Everyone knows that forums are the toughest type of sites to start. It is very common to see so many forums start and close down in no time. Here are the mistakes you just have to avoid if you wish your forum to succeed : Forums require time to kick off - Forums require time for everything. Right from setting it up and getting members to monetizing it. As an admin you have to stay active - In the beginning admins are always active but then after a point they give up. That’s not a good sign at all. Creating too many Sub-Forums - Start small and then increase the sections as required. This will make your forum look really empty. Stuffing your forum with ads - Let's face it, in the beginning you are not going to get many visits. It is best you don't sell ads till you don't get 150 daily visits. I recently started a new webmaster forum on my own and from my previous experience I have written this post. Hope you liked these pointers. If you have any more please feel free to add them below. Cheers!
Webmaster forums are hard to make a success, but its really fun to work with specially for us webmasters I have a one year old webmaster forum as well with this stats: threads: 8,711, Posts: 71,329, Members: 2,457 It was damn hard to get to this point.
biggest mistake could be making a forum about a subject that you hardly know anything about. there should be at least one real expert on a forum. ordinary posts don't attract members.....only good posts do.
Creating too many subforums is one of the biggest mistakes that new admins make. It just creates confusion to your members - because they do not know what section to post in. And then there is dividing up your topics too much. There is no need to have a forum section on "every" topic. Combine a lot of them so your sections stay busier.
It`s not hard to manage and get successful. Problem is because there is so much these niche forums and people don`t wanna new forums. But I have few theory how to start webmaster forum and make it big. I will start webmaster forum and try my tutorial. Thanks! - SeoHawk
You are better off leaving your forum to fend for itself then to be an asshole. Not calling you one mind you, I'm just saying
It's kind of like what you tell kids when they ask for a puppy: "It's a big responsibility and you'll have to take care of it." Forums are a great way to promote but as Farrhad pointed out, many admins get lazy or give up over time. I've seen it happen time and time again-a forum starts out with great content and enthusiastic moderators and then it turns into a spam graveyard. Vuju's forum just tanked and Click's looks like it's well on its way. If you have the time and energy to create a forum, by all means do it, but you'll have to keep up with it.
I think the biggest single factor in having a successful forum is having an overly active administrator. Someone who treats it almost like a job but enjoys doing it.
One of the biggest things to do once you have a community is to make sure you reward your better members, either by making them 'community staff' and giving them the job of spreading the word about your community, or simply by recognising them in some way. Your members are your lifeblood. Look after them.