How

How can i get my free forum to have lots of activity for free from search engines. Anyone know how

 

Easy one...You Cant

 

free forum. free traffic, free hosting, free sutff sounds like joke of the day

But anyway, you shoud start by hiring some posters, because nobody will start posting if the forum is empty. You need to make them talk somehow... on some already opened threads.
Also, you need SEO.
You also need a niche.. you cannot start a general forum ... it is boring and I don't think you will have the same results with it.

But from the moment you should start submitting to directories

 

The main thing you will need is content, and unless you create hundreds of threads, members, and posts your self. Your going to have to pay in some way. Weather it be posting contests or paid posters, inorder to get the content, you will have to pay.

 

No different than you go about getting traffic to any site, I reckon'

 

Threads in your forum will be indexed by the search engines, so try to add quality posts. Forums are not easy to get going, so be prepared to hang with it for the long haul.

Good luck

 

Thanks for all your tips!

 

Even if you write hundreds of posts, it won't work. Running a forum is such hard work and very difficult to monetise. You'll end up having conversations with yourself, more time will be wasted making posts at other forums trying to promote it, you'll get bored after 1 year and then quit.

Trust me I've been there, and so have many others here and on the web.

The only way to make this work, is to start a niche forum, but make it part of an already highly popular site, then I suppose it has a chance, but it's very tough and you need to know this. But if you're going to try this then the following may help:

Go for a niche forum
SEO all forum pages
Get lots of links
Get Moderators early on

Things you will find out:

Hardly anyone will join a new forum - seriously!
You will get loads of spam eg: porn, gambling, more porn and PORN
The few members you get will not post often
You'll get spam/duplicate members joining to drop their url - and never post
The moderation is hell to do properly
People will take advantage of your forum
You will forever be banning people - they will never quit re-joining every day!
People will join just to give you work!
You'll get spammed with links, webcode and images
The rest you will find out in time

Webmaster tip: Never start a forum on your own - the work is hellish.

 

add some kind of useful tutorials to your forum depending on the niche and make sure they get well indexed in the search engines.Submit them to some other sites and try to make them viral.that will give you a huge boost and it will increase the activity on your forum.

 

Viral campaigns is what google will ban next

 

Forums are good if you can get hold of your target audience offline. Otherwise forget it as they are only good for support and babble. Good advice EK.

 

I personally think that forums are good if they provide good question and good answers. And not always that should be a crowded place...

 

There is some software that can auto generate content for forums which might encourage activity. I recall someone telling me directory-owners.com use it to make posts when it was quiet.

 

This cannot be achieved instantly, only in time, as the forums popularity grows and interested and dedicated ppl join it. Why did you joined dp ?

 

PAtience is the key to this, and unless you develop it, you might as well quit.