Man . . I have it in my sig and the community has grown slowly. Why hasn't it grown. I admit I haven't posted every day (that could be part of it). But I think I'm missing something. Please help. Skinny
I'm not having a go but if you don't post everyday why do you expect other people to. Make the forum active, either by having multiple accounts yourself, swapping posts with other forums or use a pay for posts service.
How much you post plays a tiny part in getting a forum going. If you have to post a lot something else is wrong. I started a forum a little over a month ago. I already have 500 registered users growing by about 40 new members a day. Here is what I am interested in: - How much traffic are you getting? - Where is it coming from? - What % is registering? - What % of registered users are posting?
I would reduce the number of categories and expand when necessary. It would look like you had a lot more posts than you look now with less top categories. Just a suggestion.
Hmm interesting . . . as with numbers let me see % registering - not enough % reg posting - i think its 80% have posted, however there are probably only 3 members that are decent. so 15% Stats: For e.g. Dec 2005 2034 visitors 5959 pages This isn't too good: 0s-30s -2533 85.4 % 30s-2mn - 126 4.2 % 2mn-5mn - 73 2.4 % 5mn-15mn - 88 2.9 % 15mn-30mn - 56 1.8 % 30mn-1h 41 - 1.3 % 1h+ 49 - 1.6 % They come from: Actually my old blog and other blogs that have linked me. However few are going from the sig in my forum (news to me). I believe I'm probably not targetting this properly. (I'm better at a site than a forum). I really need help.
Its a great idea for a forum. You just need regular activity. I would be happy to help out if you are looking for that sort of thing (and yes, it does work!) Contact me if you are interested
do what i do and run a competition i have started mine to day and i got 3 registerd uses allready its a real competition and its FREE well yes it costs run it but thats how things work this competition is to get me some users, then i will run the next one for the one who posts more this way my members will relise that my competitions are real
it's not easy to get people register and post ..how about a few incentive for them ? if you dont give them content to read .. i think it's hard to make it grow.
Here's what I'd do. -Cut your catagories down to three. Later you can expand as you get bigger. Less catagories make your forum look more active. -Make the theme's font bigger -Get more traffic from blogs. This will be your best traffic source because this is your direct market. Bloggers read blogs and bloggers follow links. -Implement an on page quick register where someone just fills out their username, password, and e-mail. I know there is a premade one for phpBB somewhere. -Send regular e-mails to registered users about latest updates. Once every two to three weeks should be good. If you are confident that you can make this forum work (I don't see why not, unless there are some other massive blogger forums out there) invest some money in vBulletin. It will make your job easier. There are tons of plugins for it and you don't have to worry so much about being hacked.