If you had no budget how would you promote a Web Forum like DP? I have such a forum that has 3k+ members and I want to know how to take it to that next level! Please share your thoughts with me!
Buy top quality links on blogs from shoemoney and known writers. That is where most of the webmasters and business savvy people hang out . If you have no budget buy DP and redirect it to your forum!
Do you have any posts / threads in this forum. It's worthless promoting something that looks like a ghost town. People will only signup from your advertisements if the forum looks active in the first place.
make sections like domain appraisals, website reviews , website tips and help more active , that would help more member to get in and join the community.
making few sections active wont need budget, he can manage it on his own. other idea is to post replies in popular blogs which can get some traffic.
I would sign up and be active on forums, affiliation, and submit to free directories. Also, I just signed up on your forum.
Submit them to free directories is a good idea like PremWebNet said, but just go to forums which are on the same topic as yours, and advertise it.
Well, outside of article marketing on your niche, I think you definitely need some type of budget. I don't think you can just approach this as "I have no budget". Because there are definitely ways to make money here on DP. For example, content writing. I don't consider myself a rich guy, and i'm still learning about marketing myself. But, content writing is a good way to make money so that you can turn around and invest it in marketing. Forums are hard to establish from what I can see, especially if you're doing the "same old forum". You will need some type of marketing budget.
*Social Networks (Myspace, facebook) *YouTube / Google Video *Squidoo *Blog *Link Exchanges *Top site lists *Submit best posts to digg *Submit posts on forums like DP asking how to promote a forum which happens to be in your signature to target your audience face on *Ask people who sell those 'find out how I make $20k a week through adsense' bullshit ebooks if they want to add a link to your forum in their next email to buyers in exchange for some publicity on your forum Also, popularity spawns popularity, focus on activity rates, install modifications on the forums which message users who have been inactive for 7 days along with other ones to keep users posting. Add a button to add forum posts to digg. Be creative
Thanks guys for the tips, but I have already done all this on large scale! And by no budget I ment I have plenty of money for anything that needs doing