What's next? I started a forum

Alright guys. I am new here.

So, I started this forum at www.footballmeeting.com and it's about soccer.

Here are a few things I have in mind:

1. Should I focus on American football or soccer? I love both sports, but I understand soccer better.

2. I am doing the right thing using SimpleMachineForums free script? It's free because I want to save up the $30 budget for marketing. People always recommended vBulletin to me, but it's too expensive for me.

3. How do I promote the forum aside from leaving comments in blog and holding contest?

Thanks.

 

simple machines is excellent software. I know of a forum running smf that has over 4million posts.

You could use both football and soccer. If at later date it becods difficult to manage split the database and have two forums.

Start getting yous site link on pages. Anywhere will do, as so many people love sports.

 

Personally I prefer phpBB, but lets not get into that debate! Almost ever day a new thread is started titled 'SMF or phpBB?' and its down to personal preference really.

When starting a forum you should concentrate on something you are really passionate about, or know lots about. Because of this, I would recommend you just stick to the one you understand best as you will be able to post more about it, and talk to users more.

If you hope on over to the Buy/Sell/Trade (BST) Forum you can post an advert for people to post on your forum, in return for cash. This could be something small such as $0.02-$0.05 per post, but it would get people interested. Once there are posts on the forum you will have lots of fresh, unique content which search engines love. You could probably pay someone in the BST forum to help get your site promoted aswell.

 

Soccer is more universal then American Football I think.
For marketing target the similar forums and blogs.

 

I agree with webcosmo that soccer is more universal as there seem to be a lot more major tournaments for it.

 

Thanks for the information.

Is there any ways to promote the forum. Best if there are some free ways to promote it.

 

put it in your signature and on some other soccer forums you join.

 

Also, you might consider either writing some articles or having articles written about current events in the sport. You can also target key players or upcoming events to bring some visitors in.

 

Put your forum link at your signature space

 

if u dont want to spend ob v bulletin better option is phpbb..

 

You can also comment on some soccer blog with your forum address in the url box. Post something conroversial and you will see your forum being popular.

BTW Nice design you got. Did you do it yourself?

 

fill it with quality content and build plenty of links, to the home page as well as inner pages

 

soccer is better.