i have built a forum and it has been almost a month and yet only 3 signups. I have done url submissions and all, and yet I have not seen some traffic improvement; as a matter of fact, probably too negligible at all it's on phpbb3 and revolves around webmasters world. i am willing to upgrade to vb as soon as I find it viable and would attract more webmaster alike. pls comment on how else i can imporve: template? (any theme color which is more appealing to webmasters like you) contest? (which i find it not timely yet) advertising? where? pls let me know what else do I need to start off with. www.wiredwebtalk.com
To run a webmaster forum you might want to actually be a webmaster. I suggest you try a topic you consider yourself knowledgable and able to create conversations. If you are unable to drive traffic, create topics, and ultimately gain members then the site is a failure. Focus your efforts on something successful. Buy sites with PR or traffic. Hopefully ones related. Then interlink them all.
Start it yourself first ... then ask other to act. Look at amt of post or topic you have done? All forums look empty ... why would a webmaster sign up when he can make same site in 5mins .......... Put useful content as much as you can ....... discuss it with urself only(using diff ids) ...... ask urself .... why would one sign up? Creating a healthy forum in current over saturated market is not easy as it was however still very much possible. Best of Luck!
I just took a quick look at your site and I noticed a big problem. You have sections in your forum with ZERO posts, that's not good. I suggest you at least create threads there yourself, it's better than nothing. If you have the budget then run a contest such as the top poster gets $$ via PayPal or a domain name of their choice. Also switching to VB won't create miracles, it might allow you to add more features but it probably won't result in a lot more members. I suggest for now, you use that $ to promote the site instead and once it's going well then consider upgrading to VB as there's a lot of themes/mods. for it. Although keep in mind that there's some successful sites out there not running VB so it's not absolutely necessary.
i have started a contest for DP members but looks like participation is low. wow can't imagine that after buying this domain, it'll be a challenge to maintain a website
You need to start writing content for it and promote it in other webmaster forums through your signature, however try and follow these guidelines when you do it.
If you were banking on that name bringing you traffic you have made an error. I just don't see anything special at your site to draw me in. I don't see any signs or announcements on your site about a contest. I see the word discuss or discussion 18 times on front page versus forum which has only 16. Forum is a better keyword btw. Try to create more original subject descriptions that are keyword rich. Improve your meta keywords too. You can do better than that. Your theme is nice but lets be realistics. It's BORING. It doesn't do much to draw the webmaster crowd imho.
I strongly suggest you take a few minutes a day to learn a lot about communities. Search the internet and get all the info you can. Once you have info, post it! Also as a community manager you will surely be interested in www.communityspark.com
No one comes to a quite forum. Your forum should not have the tag as "All Is Now Quite in the Western Front." Build and post quality materials in different threads. If people find your forum site valuable, they will hang around there. Good luck.