Please could you give me some tips on how to get some forum sign-ups. I dont really want to spend any money on advertising. The link at the moment is http://webring2.com/5/webspeak/index.php The link will be changed to www.web-speak.info when the changes are accepted. If any of you guys could sign up and post a few threads that would be awesome, thankyou very much!
You need to give them a reason for registering. With your forum you could make some competitions and making some fake posts. P.S whats all this about?
Yes you need to make lots of quality fake posts that will pull people in through search engines. Go to other forums and invite posters over pm, offer to make them moderators.
Trying to steal members from another board by PM is a good way to make enemies. Forums are communities. Faking a community never works. The proper way to develop a forum is to post interesting content and emphasize the registration process. What is web speak? Why would I join it over any other forum? Why would I come back, read, refer and participate? I cannot emphasize the community aspect enough. If you just want interest from the search engines, get an RSS aggregator for Wordpress. Forums from scratch are not a good money making idea.
Perhaps the suggestion is that ads are a turnoff, and shouldn't be placed until the forum hits a certain membership size.
Fake posting is a Big trick to make your forum famous, I always see on all the famous forums the admin got the highest post count. also you can offer pay per post some limited time or offer reward for good posts
Well, it isnt illegal but as said above it would bring enermies. Maybe enermies who want o take your site down. Just do it nice and the good mans way
Try marketing on a site where people aren't already hooked. Why would someone here use your site? It has no traffic or users. Promote elsewhere and build an audience.
Yes some insecure forum owners will get pissed when you invite their members. Keep it to a minimum and hope they dont read your personal messages. I dont agree with your opinions of faking a community. If you are creative enough then you can be successful at it. I do like your advice on creating content that emphasizes registration. Using a couple differnent usernames while doing this can make your forum look a little more active though, Im not saying you should talk to yourself all day. Private invites and using fake accounts is how I got my forum going. Others will join in on the fake account fun and make the forum look even more active.