getting members

I have a forum that's been there for a few months with a few regular members, but the member count (and posts) aren't really increasing. What ist he best way to go about doing this? I need active members.

 

You could try one of the many payed posting services

 

i am sending u a pm now

 

I'm not looking for posts. I even run a paid posting service - I'm looking for members interested in the topic who will come back and post regularly.

 

My best advice is to go to http://www.big-boards.com and find the top forums that are related to yours. Go to those and post good, quality posts with a link back in your signature (where allowed!) This is what I have had the most success with personally, by far. It's free, it's effective...the only downside is that it requires time.

The other thing to do/remember is to give your members a reason to come back. Are you pumping in fresh content every day? Do you offer anything unique that they can't get anywhere else? If you don't have these two things, you won't have many active members.

 

I've tried the big boards idea, but it seems that most don't allow signatures.

I'm keeping it active, but still struggling.

Thanks for the suggestions though.

 

Find one that does allow signatures then. Also have something like a referral contest, this will motivate people to invite friends and potential active posters

 

Put some contests if you can affoard to spend some money. Put some hot topics on forums so visitors would like to post their views also. And i think paid posting services to be frank are of no use cause they might give you few initial posts but after job is completed no one comes back to the forum, so it doesnt help to get regular posters.

Cheers

 

Why not try a paid to post mod or a points system they are available for vbulletin and phpbb

 

Yep, that's what I do.. I have also found it to be very effective!

If you can't find anything in Big-Boards, try Google or MSN Your bound to find a forum you can join and post around to give your link targeted exposure.

If there's a general chat section, post something that will spark alot of replies. For examples, look at the topics in the General Chat section here at DP..

 

Slightly ironic, but what they heck - Although I haven't been using it for forums, I'm finding google adwords extremely good if you use targeted keywords (though too targeted and it's just a waiting game as you tend to find "niche" keywords have minimal impressions).

Try to think what your targeted audience would search for if they were using google.

 

The best way is to find forums of your type and go do signature advertising there. One of the effective ways is signature advertising and it gives best results.
Other way out is, start some contests if you can pay.
Some of the other ways are register some accounts on your site by yourself or hire somebody to do it, thats a good show off, but remember, if you dont have a lot of posts, dont do it. The best ratio is 20:1 and minimum is 10:1. That means every posts 1 member should be there and so if you got 2000 posts and 50members then you can make it to 200, thats best but if you have 200 and less posts, dont try registerations trick.

Other Ideas is Paid Posting.

Well, if you need help with it, you can contact me. I am experianced in Forum Solutions.

Oh, I forgot.. SEO of the site, MOST IMPORTANT.
SEO IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING as that brings natural traffic to your site.
If you have a good PR and good ranking in search engines, your site is likely to get traffic. List your site in as many directories as you can.
List out at search engines, submit sitemap to google.
SEO results are come after sometime gaps....... most effective way!

Good luck!