I have a new site featured in my signature and I am looking for some tips on getting the forum to grow in size and activity. Anyone have a forum or suggestions for me?
Keep it active and fun. Advertise using adwords. Post topical news and wait. Building a forum takes time.
Adwords aint in the budget so I used the skills I have and that is SEO. I am currently showing well in MSN and just waiting for the sandbox to be gone so I will show in Google.
Go to TheAdminZone and request a forum raid - you'll at least look active, which encourages new visitors to register.
get your friends together and start posting. if you're able to keep the forum active for a month or so, and also get new visitors they'll be sure to join the discussions.
You should also fix the link in your sig...just gives a 404 __________________ Health Forum | Submit your site - No Recip Needed | Get Your Site Ranked Quick - Coop Network
Your nick reminded me of an ancient resource: Bob Allison's Webmaster Page. Referencing this is probably showing my age but I'm both proud and surprised that I've made it so far BTW boba, we have the same birthday. Have you ever met anyone who was born on 10-17-80? I've met one person who was born 10-17-56. Weird.
It takes a lot of time which is why I bought one that had been neglected, it had 180 members when I bought it but it was a good base ...PR2 but it had been 5 in the past......cost $300.00 including a vBulletin license.... Find something to pull people in...put in a members only section then place a tool or some special content in there that people want. I did this and since the 1st of February my membership has grown to 260 and there are people constantly on the forum, often matches Digital points traffic.....although not a lot posting but the traffic is there and I haven't really got started SEOing it yet.....will place it in the coop network this weekend.
Don't feel bad..... I am a member at AdminZone.... I don't know what the heck it is either..... I have to go and check it out....
I would also invite you to www.vbwebmaster.com At VB Webmaster you can learn and discuss how to build, optimize, promote, customize, manage and profit from your Vbulletin forum.
lol don't worry about mate. I have the same problem as well. I started to post question and post answers to my self lol. After all I've done for this community(?), they left me alone snif
Thanks for all the suggestions. I will have to check out adminzone. Please if your an aquarist or a scuba diver, check out my site.
I have the same problem, need to populate the forums!! (and the site) Looks like Google Adwords is the way to do it
I don't even use adwords on my real estate forum right now, but I might eventually on one of my sub sites
Post exchange is one of more effective ways to get your forum up and running. In order to do that ... 1. One on one post exchange. 2. Join this post exchange group <http://www.theforumzone.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=18> 3. Join this post exchange group <http://www.aardvarkinternet.net/chat/index.php?c=3> (Sorry, I'm not allowed to make links yet ...)
You have too many categories. It looks bad when they're all empty. Condense them into two/three, and then expand later when you have enough threads to spread them out. How about some kind of contest? Giveaways? I've found this is a surefire way to get people to register. On my site, they have to register to enter the contest, which encourages them to engage in the other threads now that they've already gone and registered. I've found that getting them to register is the hard part.
Oh, another idea. Free text link ad in exchange for a certain number of posts. Here are some examples: http://www.greatnexus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=648 http://www.seo-forums.com/about33.html http://forum.ohcnetwork.com/about343.html