I know there is a demand, now how do I reach that market (high school students)

[CLKeenan]

I run a student resource website, http://www.course-notes.org, and it receives a good amount of traffic 8-10,000 uniques per day. However, I know there are hundreds of thousands more students who could benefit from what my site has to offer. During the first few years the daily traffic doubled each year. It seems like I've reached a plateau with my current traffic and I've reached all the students that will come looking for me or hear about from their friends (which accounts for 50% of my traffic). Im ranked in the top 3, usually #1, for almost all relevant keywords so if they search for something related to my site... they'll find me. I think the problem is just that students dont know sites like mine exist. I need to increase the awareness of students about my site.

I'm thinking about targeting a few of the largest teen communities (US based) and sending newsletter blasts, static banner at the top of the page, banner after first post in a thread, stuff like that. What else can I do?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
-Chris
Course-Notes.Org

[Chris]

Have you considered adding more content as a way to increase traffic? That is normally what I do when I bump up against the top of the rankings.

Also, I know that "essays" keywords perform well, perhaps add a few sprinklings of that word to your pages.

[Cutter]

You were doing some Myspace promotion, correct?

[CLKeenan]

I'm definitely in the process of adding up to 4-5 more classes before the beginning of the school year which should definitely bring in more traffic. However, I still think I will reach the plateau I'm at currently after I increase my traffic from this.

I could keep adding more and more content but if the students arent aware that it exists, how do they know to search for it?

[Chris]

Oh students know it exists. They might not know your site exists but they know that on the Internet they can found both legitimate and illegitimate homework help. In fact I just read this article in Revenue that had the results of a survey which indicated that 47% of a teenager's time online is spent working on homework, or 47% say that is the main use they get out of the Internet, I forget which specifically.

Once you understand that, it is just a matter of targetting the right keywords. Like I said I've found "essay" keywords to be popular, you could try sprinkling that in.

I personally think that rather than shelling out for sponsorships like you mention, taking the money you would have spent and paying writers for new content would be a better use for it.