Hi, I've opened a tennis board about a week ago http://www.TennisDiscussion.com, I've already tried some promotion techniques but my board doesn't seem to get off ground.. What I've done so far is : 1. Directory submissions (dmoz, takes long time.. some other free directories) 2. Opened a contest for the board on sitepoint (but I havent got enough feedback I guess, only 4 active participants ) 3. Some sites where you pay ppl to post on your forum (but still havent had any posts from those guys) 4. Promote the board in your signature when posting on other boards (done some posts but it takes time & knowledge of the subject to make good posts) 5. Adwords (still waiting for the money that I transfered from my bank account) 6. Paid targeted traffic (10000 targeted uniques, I paid for it but found out that it was bogus, so filled out a complaint on paypal) 7. .. Any suggestions? Am I targeting a too small public? Is this a wrong niche? Do you have some promotion hints / techniques Any help is welcome, Regards Jayme
traffic packages are bogus like you said. they are total waste of time and money. don't expect to receive much traffic from free directories, although you will get something out of it, but if you do get listed on dmoz, you receive pretty nice traffic (although you can't rely on DMOZ for everything). get active on forums with the url as part of your signature. don't just post some, post a lot and respond to other people's posts. get active on high traffic forums like webhostingtalk.com and webproworld.com write an article regarding your sports forum and submit it to ezinearticles.com and goarticles.com if you want, you can write a press release and distribute it for free at prweb.com there are many ways to promote your forum, but it will take time. have patience, and keep doing what you are doing because most of the things you do are actually the right way to promote your site. google adwords will cost a lot for a discussion forum, but it may be a good investment in the long run. that's all i can tell ya for now