Hi guys strikes me as a tricky subject to post in a Forum as administrators probably think you are trying to steal members! However I am used to generating traffic to sites, but bit more stumped about how to get a Forum up and running... Have just set up a new site http://www.Plooka.com and the forum is key to the success of the site so how to get it kick started?? Have sent out emails to friends, messages on Facebook etc but need to get some momentum. I guess other forums are a good place to find members (it targets people that like forums) but I doubt this is going to work. So any advice / ideas - think I am going to see if I can find some forums for people that own forums....I am sure they must exist. But does anyone on here run successful forums, how long do they take to get established?? Ok a competition may be a good idea but got to get the traffic first, any quick wins (he hopes)... Frenchie
hmmz took a look on your forum and it looks like you target on the niche skieen so i advice you try to reach people that ski. Maybe advertise in ski magazines and websites or other places on the internet where you find people that ski. And extra trick i learned running a adult forum was that there was a moment i got a lot of unv but not much members people just stopped by and looked around without registering and this is not what you want you want them to have discussions and make your forum alive. So lock away specific content for guests but leave enough open to let them see its a good forum and make them want more.
I don't own a forum, but I have seen many webmaster offer "paid to post" offers in many forums to help build a new forum. If nothing else it could at least offer you some good content and topics.
'Paid to Post' that might be a good idea...may look in to that. What would be a sensible amount do you think 20cents a post or somthing...
Thats a good way to get cheap content on your forum and its always a good idea to have a good amount of content.
Your forum needs to be active in order or at least APPEAR to be active for members to want to join. I have seen people scrape Yahoo answers questions and the answers and convert them into forum posts to make it look like there is action on the forum. Once you have established the appearance of an active forum you can easily post about it on Yahoo answers, create guest posts for niche blogs (assuming they provide a link to your forum) and/or article marketing.
Hadn't heard of that before... might be a good way to start, at least get some topics up and running. I used a paid forum posting service, it worked alright, the posts weren't of the greatest quality, but it helped. I simultaniously ran an Adwords campaign and have been getting decent traffic from it. I also got to the top, or near top of a lot of my target keywords fairly easy because it wasn't a very developed niche. That part I believe to just be luck however ha.
Thanks for the input guys, the Forum is starting to get busier, but I think it just takes time to get established. Time seems to be the main factor, so I'm going to keep building backlinks, keep posting, and hoping that the trickle starts to become a flow! Frenchie