post some great articles on the content that your forum covers then link to those threads in your sig and bookmark those links with social networking sites and ask your friends to bookmark them too.. cheers -Brandon
I would second Loco's Idea. If you don't know exactly what he means, here's an example from talk-mania. They have a section full of Photoshop tutorials on how to make website designs, and they provide free downloads of the .psd to members. This is a great way to get members, if your making a tech forum or something similar. http://www.talk-mania.com/forumdisplay.php?f=3
that would be an idea...or maybe some psd for free or some domains even...so promotions are good for getting people to register but how to promote it actually?
Some folks mentioned some great tips above. You can also post on other forums; your signature would be a great advertisement for your forum.
Something you might consider is promoting your site through video hosting sites like youtube. As an example, my youtube account: Videos Uploaded: 278 Video Views: 1,251,788 Channel Type: Director Channel Views: 48,122 Subscribers: 2,127 The youtube people that visit my site are about twice - three times as likely to create an account, as compared to people who find my site off google. Even though I get a lot of traffic from links and referrals, the youtube people are the ones that hang out and become part of the community.
Whew! The day is almost over, and nobody posted a thread on how to get traffic to a message board. I was starting to worry. Waiting in anticipation for tomorrow's new thread on the very same question.
And see the same answers posted all over again. This kinda makes me wonder if anyone even reads through the forum, or do they just post a question? I have been a member here for only a few weeks, and this same question has been posted several times.
Set up a signature link on forums related to your forum's niche and become an authority figure in what you're talking about. If you're doing a PS tutorial site, pass yourself off as a PS guru. If you're running a webmaster forum, pretend to be some guy in Cambodia earning $12,000 a month off arbitrage. If you're hosting a forum about making money by winning in online games, fake being a professional gamer and come up with hoax Paypal screenshots of your winnings as linkbait. I think you'll get it.
promote in your competitions forums subtly, with a signature, or create a contest or give out free information (including a link to your forum ) etc
Well, I just giving explanation. BTW, the other hot forum is Earner's Forum > http://www.earnersforum.com/forumsindex.php
Without meaning to sound repetitive, I think by far the best way to get a forum off the ground in the early days is by post exchange. Search for the Aardvark Post Exchange in Google, and feel free to join...