Starting a new forum ... any suggestions?

It will be sports related. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get the ball rolling?

 

I'd start with registering a domain.

 

You think?

Seriously.......

I mean how to grow member ship, effective advertising, etc.

For ad's should I use adwords or affiliate links?

Suggestions?

 

If you find yourself stuck there are companies that you can pay and they will have people make topics and posts to sort of seed things. You could target the local sports community by advertising in the local newspaper sports section.

 

Advertising:

*Article Submission
*Directory Submissions
*Good Keywords and Keyword Promoting

I don't want to give our all the secrets !
I'll just give out 3 for now and most common, lol.

 

Become active on related forums to your domain... hence other sports websites. Don't hesitate to put the link in your signature. Make sure you make it unique - you want something that will grab users and keep them coming back.

 

must have a good content then it will reach success......

 

making a forum is easy task but running a forum is tough challenge.
I should not say this because it not ethical but faking if prime promotion for any forum
users wont join if your forum is empty
users wont post if your forum is not have active participation from other members
so You need to increase FAKE MEMBERS
YOU need increase fake posts
in thousands

and you also need to start with less categories
so that it easy to handle and cost effective.

surf different forums make questions and posts collection
rewrite them and post.

this is very short process it involves much more than that..
you need lots of backlinks(1000's) for each thread...
you need to rank high on different keywords...
and when you have busy look for your forum...then you will automatically have active members
keep your forum a dofollow forum.

hope this helps...

 

These things tend to happen organically. Do you have any friends, family, etc. that can legitimately post in the forum to get the sense of community going?

 

Since it is sports related, another good way to get it up and going is to find a recognizable celebrity to be a part of it.

Consider this, there are lots of retired athletes who could be brought in as a business partner. Have them highlighted on the site and enter the conversation (a lot at first, then regularly). The best part is, they will likely have professional buddies that they can convince to join the discussion.

Once you have that partner, pitch the heck out of it. Do interviews with him and post those interviews all over.

good luck.

Oh, that and you will also want to purchase hosting for your domain too. ;-)

I know, not funny, but considering the other post...

 

First, concentrate on posting quality contents which will give a strong reason for your forum visitors to return later and for your members to stick around.

Second, don't engage in ppc in promoting your forum. Just go for organic SEO.

Third, promote your forum in social networking sites and build a brand/identity.

 

Hi everyone!

Thanks for the interesting tips. I started a forum recently and this will prove useful. I just hope I will be able to run it effectively.

Regards,
DrJale

 

Add good content, as much as you can.
good luck.

 

Open a youtube channel and start posting sports related videos. I think its ESPN sports center? That has something like a round table - the guys talk about the games coming up and who they think is going to win.

You could do the same thing, but be a lot less professional. Kinda like a mans show for men. Invite some of your buddies over, have a bar-b-q, talk about the games, drink some beer, film it all and post it on youtube.

 

I am really liking this idea. It makes it personal and also unique and so it would be a very good way for you to gain traffic to you website.

 

I would go with advertising Sports Betting.
There is no better return than the Gambling Affiliates. Many of them pay a percentage every time someone makes a bet. Many are for the life of the player.
Bodog has a good affiliate program but they can sometimes be hard to get into.

 

I find RSS feeds help sports site grow, sports fans like reading articles.

 

Hi, you have 3 options. If you need one or more quick forums just to save some of your ideas crossing your mind, you can play with a hosted free forum solution such as my third link in signature.
If you want your own, to develop and contribute and do not want to pay, I think you should go with SMF2.0 and find inspiration in other forums, you can even copy/clone their structure manually.
If you prefer ripped content, switch SMF with phpbb3 cause there are content providers out there who for a small fee will populate your forum, just google it.

 

If you're starting a new forum, first thing to consider is to make it unique. One of the questions you should always ask yourself is "Why would someone want to join my forum instead of another large sports forum". Similarly, give members a reason to keep coming back, this will help build an active member base over time.

First things first get yourself set up with (as buffalo said) domain name, paid hosting and your choice of software. Normally people find it's more practical to start on a free software such as phpBB or MyBB, this way if your site doesn't work out all you've lost is the cost of your domain name - your hosting can still be used for other projects. Once the technical aspect is set up you need to choose a skin, make one or pay for a designer to make you one - create branding that will be recognisable on other sites and then go on to creating your user groups, ranks, categories, forums, permissions etc etc...

Before promoting your site it's important to give guests the impression your site is active. If finances aren't a problem I'd suggest hiring some paid posters from DP's Content Creation section. Using paid posters you're likely to get some good discussions going. An alternative to this is asking your friends and family, although by doing this you risk less quality and possibly the chance of them posting and never coming back. In the past I've known paid posters take a real liking to a community and staying on as active members.

Finally once everything is set up and you're happy with it get an outsider's opinion, it's always good to get different opinions - especially from those you don't know. You'll find getting an opinion from someone don't know results in more honest feedback and they'll pick up on things that maybe your friends choose not to tell you about. Once everything is set begin promoting. Generally I've found using AdWords and other advertising programs doesn't work out too well when advertising a forum. My advice would be to start small using sites like promotion forums and free link directories. In addition to that a very effective promotion method for forums is to be an active member on a forum in a similar niche, displaying your site's link and description clearly in youe signature.

One thing to remember is to be patient. No matter how much you try you won't get 1,000 posts and 100 members over night. To run a successful forum you need patience, you must be willing to listen and take on board the opinions of your members and you must be prepared to provide financial backing when needed. Don't rely on revenue from donations and ads.

and with that said...

..I wish you the best of luck