hi all, i just recently started an insurance discussion site. can you please give review? http://www.insuranceforum1.com
I'm not big on insurance so I can't say how competitive forums are for that industry, but I do know this about forums. You need to control the number of forums or categories when you first start out. Otherwise they will be to spread out, and appear not busy. No reason to create a ghost forum day one. I would get ride of more than half those categories.
In a design aspect it looks pretty bland. Needs some more color than the default blue, some images or something other than just text. Content wise I'd try and broaden your groups first, then create subforums, rather than having multiple main threads. Start with your main insurances : Vehicle, Life, Health. Then go from there.
Ahh...Made for adsense site. I would then move the footer ad up to the header so people can actually see it then. Also, make sure to keep posting stuff into it, to make the site "Appear alive".
clifftan, got any ideas for sub sections in the forums? "Ahh...Made for adsense site. I would then move the footer ad up to the header so people can actually see it then. " Why would I do that? Its far less intrusive on the bottom of the page.
If you don't move it where visitors can see it, why have it. I think you need to do some visitor monitoring. Get a few test subjects and watch how they use your site. Most don't get that far down. I'm a usability guy, and understand not wanting an ad to be intrusive, but if you plan is to make money from ads it's pointless. You would be better off not having them, and getting the page to load faster.
good points... too many ads = less users too little ads = less money I am not concerned with the money aspect right now, I would rather build a large community