Advertising a forum

I have had forums in the past, and have had a pretty big following. This was about 5 years ago. I took an extended break from the online/webmastering game, and now I thought since i have time, and money, I would give it another shot.
For other forum owners, what has been the best way to bring members to your forum? Mine is a general talk forum, so basically the targeted audience is anyone who enjoys posting on forums.
What are some ideas I should use to bring more members to my forums?

 

Well, I'm not really the owner of the forum, but my friend is. He's an owner of quite popular talk forum in my country. So.. sure it is difficult to find good audience and proper members. First of all facebook is a good choice for advertising. My friend created a page in facebook and invited people here. It really helped. You can also advert your forum sites in similar websites or other forums.

 

My suggestion is to do advertising on different forums as well as marketing. Quality Backlinks of that forum. Create good and perfect articles for your forums. Post ads on classified ad posting sites.

 

Thank you very much. I am going to be making a facebook page for it.

 

It really depends what category your forum site falls under. For different topics there will be different ways to bring in members. By general talk do you mean members can talk about anything? Are there different categories to your forum?

Do advertising on different forums (in the same category) and create a buzz - One method thats worked well for some of my friends (although I have no personal experience with this) in the past is getting quality press releases written and distributed. One site they have recommended is: pr-writers.net - look around for similar sites like that and go with one you think is good. Make sure they offer a high standard of writing and distribute to high PR sites and good sites.
One thing I would advise you to stay away from is cheap article writers from forums/fiverr who offer bog-standard articles for pennies. ALthough they are very cheap, the quality of their writing is absolutely terrible (spelling mistakes, poor grammar and poor sentence structure), and many of them even resort to simply rewriting existing content. Find a company that offers 100% unique content, and has a good distribution network - trust me, its worth paying extra.

One thing that will make your forum better is getting rid spam users/posts who are just looking to post a link to get a backlink/traffic. Crack down on spam posts straight away - your users will value the site for that. One of the main reasons I left Warrior forums and the likes was because of the ridiculous amounts of spam users/comments (although I must admit, warrior forums have recently cut this down a lot - by making users pay and other methods).

 

Why not to have a specific forum or maybe a couple specific forums and target people who are already interested in this or that as opposed to a general talk forum? A Videogaming / Wii / Playstation, etc. forum will probably get your more comments / traffic than a general discussion forum would. Just my two cents.

 

Exchange link from other forum. This usually work while most of forum members not only active in one forum.
They will keep post and looking for other forum to find out interesting topic and find solution.

Build your PR high and make your signature do follow , then it will came with lot of traffic happy to be your members as they want to get backlink from your site.

Owner need to be more integrate with members so you will know what they wish to see and not want to see in your forum.

 

I would stay away from making do-follow, that gives spam users an opportunity!

 

You can use article submission to yout targeted niches and forum helping.

 

It has to be done SEO.. So work on SEO..

 

The best way I see is join promotion forums and use their platform to drive some members to your forums...now also remember that on promotion forums u will mostly see onlyforum forum owners so they may not stay on ur forums for too long...so ull only have them for exchanges etc...it may help u could try it out!!

 

Post quality contents on forums like digital point and the admin zone forum and have signature linked to your forum. This will get your traffic moving + add facebook share button and other social networks would also be plus point. Other then this make sure you have your forum updated regularly with quality contents as users wont sign up to a forum with no contents. Good luck

 

Traffic and back links are what you need.

 

Social networking is the new way to promote things online. Since almost everyone that is active online has Facebook, Twitter, or Google+, you can reach a vast amount of people and get them to your forum.

SEO is also important and can give your forum targeted traffic that will be more likely to register and be active. Content is obviously the #1 priority there.

Make your forum attractive and unique. First impressions are everything with a forum. If your forum looks boring, with a default theme and unprofessional logo, they are going to be gone. A unique and inviting theme will keep them there and hopefully looking around your content.

Finally, there are ways you can attract people to register and post. I prefer contests. People love free stuff. Hosting a contest for electronics is a great way to get people to register and post. For example, the person with the most posts in 2 weeks wins a prize. (If you want to be really sneaky and save $$$, make the winner of your contest a fake member)