I jumped into the whole forum scene head first. I didn't do much research. (First mistake). Ok... my forum: http://dogfoodchat.com/forum I made the forum and immediately started promoting on craigslist. The forum is a little over 1 month old and I have: Threads: 225, Posts: 1,489, Members: 223, Active Members: 165 I am lost as to what I need to do. I have about 3 hours a day I can work on nothing but the forum. What should I be doing in this time? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
If time is an issues and money isn't... try a PPC campaign. create unique articles about your specific target is. tell EVERYONE... i'm not joking, tell your family, friends and work people. posts on other forums with your URL in the sig. try forums like your website (not the same as yours, similar. like yours is about dog food, post in dogcare forums or something) Good luck ^_^
You have some pretty good numbers for your first month! A couple hints: 1) Add a newsletter. Get everyone on it. 2) Promote affiliate products on your forum and via the newsletter. 3) Hold giveaways and/or contests to get people coming back and making good posts. (Darren Rowse wrote about this recently on Problogger.) 4) Use more descriptive subject lines than "I need help!" Good luck! Sounds like you are doing well. -Erica
You are off to a great start! I recommend: 1) Keep repeating the same marketing tactics you used to get the users you have. It will keep working, and it will keep bringing more to your site. 2) Find a budding dog trainer, dog walker, dog groomer, etc. and ask them to post on your forum once a week. Give them a "question and answer" area. You won't be able to get anyone really popular, but you can certainly get an expert. Tell them they can promote their site in their sig. 3) Add affiliate links so you can make some cash. But most importantly....keep the traffic coming! Do not stop. Forums are very difficult to get rolling, but it sounds like you are doing quite well. Keep it up!
you actually have had a huge start... my forum got lost somewhere and I finally gave up as I was busy with my other gigs.. will hire someone someday who will work to promote my forum for you please don't stop you are doing a great job...read the above tips and PLEASE DON"T STOP you have the start which many crave for
You might want to try YouTube videos with links to the forum, MySpace marketing, and Facebook marketing. I have experience in the pet industry and can help. PM me if you need assistance.
Well if you do have the budget to spend, you can always hire someone to look after it for you. But anyway, by the looks of it, the forum should be heading in the right direction. Maybe convert it to "dofollow" and then promote it around. That should attract more people.
I am going to try and get a video together and post it on youtube. I need to get a video camera first.
link build it. Put meta tags (even many top SE dont give weights on it!). Promote it in SEO Forums (there might be SEO Analyst who are optimizing websites related to it!)
Another idea is to post it on Craigslist all over the country. Even with the YouTube video, you can also make a slideshow with music in the background very effectively - you don't really need a video camera if you don't want to spend the $! PM me if you need more help with this niche.
Keep doing what you are doing... Here's a few ideas to boost your website a little. Get a custom skin for your forum. This will help people remember your forum. Promote your website offline at pet stores, vets, etc. Don't just think of online promotion. Promote the url on your car, your friends, and family cars. Put ads in the newspaper about your website with the url in it. I think you can take it from here.
all these are great idea's for sure! I love this site. Owning a website is ALOT of work!! PM me and I can give you more tips that I'm doing on my site? My site went from not ranking 6 months ago to 355,000 and growing on google, compete etc. Thanks.