promoting a forum?

need some advice on promoting a forum targeting webmasters. how to market it?

should i buy forum posting or let the forum grow naturally? And my site is webmasterpals.com

 

Before you promote your forum, make sure you already have a lot of contents.

 

Bohol is right, try to get more content because no one would join an empty forum.

 

at first i got around 10 people to post a few posts on my Webamster Forum


but i decided if it was going to be used it would be used naturally so i posted around in other places

your last resort should be paid posters

 

hi my forum is http://www.oamsites.com/


I would like to do 5 post exchange with your site.
means you post 5 post on my forum and I will post 5 post on your forum.

dont forget to make your signature at my forum which has link to your site.
cu soon.

 

you need to kick start your forum with paid posters and by some advertising.
also buy some avatars and signature links from other webmasters forums like dp.

I can do Paid to Post on your forum PM me.
Thanks...

 

Start with your close friends. Your friends will invite other friends. Then your forum will become a hangout zone of all your friends. Then there will be life and vibrancy in your forum.

 

Apply for site affiliations and topsites. Get your site "out there". Refer people from other places you are searching for content you have. And finally get search engine indexed, submit your url to Google, yahoo, etc. Hope this helps, this is how I got my site going.

 

M.IMRAN is pretty correct...

Paid posters, or post exchanges can work wonders to get a forum off the ground, much more so then generated content. Though, if you are going to go with the generated content, maybe pull the feeds from the more popular SEO blogs for discussion. Though, keep in mind you may get hit with duplicate content filters in SERP if all you have is feeds.

Advertising can also pull in new members and get the word out. Buying avatars, locations, and sig links can all help out, if you are buying them on the major webmaster forums like here at Digital Point.

One thing you could possibly do, if you can afford it, seek out some older related forums that are no longer maintained and buy them out. If you can get redirects to your forum, then any lingering members may just stick around. it'll also help to clear up some of the competition for this niche.

Installing rev sharing can also push things forward. Many people are willing to do it for the pennies that Adsense can generate *boggle* If you can beat out the 50/50 split that DP offers, you may even pull in some of the members here based on nothing but that... If you gave 75% of the hits from rev sharing, that'll be a perk that'll pull in many posters...

You could then buy sigs here that say something like...

And I bet you'll find many people at least checking it out. Though, if you do that, and do not plan on leaving it at such a high ratio, it would be best to add that to the instructions or faq on the matter.

 

This can help every Forum Owner : http://forumpostexchange.com/

.

 

My forum is TEXASTAKEOVER.COM

All I did was tell other people in different forums, and they have been telling people, I have a lil over 40 members, and they are all active, my goal is to make it the biggest forum for Texas Rap, and its looking like im on my way!


Edit: and No, I do not use post exchange, I started from scratch!

 

Webmaster forums will be very difficult to promote since most webmasters won't join unless they think theres a lot of useful information. Get some friends to post daily. Purchase some banner spots and include a link in your signature at other webmaster forums.

 

If you want to get your forum going it would be really better to play things the natural way and let it propel itself. However, you could lure some new users by adding some simple rules that will serve as a bait. You could like give certain privileges or rewards to your users when they reach a specific post count. Make a scale, from this count to this count you have these abilities within the forum and so on. It could be seen as a Rpg game where you build your character (user) and amass experience which allows you to do certain things and improve your knowledge.

 

Revenue Sharing can promote quality posts as well. Though it should be accented with rules about quality over quantity of you'll find that many people will just start posting garbage.

It should be important to note that rev sharing only really works on webmaster related forums. My forum has 600+ members and I'd reckon that 98% of them do not have a webpage, and of those that do, most do not have adsense or something related.

 

i got a new forum im gonna start pushing soon although there is zero content and users on there at the moment, but its a backburner project that will get some attention soon http://costaluzinfo.com/forum

any tips on SEO for forum?

 

If you have good thread, sections, Posts etc in you r forum. More members like to stay in your forum.