Hi, I run a new up and coming website / community / message board for the game World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade, and in the past few days I've had a healthy boom of visitors, around 2,000 unique hits in 4-5 days! And not to mention google has been crawling the crap out of my site... anyways Out of these 2,000 or so unique hits, only 4 people registered.. should this be expected or how would you suggest I increase my registration rate? thanks!
Well out of 2000 uniques only 4 are interested in your site! Meaning 1996 are not targetted visitors.
Increase the value of your content by giving the registrants something to stay there for awhile and keep informed by what you have to offer.
No, some people are interested, i can tell.. because they read like every page of my site, or at least the 6 or 7 more popular pages.. but they just seem to have no incentive to register.. they just come, abuse me and leave! lol! I am making sure to add content every day because google is spidering my site so much.. but I think it is because I took over a keyword I didn't even intend to X_X. SFOD, I'm thinking of running a contest, what do you think?
If you are using vbulletin software then there is a option where you can restrict users to view thread contents but they can see topic of the thread. That make them interested to signup. Many adult forum use this method to get force signups. You can try this.
make registration page as small as possible . Allow anonymous posts , and highlight the registration button and , request peoples to register .... one reason of not registrating is you may have empty forum .create some posts yourself .. i think it may improve .
Run a contest, give away prizes, encourage postwhoring, keep the content flowing, remind people to bookmark your site, get their email addresses (promote a newsletter or gimmick or something), and provide something on the site that registered members get that anonymous visitors don't. Just a couple thoughts. Cheers,
You want to make the visitors think they're missing out by not registering. Connect registration with a newsletter like DaveAPN suggests, mention registration on the front page to unlock certain features. Keep the content unique and flowing. Good luck.
It's easy, you just have to offer your visitors something worth having in exchange. What that is will depend on who your visitors are, and what sort of things will tempt them. As they are gamers then you could offer a free draw to win a bundle of games every so often, or other peripherals that they can use.
No, contests or give aways don't work. You really just have to let it happen naturally. If someone is interested in registering, then they will. Just make it required to register to post. Explain that there are "private" forums only for registered members. This is always a good natural incentive. The ability to participate in events or whatever you may do. Just get the user to feel involved with the community, and they WILL register. You also have to target your audience pretty well, otherwise there's just no point.
Precisely! I think I'm like the vast majority. We are on the internet pursuing our interests, not those of the website's webmaster. So to induce a visitor to register, there has to be something of value offered. Otherwise, most will skip the registration hassle. And, by the way, in this security-conscious era we live in, those who request birthdates and such personal data will get virtually zero registrations (I'm not saying you are doing this; just a general comment).
I don't agree. Whilst this may be true for a lot of topics and demographics out there, there are definitely a lot of people who will sign up to something just for the chance of winning some goodies. What a webmaster has to figure out is whether or not this approach will attract the right sort of people to register on a forum. Every community needs something to kickstart it. Competitions may be just the right approach in the beginning, when users and posts are low. It's only later on, when posts reach a critical mass, that you will find more people signing up out of pure interest.
competitions won't jumpstart a community for one reason, there's not enough activity for it to be worth while in the beginning. For a competition to truly work, it has to be an expensive one, that is also marketed through paid advertising, to a market that will convert. Not every webmaster has the money to do this. Otherwise without that approach, it will be a failure and a loss of money. That is unless you consider about 5 to 50 members a success, that will probably never post again after the competition is over.
write information articles which wanted answer. This is best way. When the targeted visitor comes your site they will need to join your site. Regards
Offer em' free strategies upon registration and double optin. Then email them a new strategy or news every month to remind them that your site is still around. Or offer a section of the forum that only registered users can see that would have important stuff.
There are so many great ideas here to start at. As you have probably seen, the registration count has gone up. So get em to post and you will be on your way. Happy Hunting!!