Okay I need some help and advice. I have this competition thing going on with my brother, I told him that I wanted to create a webmaster forum and he just laughed at me and said I have no hope and I might as well not bother. But I am dedicated and hard working and I am putting a lot of effort into it. But I need help, what are the best marketing methods for this? How can I drive good traffic to my forum? I am a real noob at this so I am looking for some help and advice, firstly because I want to succeed at this and secondly id love to prove him wrong too. Any help and advice is greatly received.
To the date - free tutorials ( this doesn't include "how to center text" ), e-books, contests, etc. You need to attract visitors .. If you will create a plain forum with a few categories - forget about it !
I was a little apprehensive when creating categories, I didn't want to create to many, but I did want to have enough for it not too look empty. I think I have the balance right for that at least.
Why would you have this competition with your bro when you are a noob? A websmaster forum...what do you know? Just another person thinking they can conquer internet marketing with no knowledge or experience. Don't mean to sound cruel, but let's be realistic. Jim
Sorry I did not explain myself very well. I am a noob to forums, I am not a noob to Webmastering in general. I have never had to run a forum before and that's why I was asking for help driving traffic to them and whats the best approach. If it was another site I would not have asked.
Oh, okay. Now I understand. BTW...effective communication is very important. Provided you start this webmaster forum, what do you know about leading a webmaster forum...because that, in the long run, will determine your traffic. I think you are putting the cart before the horse. All the traffic in the world will not make a successful forum if you don't know how to run it. Jim
To be as blunt and gentle as possible. It is not your best move if you want to have a life outside of the forum. First, you need a bunch of money in your budget to even have a shot. Second, you need to spend hours a day posting and overseeing the forum. Third, even if you fill the forum, the amount of money you make may not even cover your expenses. I have seen guys with tons of forum experience try to compete and fail. If you still want to do, first you need to hire some forum posters to fill up the forum a bit. Don't use a crappy script. Go for vBulletin or another high quality script. Be prepared to spend a lot of time both marketing in other forums and advertising any chance you get. I have a close friend who has had a webmaster forum for a few years and have lost quite a bit of money. Be prepared to lose money for at least the first year. If you do not have the money to lose, do not waste your money or time. When the time comes, you will need moderators to help control the forum. Be careful who they are. Moderators can do more damage than good if they are a wrong fit. I see it quite often. If you are lucky and one of the few who succeed, you could make a nice bit of money in a few years. This is not easy or cheap and not for the weak at heart. You have to be there to change and adjust things to improve the forum and create new opportunities to make profit. If i have not scared you off, good luck and post when you get it up and you may get a few people from DP but they will need a real reason to stay.
So any how... Search engine marketing. Find the keywords and build your forum and marketing campaign around that. Ignore any one who doubts you.
ONE: Find interesting, funny, weird, money-making or inspiring subjects to write about. And then advertise them! Like a reporter, go out and find related stuff out there that you can post on your board. There is a lot of good stuff out there on other boards, content sites, your local newspaper, your monthly magazine, TV, radio.... How about this thread a blogger noob started… http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=518730. You can talk about his success. It is a small one, but it is still a success. Find some really good stories to advertise. Such as: AD: "Local girl quits high school to do her Internet full time. Was she stupid to do this? Would you quit school if you made a lot of money?†If you can afford it, advertise them in newspapers, and, other sources outside the Net. Also, spread it to all the networking sites out there. Talk about successful people, advertise it, and soon you will be too. Wherever you go, keep a pad and pen with you, in case you hear of a good piece to write about. THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX! TWO: To get word of mouth going, put small "send to a friend" form either off to the side or put it in between the posts in a thread. Put it right in front of their face! Make it easy for them! A lot of people are lazy. But don’t over do it! Save the forms for only the real good threads. THREE: You could put in a small how-to article or an Internet success story in your paper, and tell them that there will be a new one every week. After awhile the paper may give you a feature story. Once you have more money, repeat it in other newspapers. Have a weekly column. If you are successful enough at it, the paper might give you the spot for free, providing you keep submitting good stuff. FOUR: Did you get your site critiqued? Did