How Do I Make My Forum More Popular?

[wild20 0]

I have a forum right? I need some more people on it. Could someone please share their tips, how they got their members, how many, etc? Maybe OpaQue could give me some advice. I am trying to offer some services people will like, really basic hosting, maybe games, support. What else? Ideas anyone? My goal is to get to about 5 signups a day, which is really small. Any programs out there? Thanks!Note: I was going to put this in advertising, but it doesn't fit any forum there. Maybe someone could put this in the right spot, if it isn't already

[michaelper22 0]

I have a forum right? I need some more people on it. Could someone please share their tips, how they got their members, how many, etc? Maybe OpaQue could give me some advice. I am trying to offer some services people will like, really basic hosting, maybe games, support. What else? Ideas anyone? My goal is to get to about 5 signups a day, which is really small. Any programs out there? Thanks!

 

Note: I was going to put this in advertising, but it doesn't fit any forum there. Maybe someone could put this in the right spot, if it isn't already

 

Try adding a big, prominent link in your sig. Include like one or two small details about your forum. Maybe try something like this (an example using my site):

 

The Bus Stop

Computers and NYC Transit at your fingertips

Register now!

 

Something like that may get you some more members (and this post may help me out as well, I only have about 10 members).

Edited May 12, 2006 by michaelper22 (see edit history)

[Moolkye 0]

I would advertise on other forums or BBSs. That usually gets a lot of attention, especially if your forum is one of only a few.But again that may either get the hosts of the other forums upset, or they may not care. But usally forums have a section devoted to advertising or promotion of your site.Try that

[husker 0]

I usually promote my site on other forums. Post it iny uor signature, because a lot of people look at signatures. Also post it in a showoff or web showcase forum. The, use addme.com for free search engine submission to fourteen search engines. Thats what I did and it usually works.Good luck on getting mor members,husker

[mayank 2]

I agree with other members that a SIG is important in a forum. Almost everyone puts a signature in the forum and as michaelper22 said that putting a big signature like that may work for you.Another thing is that you could have given the link to your forum in this post - there was no harm in providing the link of your forum...or was there? What I mean to say is that make this your habit, if your forum is new then make good posts in it and then mention about what you said in that post in more popular posts for e.g. you talk about religion and I think your forum is also related to religion then when making next post over here..try to link it to your post at your forum.

[AnGeL KiSS 0]

You can post your link/buttons on Plugboards on certain sites. There's alot of sites with this plugboard thing, plug yourself there. Another thing is to comment blog sites and sorts. You can post your forum link on a Free Traffic Site thing that makes people click on your site.. thats my advice... hope it helps.

[BigDaddyLane 0]

I have a forum right? I need some more people on it. Could someone please share their tips, how they got their members, how many, etc? Maybe OpaQue could give me some advice. I am trying to offer some services people will like, really basic hosting, maybe games, support. What else? Ideas anyone? My goal is to get to about 5 signups a day, which is really small. Any programs out there? Thanks!
Note: I was going to put this in advertising, but it doesn't fit any forum there. Maybe someone could put this in the right spot, if it isn't already

pay per click always helps

[rvalkass 5]

Getting people to sign up to a site is always a difficult thing to do. Check your stats and see how many people are actually visiting the site, but not signing up. If you aren't getting many visitors then you need to get the site known, tell people what you do and most importantly, why should I go to your site, when there are others that do the same? What are the plus points, and what makes you stand out from the crowd? If people ask you questions, always reply and try and be more personal, use their name rather than Sir/Madam, and speak to them in a friedly way in emails.If you have the visitors, but they are not signing up, then they need an incentive to. This does not mean you set your entire forum so that it is only visible to registered members. Let them see the annoucements, general disucssion and set up a guest board. Then encourage people to sign up, so they get access to extra features that are actually useful to them and that they might need. For example, another site I use has a tutorials board on it, that you can only access after a certain number of posts and you have been at the forum for 2 weeks. The tutorials are written by expert users of the software and are very well written, so people are willing to sign up to get access to them. Adapt this theory to the services of your own site.

