I have started a forum recently. I just want the opinion of your guys on how to get more members in it? We are updating our forum with daily SEO/WebMaster/Blog Admin etc articles and tutorials. Currently running a promo contest with 15USD+Free hosting as prizes Post to Host is available(Very few forums actually do this). By simply posting you can get free hosting! We are promoting it like crazy, but still we are not getting enough members! It will be helpful if you guys give me some insight onto this! Thanks!
For me personally, forums are hard to promote. Simply because people are lazy! Yes, we're all lazy! It's hard to get someone to write something because ALL people over the Internet are here for information. Very little amount of all want to share anything or even write a comment/post. I would add it to number of directories and try to promote it via other forums and ad spots. Article marketing or youtube won't be the right choice. You can try rank it higher in SERPs by building backlinks. Natural traffic is always the best.
I think getting a forum started is one of the hardest things to promote. Once you actually get a good amount of users on the forum everything will take care of itself. To get your user base up you could try creating a Facebook fanpage for the forum. Then you could use FB ads and other social media to promote the fanpage.
thanks for the suggestions! I am already trying promoting on other forums! and yes we have a facebook page. Never tried facebook ads though!
Hello my friend, I think that the best choice for you would be paid advertising, because as someone said below people are lazy so if your targeting is off then it will be hard to grab peoples attention. Keep wroking hard at the seo and try some paid advertising. FACEBOOK ADS are effective and would probably work well with your forum. When you create an add be as specific as possible in the targeting section and use cpm instead of cpc. Make sure your add copy is short, catchy and to the point and make sure your add looks professional. I would also split test two or three adds and leave the ones running that do the best... kindest regards Louis D
Forums are extremely hard to promote because I have been doing Internet Marketing for a little while now and the only two forums I have only heard of is Warrior Forum and Digital Points!
facebook ads, is onething I am gonna try for sure, lots of people have been suggesting me this! Thanks louis!
facebook ads are the way to go. I need to keep mine going. I started them but never got nowhere with them
Me to forums are awesome when it comes to trying to generate traffic because you can be posting on other people's threads and people will see your signature and start clicking then it goes from there. Yeah me to forums are extremely good when it comes to trying to generate and also learning more information.
Here we offer an awesome offer to the active members. Free hosting for their websites, even with cPanel. I don't think many forums do that! And still we are lacking members! Thats what I am wondering!
For forums I find that once you reached a certain amount of members things do take care of themselves. User contributions become good, and you get lots of useful topics. I think all you're missing is just time. You'll get there, just keep being persistant, keep the marketing up, and be patient Good luck mate!
Good luck, getting a forum "going" is really tough to do. I've run some very successful ones over the years and the biggest thing is creating enough buzz and activity to engage people to post.
I would try to see if you guys are using offsite methods, and try a similar high pr forum to link back to you.
I think forum is a good place to share experience and learn from each other. Just need a lot of time to be there. I also want to share our products wholesalebagsbest.com in forum, not so easy.
You're trying to do one of the toughest things in internet marketing... I'm going to start a forum but only after I build a following.. You just have to keep going and build everything naturally.. Are there any alarming topics in your forum? Forums like this one have been around for years.. The big forums have been around for years and stood the test of time because they have tons of engagement.. Ever thought about paying someone on Fiverr to drop a few relative topics here and there on your forum? It may or may not help but it's worth a try.. Good luck my friend
Thanks guys! DO you know any good places to promote my forums(wemaster related). It would be nice if you guys joined there!
As soon as your forum is tech related I'd recommend you to try advertising here on DigitalPoint forums (look at Advertising menu item on top). It was quite effective for me while promoting a webhosting service.