I have created a forum page for Web Technologies like Website Design, Website Development, Search Marketing, Social Media Optimization Marketing... If anyone have suggestions to make my forum popular please go a head http://www.winwebsolutionz.com/forum
You can get great ideas for your forum's topics by looking at the digital point forum. It covers all important aspects and everything in between. Create at least 10 more categories, ask your friends to start participating in it and then after a couple of weeks have a grand opening invitation to everyone on this and other forums. And the last but not the least, you have to come up with your own logo, instead of the phpBB one. Good luck!!
Offer something unique that people can't get anywhere else. For us, we had a large member base before we opened the forum from our keyword tracker tool: http://tools.digitalpoint.com/tracker.php The forum was started as a support forum for our existing users. If you do not have something unique that users want that they can't get somewhere else, you will have a hard time competing with the large already established forums. Why would a user go to your forum if they can get everything you offer (and more) from somewhere else? The best way to judge it would just be to ask people you know... "Would you want to use this site? If not, why not?"
You could not have picked a more competitive niche! See here: http://www.theforumfinder.org/computers/internet/web-design/ ... there is probably >500 forums listed under web design, SEO etc