Your first step is finding a page to manage. You can do this by building your own from scratch or finding unclaimed Mahalo pages and then claiming them. To build your own page, just start searching and find a term that doesn't already have a topic page. Then check out our How to Build a Mahalo Page guide to find out everything you need to know. If you're looking for popular pages that need owners, Mahalo's front page is a good place to start. Check out the box titled "Top Searches" and you'll see a list of popular searches around the Internet right now. If you see a CLAIM button next to that term, that page needs an owner! It's all yours!

Now that you've built your Mahalo page, think about who that page might appeal to, and what they might need it for. Then consider where would be a good place to find these people. You may frequently find yourself gravitating towards specialized blogs and message boards.

Finding message boards on pretty much any topic is typically not very challenging. Google and Yahoo have extensive message boards that cover a vast variety of subjects. A Google Blog Search can help you zero in on particular blogs or message boards geared to whatever subject it is that you're looking for. And Backtype is a great way to hunt around for blogs or message boards on a specific topic...just do a search for popular comments and follow them back to the blog or message board on which they were posted.

Backtype homepage

If you're going to promote your page by participating in a discussion on a blog or a message board, remember to be authentic! Pay attention to what others are saying, and respond in a thoughtful manner. Only recommend a page or pages that will advance the conversation or provide background for what people are talking about. Do not be overly aggressive about your pitch, and never leave a spam comment. (For the purposes of this discussion, a spam comment would be something totally unhelpful that just provides a link and no other information:

"Hey, check out this great link I found!: http://www.mahalo.com/Spam"

Above all else, make sure you are adding value to the conversation with your participation. Ideally, you would answer a question someone else had asked, and then include the URL you wish to promote as a citation or as an additional resource. This way, your Mahalo page gets associated with being helpful and beneficial, not with wasting someone's time who has no interest in that topic.

Mahalo Answers is a bustling knowledge exchange community run by Mahalo.com itself, and it can be a great forum for drawing attention to your page. Try asking a question on Mahalo Answers that inlinks directly to your page.

You can start by asking the question from the page you wish to promote. You'll notice that this automatically makes the page title and a hyperlink appear on your question. Then mention the title of your page in the question and put opening and closing double-brackets around the name. Let's say you want to promote your new page on orange juice...you could ask the question:

How many calories are in a tall glass of [[Orange Juice]]?

If you put a small tip on your question (say, 1 or 2 Mahalo Dollars), you will probably draw a lot of viewers who will want to try and answer. Many of them will click through to your Mahalo page first, to start their research. Voila! Instant traffic!

Everyone loves watching videos. It makes learning about something new a lot more fun, and it's a great way to liven up any Mahalo page.

Featuring a video on your page is simple. From your "Page Builder," go to the "Add Section to Links" drop-down menu. Select "Featured Object." Now go to the bottom of the page, where your Featured Object section will have appeared. Click "Edit." Change the section title to a reasonable description of your video, and then click "Add Object: Video" from the menu. Place the URL of a video you want to add to your page in the box and click "Save."

Now add a brief description of your video to the box labeled "Description Text." One sentence summarizing what the video is about or what happens in it will suffice. Click "Save." Now move the Featured Video around to wherever you like on the page.

You will notice that the video section has a little box for comments. Try leaving one. Now you have created your own little message board right on your page. Send it around to your friends and see what they think of the video, and encourage them to leave comments, too. If the thread becomes interesting and more people come to check out the video, you've got some traffic to your Mahalo page, just by making it better and more compelling!

As with a message board or a blog, promotion on Twitter requires a bit of patience and a sincere effort to actively participate in an online community. Tweets that simply advertise a website tend to be ignored, as there's already a lot of "noise" and self-promotion on the service. To stand out and get noticed, you're first going to have to make a genuine contribution.

If you want to tweet out your Mahalo page to your followers, and want them to actually visit the page, try two simple strategies:

(1) Write something honest that's also intriguing, mysterious or compelling. What's the most interesting fact on your page? Have you featured a particularly interesting video or photo? Has someone left a comment that's really funny, or that made you mad? Talk about that in the tweet and people will definitely come take a look, just out of curiosity.

(2) Include a call to action. Rather than just saying "Hey, check out my site: http://www.mahalo.com/Spam," ask people to do something specific. Go to them for advice or suggestions. Encourage them to tell you what they think about a certain video or article. See if anyone has read a more thorough article about this topic than you've managed to find. People want to help out, and if you can convince them to lend you a hand, you'll get the traffic and possibly a better page, too!

Sites like Digg, Reddit, Delicious and Stumble Upon can send thousands, or even tens of thousands of visitors to a website in a matter of minutes. Getting on the front page of one of these sites would be a major boost for your page.

However, you don't have to get on the front page for social bookmarking sites to make a difference. Just being included in their index can get your page ranked a bit higher in a Google search, which in turn will cause more people to take a look at what you've done.

Submitting to most of these sites is very easy. First, go take a look around and see what kind of topics are being discussed. This will help you find which site is right for you:

Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Stumble Upon

Once you've picked a site, start an account and begin reading and submitting stories. Be very careful not to overdo it, though! These sites are about keeping track of all of your favorite links and helping others find interesting content. They are not designed purely for self-promotion!

So only submit one of your Mahalo pages at a time, and be sure to participate in other ways besides just submitting your own links. As well, do your best to pick pages to promote on these sites that will actually be interesting to their respective audiences. Finally, while you should make your page sound appealing, be sure that you are accurately representing its content and not trying to "trick" people into looking at a page that won't interest them. In short, be a good citizen.

Each Mahalo page has its own widget! Place it on your blog and it will automatically help to promote your page. Everyone who comes to read what you have to say will immediately see a preview of your Mahalo page, and a few of them are bound to click over and take a look. (They are, after all, already interested in your writing).

But it gets better! For every 1,000 views you get to your Mahalo widget, we'll give you an additional Mahalo Dollar. So if you don't already have a blog, why not start one? It's really easy, it's fun, and it's a great outlet for getting things off your chest! We're big fans of these blogging platforms and our widget will work on any of them:

Tumblr
Posterous
Blogger
WordPress

Remember, not everything you do is going to bring you 10,000,000 unique pageviews overnight. A big part of getting the word out about a cool page you've built is trying a lot of different strategies until you hit on just the right one. Take the time to really explore what else is out there, get involved in some real conversations and keep making your page better and better. You may find that people will want to hear more of what you have to say, and that's when it's time to let them know you've written a page on Mahalo all about this, and that they should really go check it out.