Forum Admins - How to gain members and keep them active?

[Restecpa]

Whats your techinque when it comes to forum creation, gaining members and keeping them active untill there is a solid user base? I mean, starting from scratch that is.. How do you go at attracting members? With pretty much 0 topics and posts its hard to get anyone to signup, right.. So what Im looking for here is your experiences.. Thanks

[GT Web]

with my site: www.g35.ca ---

I got it indexed in Google first, then started some topics of my own and started asking around at other similar fourms (making sure not to spam) until I had a few active members. Once you have a few active members + targeted traffic it just snowballs from there

[Restecpa]

Nice forum, I see youve got over 300 members now.. For how long have you been running it? I have a successfull forum myself as well, but it was easier for me to gain members on that one as it is backed by a "heavily" trafficed website (created by me as well). While those new forums that Im going to set up are going to be built from the scratch. Anyway, I have experience in this field (having created more than a few successfull websites) but am still interested in hearing views from others..

Thanks!

[GT Web]

G35.ca has been up since November, 2003.

The website itself is getting between 350-450 hits per day...

[cyphix]

respectpa.... my first forum I started @ www.videocardforum.com basically was helped along by me & another very active member & another friend of mine being active all the time. Now the forum has several active members & about 2000 posts & about 210 total members.

Google Adwords helps a lot.... I was getting about 30/day & then I tried adwords..... went up to about 200/day, but I wasn't paying for them all.... I think people saw the ad, didn't click & decided to come by later... free advertising.

When I stopped advertsing I still got like 150/day.. so that helped a lot.

Some other things you can do.... create fake usernames & reply to posts with them to start the board off to make it look a bit busier.

I'll PM you later about something you may be interested in...

[Restecpa]

Sure, PM me.. And yes, I thought of creating few posts on my own as well. The main problem is, the one that I find pretty interesting is really not in my area of expertise But I guess I could read about it a bit as it indeed is an interesting subject. And I am thinking of developping a site on that topic that would go nicely along with the forum (on that same domain). That should help with the google traffic as well.. Keep posting people - Share your experiences

[cyphix]

Another good way is to pay people of this forum & others some F$ to register & make a post or something.. that can boost posts a bit if your F$ offer is generous.. but then, this doesn't really achieve getting 'active' members... but starts your forum off a little.

[Restecpa]

Thanks guys anyone else?

[GiantDomains]

advertise

[Restecpa]

That was very helpful, thanks. I wish I had thought of it on my own..

[.com.net.org]

Agree

[system0]

* start good discussions yourself in particular article type posts
* partner with related sites
* talk to yourself using another username
* advertising

[Keith]

One-on-one interaction. Get some topics started, then go out and recruit members. Talk to them one on one. Go to chat rooms, etc. that are related to the topic of your forums. IM people. Get them to join. Have them get their friends to join. Let them know they are starting something that can be very big.

Get your forum indexed by Google. Maybe add a seach bot-only skin, that only gives the essential text. Like the posts and topics. None of the pointless links, etc. that are all around forums. After I added a nice search bot skin, I had almost all my threads indexed in Google.

I only did a little bit of paid advertising. Maybe like 1,000 click-through text ads on a site. I dont think I got much from that. But hey, it was worth it.

Currently, I have around 330 members and 30,000 posts. I get a few new members every week. Im not sure where they are coming from, but they are. They are most likely coming from people telling them about it, or Google. I get SO many visitors coming from Google. And they are searching the oddest... oddest things.

[mccollin]

Here's what I've done. My forum has been up for about 18 months and currently has about 15K members, 25K threads, and 200K posts, and gets over 200K uniques per month.

* Forum Topic - Make sure you have a topic that is in some way a new niche that will draw people. I don't get the point of trying to compete with WHT or some other huge forum by opening one that is identical and then trying to get people to go there. People want to go to busy forums. You really need to find your niche and then stay the course... promote it, exploit it, etc.

* Forum Organization - Don't create too many forum topics to start. I did this and it was a mistake. You end up with a ton of empty forums. I now start with a high level consolidated topic... then target a point when I'll split it into more topics. For example if you had a forum on cars... you might start with Sports Cars... then after you get 100 threads, you break it up into American, Japanese, and European Sports Cars. Then when any of them hits 100 threads, you break it out into Ford, Chevy, and Chrysler (for American) Sports Cars... then wait for them to grow.

* Moderators - You need about 4-5 active people who will moderate, or at least help build the discussion in each forum. They need to be up for posting something every day until it takes off. Its a must, or the topics will die. I look for people that are real active, and then discuss being a moderator. They need to be very helpful.

* New Member Area - Create an area where new members can start off, and make sure you keep a close eye on it and reply right away.

* Search Engines - What ever forum script you use, make sure its search engine friendly. As the forum grows, each posts is another indexed page.

* Promotions - Talk to companies that have products related to your site and offer to do reviews in exchange for 3-5 free copies for your forum members. Then promote it and drive posts. I was successful at building over 1000 threads in about a month on a brand new product that has a huge dedicated forum focused on it. I simply gave away one of the products when it first came out, and did some advertising around it. That forum is now active, even though there is the huge dedicated forum. In the past, I was never able to build new products that had other dedicated forums.

* Helpful Info - Post tutorials, how-tos, and other useful information. You can even talk to other sites that have that type of thing and offer to post link backs if they allow you to publish some of their info. This way the search engines will index it for you and build traffic to your site.

* Other Forums - Be very careful with this, but its helpful to post in other forums helpful information and have a link to your forum in your signature. The other forum owners may not like this at all, but as long as you are being active and helpful... and not just posting links to your forum, they will probably be cool. It works best if the other forum is related, but not a direct competitor. If you had a forum called domaindiscussions, then the dnforum guys may not appreciate you promoting it here.

* Time - It takes a lot of time to build it up... a TON of time.

* Partnerships - I've found a few folks with sites that were cooperative who I've partnered with. In one case a busy news site didn't have their own forum. I added a link to their news on my site, and they agreed to make my forum their forum link on their site. I've also found companies that didn't have support forums who I've added forums for on my site, and they link to it from their support page.

Hope this is helpful to you!

[oberheimer]

Is'nt it a good idea to regg domains with overture searches.
Lets say i start a forum about fashion. Then i could regg a few .com with overture searches for that domain with .com

I think im going to start a fashion forum, so what do you think i have found a few with about 40 in overture search (domain with .com)

[cyphix]

Wow, that was a good write up mccollin! I'll certainly look at using some of your ideas with my forums!

100 DNF sent!

[Restecpa]

mccollin: While I already am doing manny of the things youve suggested, some of the ideas will sure come very usefull. I really appreciate your willingness to help other members and take time to write a resourceful post. This kind of posts is what I was looking for and therefore a symbolic 100 DNF from me too Again, thanks.

PS: If its not inconvenient for you, could you please pm me the url of the forum in question? If not, no problem.

[DomainOgre]

Excellent resource! I especially agree with the part about the mods. They are the lifeblood of any forum. Its nearly impossible to have a successful forum without a few good ones.

[mccollin]

Thanks for the forum bucks guys! I really never expected that when I made the post... just wanted to share what I knew. My primary forum is at http://pdaphonehome.com/forums . I've used all the techniques I listed over the months. One thing I can say is that it takes a lot of time and will burn you out if you aren't careful. You have to take some time off periodically to get recharged. That's why it's important to find good moderators.