How do you get a forum big?

**siteinclusion.com** · 06-07-2005, 03:31 AM

i decided to offer free advertising for webmasters if they post on my forum. explained the concept here:

http://www.siteinclusion.com/free_banner.html

early days yet, so hard to see if its worked

**Kyric** · 06-07-2005, 04:44 AM

Originally Posted by Edwin

One of the best things you can do to get a forum more active is to limit the number of subforums at first. Nothing worse than coming to a forum and finding 20-30+ subforums, each of which contains only a handful of posts. Start with 3-5 subforums and get those busy before adding additional subforums in a logical progression, ONE AT A TIME, as the traffic and discussions warrant it.

Well said. Communities are about building critical mass and you can only reach critical mass if you put the users in the same place. You musnt dilute the user base especially if its small.

Seems obvious but i cant count how many webmasters seem to ignore the basic principle.

**NameTower** · 06-07-2005, 03:51 PM

Originally Posted by Edwin

One of the best things you can do to get a forum more active is to limit the number of subforums at first. Nothing worse than coming to a forum and finding 20-30+ subforums, each of which contains only a handful of posts. Start with 3-5 subforums and get those busy before adding additional subforums in a logical progression, ONE AT A TIME, as the traffic and discussions warrant it.

So true.

**greggish** · 06-30-2005, 08:13 PM

Join alot of other similar forums to yours. Actively post and make sure your sig contains your forum as a link with a couple of words as a desription. Even on this board, you don't have it as a working "link" in your sig. Something as simple as that can make a difference in getting you new members.