I have my forum - Where do I go from here?

I have my forum now, and to be honest I think for a first attempt its not too bad. I am using Yabb, I know its not the best in the world, but if my forum works out, and grows, I'll upgrade to VB.
It has been online now for almost two weeks, and I have 156 registered users.
Most of the users are from my place of work, but there are some from outside also. I had to make the forum only visible to registered users only, because I was getting too many fake email addresses.
I need your help on a couple of things:

1. Should I keep the forum viewable to registered members only?
2. How can I take this forward? Very popular with my works, I want more companies to join though!
3. If it does get bigger, how do you go about getting moderators? Are moderators paid for what they do? (The only one I have at the mo is a friend!)

Please have a look, I really would be grateful for your views.

TheFactoryForum.com

 

BTW, That was a brilliant idea for a niche, sounds like it could be a good one.

Step 2. Promote your forum so that search engines take notice.

Step 3. Once step 2 is successful, prepare to spend alot of time battling spammers.

 

The design could use some work. The homepage is unattractive, and on the forum your ads are pushed to the right.

1) No. Keep it viewable for all.
2) Keep it active. Drive traffic to the sites. Again, keep it active.
3) Most moderators are volunteers. Make a thread saying you're accepting mod applications. If your site is good, you should get several people interested.

 

Thank you both for you input.
Lpspider, you raised an interesting point, on my wide screen laptop, this is how it looks:



But on a older monitor the ads are pushed to the right. What can I do to sort this out?

 

Can anyone give an idea on how to stop the ads being out of proportion when viewed on certain monitors?
Its really bugging me now!

Thanks in advance.

 

1. move the forum to the homepage
2. too many ads
3. SEO
4. pay for a better quality template
5. your site is way too dark!

 

Thanks for your input bobby. I have made the forum open to all now, so any more advice will be appreciated.
Thanks
TheFactoryForum.com

 

that is a good idea.
however i still recommend a light template, please move the forum to the homepage.
jsut an idea

 

Brian, that's a great idea for a forum and it sounds like your off to a good start.

Have you though about asking other companies to allow you to post a flyer or something about your forum in lunch/break rooms?

Gil

 

Well, as you can guess I work for the most popular company on the forum at the moment! I don't think I am too popular with the management!!
I have a link where people can email me for other companies to join, and I have a page set up where people can print off their own flyer's and stick them up around work.
One of the main problems I am having at the mo, is the ads being placed on the main page are not relevant to the forum. I am using the right Google search code in the HTML, but still no joy?
Thanks for your encouraging input.

 

Well I have made some changes, and the new look forum went live about an hour ago!
A lot of my members profiles were lost during the move, but I hope they will resign up.
Have a look, and see what you think

www.thefactoryforum.com