I am about to release a new forum, and since this is my first one I thought I should learn a little. Can anyone give me some tips on making a forum? Some things I need to know are: Good ways to Advertise How many members should I be expecting a week/month? Sections on the site I should have (Off topic VIP etc) Any other tips! One thing I don't need is the board I will be using considering I already decided to use IPB. Thanks in advance, -Dillmando
I have always heard that it is quite difficult to get a forum started. I hope you're passionnate about the main topic of your forum, so that you can create a good feeling, even when there will be very few participants. What will your forum be about?
We came up with a unique topic, and I am extremely excited to start working on it. The forum is about computers, but I wont give away exactly what yet (Thanks saco )
If it's something about computers, then it's already a good thing, because everybody connected to the internet probably has a computer, so it'll be easier to get people interested than if you had a forum on cats or sport cars. You'll be able to promote your forum on DP and on many many geek websites.
Good ways to Advertise Some good ways to advertise are to put your forum link in your signature on other forums. Buy ad space on other sites. Use Google Adwords. Exchange links with other related sites. How many members should I be expecting a week/month? That depends on how much traffic is coming to your site, how your forum is organized, the quality of content on your forum, and many other factors. I get around 400 unique visitors per day, half of which is targeted traffic from Google search, and I can get around 50 registrations per week. On good days I can get 10 new members a day. You should not expect many members to sign up unless you have an active forum and good traffic coming to your site. Sections on the site I should have (Off topic VIP etc) Organize your forums well. Use categories to seperate the forums into sections. I like to have a category called "Central Hub" or "Site Information" that contains all forums relating to the forum itself, such as Rules, Updates, Feedback etc. Then I have categories for my main topic. I usually have Off Topic in the Site Info category.
Links in forum sigs, from blogs, from link directories, from friends, set up a referral program (SMF has a referrals mod, for example). Spread your keywords out, see what generates the most search engine traffic, adjust your site title appropriately, then let that become your site's title until you get #1. That's like asking how many girls you can lay in a month. It depends on your promotional skills, dedication, and, unfortunately, your current support base. If you have a half dozen or so people willing to do promotion, however, it becomes easier. As few as possible. Subsections are for segregating content. You only want to do this if there is some need - you either want to give it extra promotion (like my chat board on Elliquiy) - or it is so intensely active that splitting it out makes the forum itself more readable (like my forum games/socializing board) I'm sorry to hear that. Regular newsletters are critical for getting an active forum through its early stages. Don't discount them. Your mindset for the next six months, is: 1) Promote - build links, get your link out 2) Recruit - bring friends into it 3) Retain - send out newsletters, keep members involved 4) Analyze - check what worked - and what didn't - from steps one to three, and adjust your strategy 5) Repeat - go to step one. Once you have a bit over a hundred people a day using your forum, you have the beginnings of something that is naturally self sustaining if you don't hit yourself with the stupid pill, allowing you to take a break to focus on other projects.
You should read my tips for forum owners. Using IPB for the forum is not a big issue, just the skin of the forum should be easy to the eyes.
Most of the renowned forums have more female moderator than male. As for example v7n. Please don't ask me the reason why? .SR
On my forums, qualified women who help out are three times as common as qualified men who do, despite roughly even gender ratios.