How do you guys go about pushing traffic from your big sites to your small ones?

For me, I usually place a link in my links section or place a banner ad at the top to let people know about it.

One thing that I do once in awhile to get a quick, big amount of members is make an announcement on the forum and I can usually get a good amount new member registrations as well as traffic within a few days.

I put a link at the footer of my sites and I get double or sometimes 100% more traffic.

Link and visual advertisements

To be honest, I don't own any "big" sites. I own small/moderate/beginning sites, but yes, I'll mainly put a few text links on them and see how it goes. I'll get a few uniques and occasionally some migrating users on my forums. Good stuff.

I do this quite a bit. I have a forum with over 4500 members. So, whenever I launch a new site I put a text link of there and make an announcement. It works really well, free advertising to thousands of people

A text link somewhere on the frontpage, usually in the footer.

//Andreas

I put a big banner at the top of the site for a couple of days to a site of related content and then take it off. Usually boosts my traffic a lot :d, plus keeps traffic within the same network

Text links, banners or any other type of integration.

Cross-medium marketing is very popular and very effective. Using one property to rub off onto another property is a great way to start something out, but do you want both properties to employ the same audience?

Long term, it's not going to show much improvement. Short term it's definitley the thing to do.

That's right.
Well, Search engines work, and certainly directory inclusion.

Why is it not that good in the long run Anthony?

Both websites are attracting the same audience and the same people. It's good in the sense that you get return traffic and members but bad in the sense that you could be seriously limiting your reach.

Originally Posted by Anthony

Both websites are attracting the same audience and the same people. It's good in the sense that you get return traffic and members but bad in the sense that you could be seriously limiting your reach.

well you could have the same audience, but completely different topics... like entertainment... both movies and humor / jokes, then you have game / arcade sites..

Both different, yet similar audiences.

I see your point, very true.

I was really just talking about two sites of the same niche, sorry I didn't clarify

Yeah, there are a lot of factors to consider... will it have a high return rate with the niche, that sort of thing.

I think it's almost always a good thing as long as it isn't overdone.

Somehow i always did do this but did stop doing it, new fresh members is my key. dont want each member to be member of 10 forums of mine.

Text links, assuming the IPs are not the same C-class

I think it does help in the beginning, even if its the same niche. You need some kind of start up traffic, so even if you are taking it away from your popular site the traffic is still staying in your network.