How can I market this forum

Hi all.

I try to bring more people to this forum and I wonder how could I market it? because it has low volume people don't want to join. But if they don't join it can't move forward...

I don't want to use fake messages

 

Most professional or high end bloggers know the types of software out there, including forum software. To present a professional "look", you should at least customize the theme of your forum, and I highly recommend you stop using that free forum software.

phpbb is ok, but it does not say "I am serious about this project". What it does say - "I'am trying to get off as cheap as possible." Regardless of how much traffic you drive to your site, there are some people that will not register because you are using phpbb.

The way "I" would promote your site, I would open a youtube or a facebook account and start posting videos about blogging. With facebook you can post videos and articles. You could do interviews with other bloggers and discuss topics, problems, making money,,, and other issues that bloggers face.

I personally used some free forum software for a long time. After a year of trying to promote the site, I switch forum software and bought VBulletin. But then again I as serious about my project. It was something that I was willing to dedicate several years to building.

 

I would say you can market your blog by making it rank good on Google.com for the keywords on which the forum is based. Make sure the keywords are of high search volumes or you can invest money and advertise it through blogs(I have one, see in my siggi), adwords etc.

You can also start contest which will help increase the readership of that forum like referral contest or top poster of the month.

Also I looked at you forum and I think you need an unique theme. That theme which you are using is a basic theme and people will think it's just another forum.

 

IMO the design and content is very important before someone is willing to spend time to register an account at your forum,
anyway i can find nothing...

 

Quality and informative post is the key to attract member join and post. You need to input more informative content, then only marketing it with PPC

 

you need to advertise your websites on major websites then you will get traffic, try google adwords.

 

Promote it the same way you would with any site. You will start to build some followers if you can get it ranking in the SE's

 

Forums are one of the hardest sites to promote so before you jumped into its bandwagon, I hope you already knew the consequences... And how could you expect people to join in such a crappy empty forum with a free phpbb script? Not to bully you but I'm just frank...y ou are wasting your domain... VBulletin script will do and let me know if you need assistance..

 

Hey, you might want to look at one of my related blogs.
Link: http://pagerankandalexa.com/content/ways-get-forum-traff

 

You really need to have a large following to get a forum up and running. An empty forum is a bad thing to display on a website or blog.

Create a following to your blog first and then introduce your forum idea to your followers.

 

Promote the forum on other forums. Offer contests for referrals.

Write lots of posts yourself to the forum

 

Hi,

I agree with the posts. In my experience you need to offer more. I have tried to get a forum going, it takes time and effort. Why do you want this forum if I may ask, what is it getting you?

If I were you I would change the look, try to partner with someone in that niche and offer incentives to join.

As you may know most of those taking up spread betting are male, young to middle aged looking to make alot of money: your forum does not look like it attracts that type,

dave

 

twitter is good for u

 

I have a better way. Use software that is compatible with USENET, and start a feed through USENET to your forum. You will have topics and people texting each other immediately. It will make your site look busy when it really isn't at the present time.

 

Promote on social media such as facebook, myspace and twitter.

 

Pay some good writers to start popular topics. Invite some trolls. And advertise.

 

I'd take it off the .co.uk, and then use some good software like vBulletin.. commission a custom vBulletin skin, then I would start a paid advertising campaign, and add adverts to the site.

 

I really don't think VBulletin is some sort of magic pill that will immediately bring in a million new guys to your website. Well, any forum looks bland and empty to start with. I am really impatient guy myself and realized forum was not for me. But when I did own a forum, this is what I did and I was beginning to see some traction.

The website was education related - an offshoot for MBA discussions. I used a free forum script (something like PHPBB; whatever, the target audience did not know the difference)

The first week, I wrote valuable threads - something like 'How to..', 'Why choose MBA', etc. You can call them part blog. Nobody was going to post in immediately, but I created all these articles from teh admin account itself.

Meanwhile, there are some websites that offer cross-forum posting. At any point, there are lots of new forum owners. So, basically you guys cross post, so each of your forums looks like there is some activity. So, I started getting new threads from these guys, but it was not very value adding, because I presume they didnt have much idea about MBA

There was one very famous MBA forum where I was a regular. I started posting there with signature not to my home page, but to one of those blog-kind article pages. So, people started visiting them..still not too many new members..

Then a week or so later, I started posting some kind of controversial threads, something where everyone would like to take sides and talk. For example, 'Should the educational visas for Asians be cut in American MBA universities', and start off with an aggressive argument.Even if one two people write back, every other visitor would want to join and put his point.

At this point, I stopped the website..But the other new forum guys who started with me, kept moving on and in a year or so, their websites looked nice with lots of content. You have to keep writing to the old members asking them to come back..

 

You'll need content. You can also pay forum posters to create the content for you. I don't believe it is that expensive to hire out.

 

Hi and thanks all for the advices.

I know the website and the forum needs better design and I am working on it now.
But I don't agree that phpbb is bad. In fact is one of the best free software out there. Why wordpress is good and phpbb is not? I am using it on my very popular F1 website (Hebrew) and no one complain!

Xoox thanks for sharing you experience!