you ask them if this is the kind of site that they would come back, time after time??? FIVE: Get an account going in sites like MySpace, and put sort of a duplicate of your blog, message board in there. Get people talking about it over there also. Then bring them all over to your real blog, message board. SIX: Invite your present visitors to submit a piece of their own, start a thread of their own. Many times that's all it takes. Give them a push to submit something. Get them involved! SEVEN: This is a biggie.... Put aside at least one hour every day to contact members of message boards out there. Tell them that you like their comments, butter them up, and tell them that you have a discussion going on over in your board, and you would "value" their opinion. Do this enough times, one hour a day, and keep at it, and you should, SHOULD have a good list of posters who will come back, time after time. Make the thread a good one, a hot topic that really gets people talking. You've seen such threads. Start several over time under different usernames. Advertise the threads, not JUST the board. Talk about it in social networks. Create articles derived from that and submit them.... EIGHT: Go to big-boards.com to see some of the largest boards out there. Now, one at a time, send each one an e-mail asking how they did it. Yes, practically all won't reply back, obviously, but a few here and there will be enough to give you what you need to know. Most of them advertised. That is how they got to be so huge. You can have a dead site on, say, sports, but if you ask for help from a board owner who has thousands coming in every day and it is on, say, video games, the odds are better that he will help you out. Devote another hour each day sending those e-mails out. NINE: Start threads asking for help, advice. Don't just say, "comments, anyone?" This will get you more posts. If you can get many of them to post at least one time, that will be a jumpstart for you. And they will then be more likely to post again, which, in turn, will have others wanting to join in with their help. Get the posts and threads breeding like rabbits this way. On a side note: Do NOT force your visitors to have to sign up so they can read the rest of a thread or your board! In fact, in the beginning you should make it easy for them. Don't have them sign up at all. Once they get into the grove of things, THEN have them sign up. Give them, say, 30 days of posting without having to sign up. Even help them sign up. Go as far as suggesting a really cool username and avatar they can use. This is how the webmasters of super boards got to be so big. Do all of this, and give it time. Say, over a year, if not longer. What Does NOT Work I have heard of two of the most ridiculous ways to get a message board and blog going. The following will not only waste your time, but your money! ONE: Contests Talk about a waste of money. There are too many moochers who will take it and not come back, while all the others who also came in will rarely post, if at all, and then they will leave soon after. GOOD threads and posts is what brings people in, and it is what keep them coming back, time after time! TWO: Paying people to post Jesus, you talk about stupid advice. Your goal is to have quality threads and posts in your board. Not mediocre stuff from some slug who will throw just anything out there so he can get his few cents. And isn’t your goal to make money from your blog and or message board? More of your money will be going out paying these unenthusiastic posters who could care less what they post than what will be coming in from your ads. And remember, if others read boring threads and posts that are just thrown out there, you think that will help your blog or board any? If you are an avid reader of message boards, you have read about this method, time after time. Like a mindless parrot, they repeat this over and over again, not really knowing for sure if it works. They have heard this from others posters, so, naturally, they think it works. And so on and so on…. It’s just bad advice repeated time after time after time. Then you have actual message board owners who say that they have used it, and that it works. You want to have some fun? Do like I do. Ask them for their url to their board. They more than likely will not reply back. My bet is that their board is VERY slow, or almost dead.
First at all, you shall provide some informative / helpful post at your forum. Then only talk about marketing and promoting. You might get member from your social network, use forum and social bookmarking to promote and maybe youtube video is another good choice. Anyway, always work on the content first
Have good content at your forum. Hire a few posters and pay them a decent sum for decent posts. Offer a referral competition with an attractive prize. Then just let organic traffic pick up. You can also try a bit of banner advertising.
I have been recommended vBulletin so I went for this. I agree with the points you have raised and I will take what you have said on board and learn from it. Thank you for the encouraging advice Thank you for all your help and advice, Its appreciated. And thank you to everyone else who has posted with help and advice. I am now on my long journey to creating a successful forum. If you want to take a look and keep up with my journey you can see the forum at digitalwebforums.com