I've just started a forum and I wanted to know how I could get people into it.What are the best ways to gain traffic quickly?
You can hire paid posters for your forum or you can ask your friends to be part of it and you need lots of links and promotions for your forum.
I'd suggest some paid posting to get some activity happening before you attempt advertising. Most new users will be reluctant to join a community with no one in it. From then onwards, place a link in your signature, and begin searching for websites that specialize in your niche. Obviously you'll want to avoid websites that are in direct competition with you, however for all other websites in your niche, you'd want to compile a list of advertising rates and compare them against each other. Which website is going to give you more bang for you buck? Google Adwords is also a good way to stimulate traffic, and can be very handy if you've got some money to spend. Remember to participate in your own community to get things flowing along, and to demonstrate to your members that the administrator is present. If you need any assistance whatsoever, please shoot me a PM and we can talk from there.
Organize different contests and post on other forums about contests purchase advertising space on other sites and also purchase myspace bulletins Saad
Set up 5/10 fake members and make a few posts a day with each of them. Soon you will get real members who will take over! Notting
Write quality post yourself and leave them open and post ... post and post some more as if you cannot be bothered to post why should anyone else ?
If you have articles on your website about say, green widgets, include a link at the bottom of your article to your forum saying something like 'to discuss green widgets, join our forum!' Helps to have a pure content element to your site IMO