My forum is http://www.exotic-pets.eu/forum/ its quite nichey and I enjoy running it. I run it because I think it could be a good resource and there is a need for a good reptile forum. I'm having problems attracting visitors though. I have a few reptile classifieds websites which I put adverts on once weekly but I am lucky if I get 1 or 2 people signing up from them. I'm really not sure how else to attract people to it, anybody got any other ideas? I did try advertising on ebay, using my keywords as the auction title and that produced suprising results, until ebay found it and removed it By the way, that sticking up log in box goes away and it looks smooth again after you've logged in but I haven't found a way of fixing it for those not logged in.
Regular activity on a new forum is imperative as it attracts the attention of visitors to your forum and may even prompt them to join. So you as a forum admin need to contribute with quality posts and threads and ask your friends to join and contribute to make the place look busy. And most important, have patience as getting a forum off the ground does take a lot of time and effort.
You may want to offer forums to niche sites specialized in a specific animal that don't have one of their own. For example, you may want to offer the "Amphibians" forum to a quality site about amphibians that doesn't have one. You'll just add a short "In partnership with site X" in the description of said forum including a link to site X there and you'll get a link to your forum in his menu. I've seen this work for a couple of forums in other niches. I've used it myself with a decent amount of success. Good luck.
1. Pass out flyers to your local pet stores. A lot of pet stores have places to put your flyers for customers to grab on the way out. 2. Run a contest. The winner get a $xx gift card for petsmart.com Just be creative. You have a nice site and a strong niche. Now go where this group hangs out...online & off!
Idea one seems like a good one, I never really thought about it to be honest. Once I've got some funds sorted I'll have to print some flyers out. Do shops usually charge you to put your leaflets out? Idea two is good as well, one I intend to run once there are a few more members (so its more of a competition rather than just a few active users walking it). Thanks for the ideas guys.
Can you explain further what a press release is please? I've heard them mentioned but I've never really known what they are.
contests, paid posters, post exchange etc are all that one do for forums. Since your site is very niche its going to take some time but I believe you would get some loyal members in the end (then again hardly any "member" clicks on the ads ) have patience, forums are not easy business!
sign up yourself again under different names. post to boost trafic. the more posts you have the more chances it will catch someones eye when they visit the site and they will want to sign up. (i did this but i made sure that the different alias i had talked different) also put your link in signatures (this gets some traffic) you can also do spam tactics on other pet forums by saying o i just found this site and im a member (at your site) but they will probably ban you.contests work great and get people to join. things will pick up. dont worry my site was real slow at first thought it was going to fail but it got past that break or fail period and now we almost have 400 members. good luck
Search the web for other forums that are similar to your own, then go in a join them to try to promote a link exchange.