Do Search Engine Optimization and get as many back links as possible. When you are permitted to display the signature link, display your forum here in the dp link. In the beginning, hire forum posters and make your forum active and viable. You can offer freebies for the first 10 or 50 members who register in your forum. After some time, it automatically runs on its own
What I would suggest is first of all put a link to your site in your signiture. But other than that, there are a lot of free ways to promote your site, such as always adding a link to your site in things such as Email's and Social Networking Sites. Myspace has really done great things for me, and I was just making my usual posts to people, and putting a link to my page under my name. Conest always work, because people like the fact that their getting something for free. After you have some experience on your forum, you can always offer advice to other people and talk about your site (include a link), and what you did and why it worked. You can also submit your site to directories in order to rank higher in Google. I hope that some of these ideas help! --Jonathan
Forums are tough all the way around, in my opinion they are some of the hardest websites to promote. Here are a few things to try: PPC or CPM advertising: For a forum a company like adbrite can serve up some very well targetted ads, for little cost that I personally think are very effective. Be careful though, there is a learning curve with most ppc programs that can result in a lot of wasted cash. Traditional Banner ads: It is my opinion that these work great for a forum, or community. But this isn't always true. SEO: This is my number one choice. However it can be hard to rank at first for a forum as the topics are all over the place. I suggest posting some nice keyword rich articles and seo'ing them first. Others will come naturally. Social Bookmarking: This method I don't like as much as the others, as the traffic doesn't tend to "stick". It can send loads of traffic but few active members. But hey, it is free. A few things to remember, when submitting to social bookmarking sites. Don't submit your main page. Make a controversial thread that will get people wanting to discuss the topic, and submit it. SOmetimes it will work sometimes not. Hope this helped
There are many ways to get more traffic, its just wheter or not you want to pay. You could use myspace, ppc, submit to digg, stumbleupon etc..
Article marketing, social bookmarking at sites like Reddit, social networking on Squidoo, video marketing at YouTube, and of course SEO. There's lot's of ways to get traffic. Though, you want targeted visitors at your forum, so don't try to promote your to everyone online. Just the people who would use a forum like yours. Good luck
I like your forum. I have started a forum myself recently. Its very difficult getting traffic at the beginning. Be patient and keep working, you will get results. You could use social networking sites, classified ads, other forums (must) etc. as your marketing techniques. Good luck to your venture.
Promotion. Promotion. Promotion! Let the word out about your forum. Remember, content comes first and if it is interesting enough, people are undoubtedly going to come!
I just finished reading this article online about advertising your blog in the January edition of PathtoyourDestiny Some of the information you know already but it is presented in a real logical easy to understand way and it is very comprehensive. Check it out and follow the steps.
Hire forum posters to get things off the ground. There are lots of people willing to do this for a small fee.
Keep creating some posts and responses from your posts every day until you get what you want. Hope it helps.
New? ok.... Start with joining social network sites like Bebo, squidoo, facebook, orkut, stumbleupon...etc and try making friends. I'm sure you must have many real friends who must be using these services, try marketing to them. Try adding more content relating to your website. Make it attractive (no extensive flash)... If you are part of a team, dedicate one person for directory submissions, one for marketing on forums/blogs, one for article marketing etc..... Do all of the above tactics in a month's time and then gauge your progress by checking your analytics... After that, come back again here and give us your opinion/report...... i may suggest more On-Page and Off-Page then..... Thank you