size of them.

there's also other forms of badges, like stamps, blinkies, and others too.

i hope this helped though (^_^)

[Skykristal]

cynderthekitsune already mentioned some great options! I have some more general things to add:
- people find you naturally through the Neocities browse page! Make sure you actively update your website. Or do posts on your Neocities feed.
- guestbooks! Write into them if you enjoy someone's site. Many guesthooks have a website field to fill out, meaning people and the website owner viewing the guestbook may check you out as well
- link your site anywhere you go (and anywhere you feel it's relevant). Bio, profile, forum signature, etc etc.

[konamiesque]

Seconding what everyone else has said so far, though it should be mentioned that NavLink hasn't been accepting new submissions for a while now.

I'd also strongly recommend following a lot of other websites! Speaking from personal experience, if you go around following a bunch of random sites that you think look cool, a lot of those people will end up following you back. It also helps fellow webmasters grow their audience, too!

[xwindows]

not the most socially adept person

Relatable.

For the main question: like another comment said, there are multiple ways to do so; with some of the method more suited for some specific kind of sites than others. But I'll not speak about banner/button ads or webrings; since I'm not really into them, so I have no experience.

A channel I would like to speak about is a forum-- the one we are conversing on right now. I saw that you set your personal website field on your profile already, so that's good. (This is the target which the earth icon on the sidebar of each of your post would link to)

But take note that there is another spot in your user settings that you can use for showing your personal website, which you have yet to make use of: the signature area which appear at the bottom of every of your post; you're free to put button, text, or banner that link to your site there.


All things I mentioned up to this point are passive ways of making people aware of your website; and obviously, there are also active ways too-- by making it a part of your participation in the forum. Not by shamelessly butting in in an unrelated topic and advertise it of course (@Melooon would kick you out if you did that), but by A. bringing it up when it was on-topic, or even B. making a topic dedicated to it.

For example, I have an unconventional photographic gallery which is like Instagram but uses Internet standard instead of an "app", while itself also exploring a niche photography genre. One day, I found someone on the forum asking for opinions about using gallery web service; so I wrote my opinion with alternatives and mentioned it as one of the examples. As you can see on the thread, people have been genuinely interested in it.

Later on, I have also made a thread dedicated to it in the dedicated Projects section of the forum as well (it is a photography project after all); and it garnered attention as well.

(And shall I lampshade myself here by telling you out loud that I have pointed to my website trice now in this post? Anyway...)

Regarding approach B, I have seen many people treat their personal website as their project in the Projects section of this forum; so it's likely okay if you would go make a dedicated thread for your website as well.

But remember: this is a small Internet realm where many people have personal website; just having a personal website alone is not that remarkable in a vast sea of other personal websites. So it helps if you did or release something unconventional (or of value to others) on your site which make it interesting to people and stand out on its own; then mention it when you describe your website, and that is likely to be the point that would attract people to actually come to visit, rather than skipping right away to read something else on the forum.