Forums getting a lot of unique visitors, but no one is registering?

Last September I started an education forum. Ever since the unique visitors keep on increasing according to awstats.

Sep 1400 unique visitors
Okt 1950 unique visitors
Nov 2600 unique visitors
Dec 450 unique visitors (till December 5th)

My forum gets around 25% of its visitors from search eninges. Around 80% of my visitors are from The Netherlands, (my target audiance)

The problem is that people do no register! I have less than 80 registerd users.
I have made it simple for people to register. They only need to fill in, name, email, age, sex, password.

How can I get my forum more active with registered users?

Site is http://www.mijnopleiding.com or http://www.hbo-services.nl and it is in Dutch.

 

Stupid Lurkers I guess.

They get a cll out from time to time on other boards..

 

I went to the forum in your signature links with the intention of adding to the number of registered users for you but I found I could not read it as I can only understand English. I'd be happy to register to help boost your numbers but I wouldn't be able to post anything!

 

@marvainniven

The site is in Dutch. Thank you for trying to help out.

 

I would say

1.) Maybe people are searching english phrases, finding your site, realising its not english and leaving (Your logs will tell you if this is true)

2.) People tend to go to forums for info...If it isn't an active forum they won't join OR if they find the info they are looking for they will consider job done and leave.


The secret is to give them a reason to join...This will depend on the type of forum and what people are searching for...Again, this can be found in your logs

Related tools that require registration can get the ball rolling in some cases. Just don't require registration to read posts...This rarely works and can only hurt you in the end.

 

if you're really desperate on getting more members, you can lock your forums for public and force them to register if they want to see info on your forums..

 

i'd only suggest this if you're established

 

Thank you for the advise.

All my members from searchengines search in Dutch (my target audiance)

What effect will requiring registeration have on search engine bots? Will they be able to see the pages that are only for registerd users?

 

no, unless you do some mod...which i've never heard of

 

yeah you can most forum software to allow bots to see/index but still require user registration

 

Make sure their is no emtpy categories try to merge threads together if their is. Maybe visit one of them paid to post sites to get it looking lively, more active threads around may cathc the attention of a few non members etc.

 

There is a mod for turning threads into html, this would work for the above configuration, I had a quick look but didn't save it in my bookmarks

 

Thanks everyone. I am going to try te registerd area part (that is still good voor bots)

And I am going to spend some time with friends to make the forum more alive. So more people making more posts.

 

Hi,

I had exactly the same problem as you and I had a look to see if you had the same problem I did.

Can you be objective about your forum and ask yourself (1) how easy it is to figure out how to reply?, and (2) is there is anything worth replying to?

Your Mum can help you with #1, but #2 is something only you can answer.

You can pay someone to kickstart a forum for you, or (and it really sounds lame I know) you can maybe start some debate by working with a friend to create different users and starting, and answering controversial topics yourselves.

To make people join a community, a forum needs some personality and character.

Good luck with it... I know it's ball-breaking work!

Cheers,
Paz.

 

Thanks again for the tips.

Can you check if the forum is online? It seems that I cannot access it, but this could be a local ISP thing.

site is http://www.mijnopleiding.com

Thank you

 

i have left a feedback in the suggestgen section of this site with a problem that i think wasnt good

 

@digitalpoint

Thank you. Now it has been fixed

@madkad
Where did you leave it, because I cannot find it

 

offer some kind of contest or prize for the first registered poster to reach 20 posts