[Alissa 0]

Definitely post it in your signature and make the link bright and catchy. Search the web for forums that have to do with the topic that yours is about, and advertise on there (if they permit it). You could ask friends to link to it on their own websites, etc, etc, etc...Follow rvalkass's advice too, that sounds very good. :)Good luck!

[dundun2007 0]

Theres alot of things that you can do to make your forum and your whole website more popular. First off make it appeal to the general public so that everyone can like something about it. Then make sure that you spam your website to show people that you can now visit to get info on a certain topic. Add some new features to your forum like games or some kind of reward system. Whatever you do always make sure that you keep up to date on what is going on and make sure that the forum is updated and you keep track of the post. The more the admin is on and active, the more the guest will realize how serious you are about this site.

[BOAW 0]

one good way you can do to make your forum more popular that ive even tried for myself for my website is if you have a myspace you can put the URL of your forum site as your name on myspace so that way everytime some sees your pic on myspace itll have the name of your site above it so youll be seen by someone all the time...and someone will always be bound to be curious about what your website is about becuase they may know you and wonder what youve been doing.

[mik 0]

Here are my ideas based on my total inexperience on the subject

 

1. Make your forum rules real simple. If your forum becomes popular, then is the time to add more rules if you need to.

2. Change the color scheme from the standard default so your site has a unique look, you did not give the address of your website so perhaps you have done this already.

3. Don't have too many forums and subforums to start with.

4. The most popular forums seem to be the ones that deal with a topic that covers a subject/hobby that is maybe a little out of the ordinary - like photography or wind surfing. In fact, the more out of the ordinary, the more popular the forum seems to be. I would think it is much better to choose one subject and have several forum categories that deal with different aspects so that the chosen subject can be covered in some depth, rather than having a whole range of differing subjects that are there in the hopes of catching someone's attention.

 

To give a couple of examples of suggestion 4.

Here in the UK we have an expression "trainspotter" to describe someone whose hobby it is to stand on railway platforms taking down the serial numbers of passing locomotives in a little notebook. Now, to most people, this sounds like an utterly boring passtime, if not a little odd. But to the true trainspotter it is most interesting. (I just quickly checked google and found 2 trainspotter forums each with more than 6,000 registered users, and about 20 forums with 100 or more users).

Another trainspotting type hobby (ie. one that most "ordinary" people do not understand) is World War 2 re-enactment, where groups of re-enactors take over a field and dress up in American, British and German army kit and spend the weekend re-enacting and socialising. Who would be interested in that? Not many, you would think.

Well it turns out that that the most popular forum in the UK which was started fairly recently is so popular that the site frequently can't last out the month and goes down because it has exceeded its bandwidth limit. (Its currently down.)

Of course I don't give these examples as proof of anything, just something to think about.

[iGuest 3]

Well you have to post your forum's address in other forums to make it popular. Like I just did-SenJensenjenforum.com

[demonatashadow 0]

lol,i'm trying this toowhat i do is go on the other sites and post mywebsite namewith their permission of course

[~Upnorf Cr3w~ 0]

lol,i'm trying this too
what i do is go on the other sites and post my

website name

with their permission of course

INDEED WITH THERE PERMISSION. lol i also run a forum or did untill my host shut down which is why im here but...

I find it hard to advertise or get more people to your forum anyway. I did go round forums and advertise but i never got good things from this only bad.

Most of the time there is 1,000's of forums being advertised there anyway so there isn't much chance people will look at yours as they have alot to choose from. The other problem i had was people registering on my forum and spamming or causing trouble from the forum that i advertised on. (most of them was without asking permission)

I entered my forum into lots of search engines and added it to advertising forums. One i got something out of was http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ you can also do post swaps with people on there. you do 20 on there forum and they do 20 on yours. I did this and people liked my forum so they stayed. Just needed that extra push to get them there.

Do you have a link to your forum so we can have alook please?

Also make sure there are plenty of boards to read and a few posts to keep people interested. Ive seen people advertising there forum before they have members, posts, and enough boards to keep people interested.
Edited March 10, 2008 by ~Upnorf Cr3w~ (see edit history)