I run a small but active NFL football forum. It's been up for about 4 years and the same people who signed up when it started, have remained loyal members. This small but very knowledgable group is responsible for about 120,000 posts. My problem is I cannot seem to get any new members to sign up and become active in the community. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on how to promote the forums? Thanks in advance.
Considering the forum has been running for about 4 years i would assume search engine traffic would be quite high and you would have some high ranked results for relevant keywords especially with having 120,000 posts. Could i ask if the problem is bringing in more traffic or changing traffic in to members? By this i mean do you get the traffic, just that they do not register or are you having difficulties bringing in the traffic?
Might be a bit of both. Traffic has never been that high but those that do visit, very few actually join. Here is a snap shot of traffic since I moved to a new server:
So what you want is twofold, more traffic with higher motivation to join your site. I've got a couple of suggestions, one that you do some promotional work on the site, hold a contest of some kind, that brings about some desired product, like an Ipod mini or nano or event tix or something that your members would find desirable, in return for doing either free SEO work, signing up 3 friends to the site for an entry for the prize, or like that. Two is that you spend some time on your promotion within your niche... hang out on sports sites that you like and talk about your favorite thing, sports. add a sig line that drives some extra traffic. Give me a shout if you want some other help.
Kevin, One thing you could do is hang out in forums that are similar. Since members there are interested in similar things chances are high you would get new members almost regularly. Contests work for me; you could try that as well.
I tried that today, I bought $5 worth of credit to see how it is, and I got 100 visitors in about 20 mins. It was the most traffic I ever had on my new forum. But none of those visitors signed up or made even 1 post. I think most of them left as soon as they saw it, I will certainly try again once I redesign my forum.
Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I started a contest a couple days ago for signups. I will give stumbleupon a try and also look at some other forums to hang out on.
The other thing to think of is that looking at your site, although it it designed well and set up perfectly fine, from the eyes of someone who has never been on a forum before there isn't anything that really explains how/why to sign up (at least not that I could see from my brief look) Might be worth considering making it more visible in order to convert higher.
I think the best way to promote your own forum is through other forums as well. And also the categories must really be something interesting plus the fact that it should have other topics besides NFL..
janine - We do have other topics and they are actually quite popular, including an "Open Forum", a very active Political forum, an Entertainment forum which is popular and discusses movies, tv, music, etc. Wattsy - Good point, sometimes when you have been participating in forums for 20 years, you just assume people know what to do. I will look into making it easier and to give a better explanation. Thanks for the input.
I'm thiking adding some new features like online bookie with play money could really help your site. if you need one developed you may PM me and we can negotiate some details.
Please don't take offense but the NFL season is so short that traffic is strongly seasonal - your stats reflect this. I also have an NFL based forum and see the same. Traffic starts to ramp up in Aug and peters out by Feb. I've found that new members usually come only between October and January when broader interest in the season gets into full swing. Have you thought about ways to include less seasonal activity?