Why do people sign up if they do not want to post

Hi,

I have a soccer related forum, I have about 1% sign up rate (of number of visitors) so it usually 3-4 people a day.

But members do not post on the forum. How would I make them post?

Thanks

 

They sign up, probably because they want a backlink to their website from the profile they have on your forum.

 

Disable signature or any other links that might help them untill they have at least 10, or 20 posts, that should make them post

p.l.u.r.

 

Give them incentive in multiple ways, like DigitalPoint: can't have a signature right away, revenue sharing, reputation system, underground forum.

 

Exactly what I was about to suggest. Giving incentives to users along side initiating controversial (controversy sells!) and interesting topics should also help get them posting. Either way, you're always going to get people who sign up and never post, as this is common throughout all forums.

Good luck

 

yea in addition to above alert member when there is new posts about interesting topics they will come back.

 

I suppose now would be a good time to pull out the old cliche "content is king".. I've signed up for forums before and not posted because there wasn't a damn thing I was interested in being talked about. I would imagine some people are shy too, even on an internet forum, and the idea of being a newbie to the forum and also posting a new topic can be intimidating to a lot of people.

You might want to find ways to make people feel welcome from the get go. I've seen some forums where the "introduce yourself" threads go over well...

Question about that. Do the backlinks in a forum signature or or profile count the same way (to SEs) as from other sites? I've heard some mixed messages on that subject. I.E. if you are on a PR6 forrum, does it count the same as, say, a link to your site mentioned in an article on a PR6 blog or other PR6 website. I know relavance has something to do with it too, but say in this instance, its a soccer forum and you run a soccer page, does that backlink in your signature count in the same or similar way? (I appologize for the slight thread hijack here..)

 

That is a REALLY good tip, especially on threads they started or replies to their posts. I still occasionally use the live journal community boards to ask questions about stuff like various venues around town or whatever, and I'll often forget I posted anything until I check email and see somebody replied with an answer. I never thought about the usefulness of that feature from Live Journal's perspective, getting users to actually come back..(not that it is working that well for them as a whole, they got sorta screwed after myspace showed up on the scene..)

 

I think if you got forum problem,it would ne good to always model after successful model like digital point and others.

good luck to your soccer forum. One more point to add. You might want to create a contest..Most interesting posting will WIN A ...

 

Lol, It's a soccer forum... only say 10-20 members there if there is a few thousand may own websites... haha.. Maybe they just bored.

 

So why did you even bother signing up?

I suppose you will get this happening if you don't allow guests to read all the posts, or if you have a memberlist that bots can spider. In the latter case it could just be people signing up in the hope of getting a free link.

People will post if you say something controversial. Start a thread with a title like: "Soccer is more fun to play than to watch", or "Soccer is bad for your health/wallet/dress sense". See what happens.

 

Some people are misled... I mean there's millions and millions of people on the net, you can type a clear direct sentence and be misinterpreted.

 

with the kind of pictures you have on your forum i assume half of them only go on it to look at naked ladies

 

Honestly,I've no idea on this either.
When I get to know about a new forum,I like signing up for an account at first

 

Ive got a soccer forum too , its very hard... the best that has worked for me is a good contest, but after it was over, bye bye =[

 

One forum I'm a member at send a summary of all the best threads, a dozen or so, by email every week. It keeps me coming back so it probably works for others too. It's a good tactic IMO.

 

I had this problem with a forum as well as people joining under differents aliases. Drove me absolutely crazy!

Mindy

 

Sometimes I might signup to a forum and not post just to get free stuff, eg. modifications...


The best thing to do is to set a limit to post number

 

There are many lazy people out there.. who just sign up and don't come back to the forum. Or maybe they are just too lazy to post.
If you want people to post, make competitions or offer something valuable.

 

Hire someone to do that if you want to.