What content should I add, look at my forum and seriously tell me do I lack quality threads? I have over 3000 posts now and 90% of them are from hired posters. I can only get about 6 active members. So what content should I add? Tell me to add content tells me nothing content could be anything.
yeah you can hire people in the begining to put up usfull content.. but you need to give people somthing to work towards.. like a JR vip section.. or reward when they reach a certain level
Getting forum participation is one of the most difficult tasks to get a fledgling forum off the ground, many admins overcome this by paying people to conduct conversations, with the hope that real people will join in
I see you merged some forums and got rid of the ads as well. What I still don't like is: - Top header with time: No one needs to have the time displayed that big in the header, every body has their time on their computer. It's a nice feature, but generally I would leave it away, or if so, have it at the bottom of the text in smaller font. At the moment, it takes up to much space for a rather useless information. - That grey login box: It's just not nice on the eye and way too big as well. It just reminds me of designs used 10 years ago. Plus it's so big! Try make it smaller. In general I don't like the MyBB, prefer the vBulletin. If you have 200$ for a license, go for it. It will improve the design as well. Your current MyWBB theme looks very outdated. Oh, and when googling for La Noire Forum, you rank 4th or 5th place which is good. But you meta description says "LA Noire Forum an unofficial fan website. Join us today!" That is not very eye catching when google displays that. - Don't use the word "unofficial". Obviously it is an unofficial forum, but people always associate that word with something negative, so don't use it. - Try avoid the phrase "Join us today". It makes it sound like a paid dating website or car insurance ad Look at other successful forums of other major games and see what their meta description says. And and one last thing, the number one reason i don't feel comfortable in the forum is, it's too thin! Make it wider. The threads itself are only 790px wide. It's 2011 and your main target audience are gamers, which tend to have a good computer and bigger screen. Just look at your main competitor http://www.la-noire.net/forums/, they have a very nice width and it's comfortable to read.
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A few points I've been following : 1/ Content You must have good content on your website/forum if you'd like people to read it,ect.Try to have things that you can't get anywhere else,so the viewers will come back to your website/forum to read on the juicy info. 2/ Buy Ads {Adwords} This is one of the best ways to get people to visit your website/forum.It is possible to buy ads to display on other websites so it can attrach loads of people to your website/forum. 3/ Have free stuff Everyone loves free stuff.You all know that,lol.Example,forumotion offers free forums,and it's very popular.So,the best way to get people to visit is if your website is free.And you can offer things people wants for free. {If you have a shop or something,it doesn't have to be free} 4/ Meta Tags Remember,in order for the bots to know what your website/forum is about,you'll need good meta tags to support it. 5/ Forum Signatures This is also a great way to steal viewers,lol. Add your website/forum in your signatures on other forums to be used as your signature so others can view what your website/forum is about,and if they like it,they'll visit. 6/ Review Your Site Some websites/forums reviews other website/forums. This can increase the number of views on your site if you have a great review. 7/ Blog This is also a useful way to attract viewers. Blog about your website/forum and you'll get more visits from people who loves to read blogs. 8/ Appearance Make sure your website/forum 's appearance looks good.If your site is ugly,the viewers will not bother to read whatever your site has to offer. 9/ Link to Us Have a link to us page on your website/forum. Ask the viewers to help out your by showing them the bbcodes & html codes they have to copy and paste to advertise your site. 10/ Invite Your Friends You should invite your friends you know and trust to visit your website/forum. Don't spam up stranger's private message box asking them to join your forum and offering them staff positions just so that they confirm your message with a yes. And then you conplain that your website/forum is destroyed. 11/ Affiliates Affiliate with other websites/forums to up the number of visitors on your site. 12/ Bookmarks Have a page asking your viewers to bookmark your website/forum so they wouldn't lose the link to your site if they searched it by using a search engine. {For people who just don't read website's names} 13/ Submit your site to a search engine Submit your website/forum to the search engines so people can find it when their surfing the internet. But I wouldn't suggest starting a forum these days, social networks have taken a huge part of the market.
How do you get google to notice your meta tags are changed? I borught the website from the older owner a while ago and thats why he put and I changed it to the description at the bottom of the site but google still won't change it. Its been 2 months how do you get that to change?
In your Admin CP, navigate to the templates section. Under "Ungrouped Templates", edit "headerinclude". Change <meta name="description" content="LA Noire Forum an unofficial fan website. Join us today!"> to your new description.
I did that a few months ago but google still hasn't changed my sites description It should say "LA Noire Forum, LA Noires #1 forums for Walkthroughs, News, Prizes, Contests and More!" but it still says that annoying unofficial fan forum.
I dont think forums are dead its all in the work you put into them. But i would have unique content that is most importan not just in a forum but on any site for that matter. Try to do good seo meta tags are good for that and articles, posting in forum and blog comments make sure they are do follow. Next step after you have content is to start a forum posting contest i have seen many friends of mine in different niche do that and succed. Main thing is to never give up.. Its a never ending process of promoting and working hard.
Do you know what is the difference between porshe cayenne and wolksvagen touareg? Under the hood they are the exact same car. But by being seen as Porshe it is ten to twenty times valuabe than Wolksvagen. I think you got what I mean. You should earn credibilty and popularity for your forum to be active. Example: look at this forum or search Google like list of best IM forums just visit them and learn what they are doing.
You have competition as well. I don't know whether this has been mentioned already. He has a better design and easy design. The design is very adapted. Look in his site footer as well. You're not in a very good position right now because the topic will die sometime soon. Forums like these require someone who has lot's of resources and probably experienced, probably owning other popular sites/forums. By the time your member count is at a reasonable amount the game fans would have lost interest and something new would be out. But I am not trying to put you off. Position 3 is a good position. You just have to loose that them and be more original/simple.
I get what your saying but Rockstars last game Red Dead Redemption stayed popular for 2 years even though other big games such as Black Ops and Halo Reach came out afterword. The Red Dead Redemption forums are still active even though its been close to 2 years and LA Noire is out. Rockstars not planning on releasing any new games soon and theirs still more content to download for LA Noire that hasn't been released yet so I doubt its going to die soon.
When does Google notice a Change in Meta Description? I changed the Meta Description months ago and google still hasn't changed it!
Hmmm, here's some ideas: Do some video caps and make funny, informative, and guide videos. Post on youtube, etc, and include your watermark and a clickable link on the video. Create a Facebook fanpage and post an RSS feed from the forum. Publish How-to guides on static pages on your site.
Give out a series of free stuffs monthly, and then your subscribers have to stay till the series ends.