When I first released my forum I was getting on average 70 members per day. Now I only get between 5-10. I will make another thread concentrating on how to improve this by marketing, but this thread is how I can improve it by the appearance of my forum. The blog is www.customizepsp.co.uk. I am quite happy with how this looks, and the ads fit in with the design. Now the main issue is the forum. When I previously administratored a vbulletin forum (the same forum in practice) there were always more members online (around 15 at a time). Now there are usually between 5-10 members online and usually 5 + guests. I dont know if it was more successful because of the appearace or the marketing (I didnt market it so I dont know how it was done) as the content is more or less the same (infact there is a lot more content on the current forum). The current default forum style is: http://customizepsp.co.uk/forums/index.php?styleid=9 as members seem to be fairly satisfied with this one. On the previous forum, this was the default style: http://customizepsp.co.uk/forums/index.php?styleid=14 (the banner wasnt as good though) We also have these styles available to choose from: http://customizepsp.co.uk/forums/index.php?styleid=13 and http://customizepsp.co.uk/forums/index.php?styleid=10 Out of those styles which one would you (keeping in mind its a PSP gaming forum targeting 13-25 year olds) would you think would attract the most members and encourage them to post? Out of 2,077 members, 158 have made at least 1 post. Pretty poor to be honest. The forum is vbulletin so if you know of any mods that may help please tell me. Thanks for reading this long post, I i would really appreciate your replies! Thanks
http://customizepsp.co.uk/forums/index.php?styleid=13 This one is IMO the best for gaming community. Try contacting other similar forums and try to get link to your forum there... you might have to offer them something though.
I don't think you'll be able to draw a large audience...it's a niche but there are tough competition....it all comes down to your marketing ability!
The market leader in this niche (psp customization) is probably consolespot.net which is i market it right may become more popular, as I have more themes to offer. There are a few other little websites (mostly freewebs) which offer similar things but they will never be a threat to me as they are run by people who have no idea about the marketing and business world. I got lucky, I started off as freewebs and because of my time and effort i have become a lot bigger. How can I market my site more? I have submitted a sitemap to google and the google adsens bot is on almost all the time. I also post links to my theme on forums such as afterdawn and other PSP forums I visit. Thanks