I've gotten legit 2 real sign ups, thats, at http://www.acollegehand.com I get maybe 30 or 40 uniques a day, and nobody ever signs up, does anybody have any ideas where i should advertise or if theres something wrong?
Advetise in yahoo messenger chat rooms. Buy links from DP members. Buy ad spots. Buy some traffic.. And then ,get set go..
Also submit your forum to web directories like i do daily. Write a few articles related to your forums niche and submit them to article directories for a long term quality backlink. Any forums you belong to, make sure your forum link is in your siggie. People will read your posts on those forums and if they link you or your siggie link is interesting to them, they will check it out. Whether they join or not is up to them. Try to add some fresh content on your forum daily if no one posts or creates threads. There are many ways to advertise your forum or any site for free. Search google for free advertising methods. I could mention other sites i use but you'd just find them on google if you search it. Hey, eventually your members will tell there friends about the forum and hopefully they will join and be a active part of the community. Just takes time to build up a forum and actually keep it going.
the best method which i find applicable is to be active in other forums and ask people to visit your forum. You can earn some good regular users this way. Once the start is their than the fight will be real easy.. please do check my forum and if possible register with it. It is about discovering females
First things first: you should probably switch to vBulletin which makes the functionality of the forum easier. Later, add at least 10-15 important topics daily. Advertise on sites which are based on your niche, basically try for sites/forums where students and youngsters are active. Sign up with entrecard, you will get good exposure there. And like snakeair mentioned, submit your forum to directories regularly. I have a Medical health forum and i must accept that even after 1 year i am still not satisfied with it, it fucking needs lots of your time and effort. Let me know if you would be interested in buying links on my forum [good students traffic]