How do I attract users to an empty website so that they can add content?

I have started a website that I believe will be very useful, however it requires the public to report their own experiences. The problem is that when people visit the site they see that it doesn't have much content yet and don't stick around to add their own voice. It is a bit of a paradox. I need people to add content, but people won't add content to an empty site.

I am not at all interested in seeding the site with false data. I want this 100% crowd sourced and authentic. I also don't have a huge budget.

Any ideas?

One thing for sure..

When I go to the website, I do not see any content, It asks for me to register, and Why would I, unless I see what am I getting.

User adoption is going to be difficult, unless you have some free content for users to check, get a feel, and get motivated to add content. And only then Would I take the pains in registering..

At a glance your home page doesn't really tell me what your site does.

The section that is telling me what your site does is sitting in the middle of a page with a darkish background. My eyes first skim the logo "CubeCheck", that doesn't tell me anything, then my eyes run down the left and right columns looking for something simple to read so I can understand what I'm looking at. So my first impression of the site is: "CubeCheck", "Best companies", "Worst companies" then ads.

Your biggest selling point: "We allow you to enter a review or check another company" doesn't come across.

I would kill the clutter by:

• Removing almost all of the ads until you have a model that works and you have got your message across (I doubt you are making much money off these until you get a decent number of visits)
• Remove best and worst rated companies section as the people using your site don't really care about that initially. This is a community feature that only people who visit the site often will want to know about and I'm not sure what your pitch is to get people to return?
• Featured articles is pointless. Glancing at the titles I'm not interested in reading any of it. If you feel this is important to have on your site for SEO or whatever reason then add a news link to the title bar links (or just stick these articles under the blog link)

So what does that leave you with? You should now have plenty of real estate to tell me what really matters. If you really want your site blurb to be on a different colored background then stretch it across the entire page (see PSD2HTML site ) otherwise it will just like one of the ads.

Then have your two most important features: sign up and search for a company really large and smack bang in the middle of the page for everyone to use. Don't make them search for these, these two options are what you want people to do when they come to your site.

Underneath this I would have about 5 - 10 portions (about 2 lines per review) of user submitted reviews rotating one at a time.

e.g.

"Working at Blah & Blah was a great experience, however the lunch breaks weren't long enough
- Albert Sahid"

Personally, I would also change your tagline "Proudly reviewing many companies globally." It makes me think that your site is just a bunch of companies that you have reviewed. Something like "The social company review site".

Hopefully doing all this will give visitors an idea of what they can do / read at your site.

Simplify, make it clear what you want users to do and how they should use your site and you will increase interaction.

Hope this helps, nice idea.

I like the premise but agree asking for creds without giving a reason may be challenging. Possibly a preview segment of the whole review asking for registration to read the whole article to entice?

In some unrelated feedback;

We actually would be much more concerned of liability. Example a disgruntled employee logs in and smashes a company lets say...is there an opportunity for the company to comment back BEFORE a negative posting? If I was lets say Hertz rental car and some angry ex employee with an ax to grind wanted to bash the company then A: how would I know? and B) how can I give my side of the story? is there any remedy for me as the employer against purposeful ill intent?

I found something in FAQ's but only after digging that stated a company representative will contact you which now indicates there is host interaction or moderation. Perhaps an outline of how it works may be better presented out front.

Segmentation by industry would help also. Automotive, Airline, Cruise line, etc.
Then you can gorilla market like this
http://madashellabouthiddenfees.com/ Nice layout though and cool concept. best of luck

www.glassdoor.com is doing something similar to what you are doing. Never hurts to learn from the competition! It seems like they are thriving on employee gossip, esp. in interesting companies like Facebook

Put more emphasis on allowing people to voice their experiences with their current/previous employers instead of checking on potential employers. It can be to blow off some steam but better yet say something positive where appropriate. Once you get enough input, you can start to shift to your current pitch to "check out a company before you work there."

Take whatever posts you have and put them on the front page. What incentive for a user to list something and see displayed out front?

Good idea - expect litigation. I agree that you should put up content on the front page and don't hide it behind registration.

If you allow companies to respond you can monetize that way - allow them to open up a "forum" or something so that they can "own" their comments but can't remove or hide them - but they can address them.

Possibly add salary information if people want to publish that and they are not prohibited - that is something that you can charge for as well.

good luck