Guys, I have built a few forums before, but that was with a lot of friends who helped build content, and not so much of a budget. I now have a budget, which is pretty good. Its out of my own pocket but I am thinking long term, and since this forum is related to what I do weekly (outdoors, fishing, boating etc.etc) I believe I am the right person to be making this. I have a logo, which I think is very good for marketing purposes with regards to banner ads, shirts, and on the street marketing (flyers and what not). I have adwords running, however I am getting a lot of clicks which convert to nothing. So I filtered the keywords to the very specific (fishing forums) and what not, but still no conversions. I am scared of getting paid posters due to my geographical limits being Australia and Australia only. Just wondering if anyone has any out of the ballpark tips on making this site Explode!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Link is in the Sig Thank you for reading, and look forward to your comments
Indeed of spending money of paid posters which I never agree with.. I would spend money on adversiting for your forum. You have an very well designed logo which could make your forum so far, but I don't understand is why u just don't make a general fishing forum. I dont know much about austrailia but I don't think they have a done of internet users so if I was you I would make a general forum for fishing, hopefully usable worldwide.
I looked at your website and I like your approach like setting up a contest (most active user), articles and others (videos and pics) but I know that it is frustrating to still not get quality traffic especially when you have done paid advertising and yet still no progress. I will be honest that I think this will be difficult to achieve especially if the marketing strategy is only online because I believe that your target audience are most likely outdoor people, one thing I can recommend doing is paid advertising online through facebook advertising, basically facebook is demographics based advertising so you can target only people from australia with the preference or interest only in fishing, camping, boating, etc. But as I have read that you are going as well in the traditional marketing (print shirts and flyers)...if you have the budget might as well focus your efforts into this type of marketing (classifieds (newspaper), magazines, flyers, shirts, radio) Hope this can help
Why did you localize site only to Australia? This would imply that if you are not in Australia then everything you mention on your site such as fishing, hunting, camping, etc is not as important...I think this is going to hurt you in the end....people that fish/hunt in Australia may think it is cool to visit your site...but if I fish in crap creek, va (USA) then why would I want to visit some Australian website? just a thought...
I agree with Dscurlock below... Why limit yourself to just "AU" ? Why not think --> Go Global. You have the whole world to serve , not just AU! -C
I agree.. you should try to make the site more than only Australia. I love the idea and logo.. the site is pretty cool too! I would say start talking to fishshop around the area and find a chat room where you can gather quality traffic.