Promoting a forum to get more members

[Comspec]

Hi

We have started a forum, relating to football - beginning mid-late Oct 07. I know I cannot post the url here, but will happily pm it to you if you want a look for evaluation purposes.

We also added some nice features to it (a video clip section for one) and these are quite popular.

I have used the normal:
- Stumbleupon
- Digg
- Reddit
- Delicious
- Sigs on other forums
etc

Yet we still only have 25 members - although we do get quite a few guests.

My question is - how do we get more members to sign up??

Current things we are doing:
- Working on a competition, which should start at the end of Jan.
- Cutting the forum headings down - already done
- Working hard on content - this is ongoing and looks well so far

Any ideas appreciated....

(oh and for anyone else working on their forum, here is a site I have found invaluable http://www.communityspark.com/ - has some decent articles and tips). I have followed all their advice, but still struggling so far.

[peterjhale]

I would suggest:
- having only a few sub forums when you start so they are always busy (or look busy) the worst thing for new visitors is to visit a dormant forum
- from the above - always ensure you have posts with today's date showing
- make it obvious where people sign up

[Comspec]

Thanks for that Peter.

We have got plenty of content, and a few daily active members.

It is a matter of keeping the head down and keeping at it I suppose.

How to get some UK-based users onto the forum is my next step I suppose. Stumble, etc are getting traffic, but a lot of the time it is US-based.

Will keep plodding along I think

[fisicx]

How are you marketing the forum? Are you making it easy for people to find you? Are the posts getting indexed?

Is the content interesting and informative enough to keep people on the site. For example, are your guests navigating through the topics or leaving without looking around? If it's the latter then it means the site didn't hold their interest.

In any case have you looked at the competition, a uk only search returns over 1 million results, which means you chances of a decent ranking a not good unless you offer something special that the search engines like.

[DotNetWebs]

Originally Posted by fisicx

...In any case have you looked at the competition...

I think that's probably the most difficult part in this case - there are many other established, well-ranked, football forums out there. I think anybody searching the web for a football forum is likely to come across one of your competitors first.

I think you initially need a more direct method of building up traffic - persuading family, friends, colleagues to get involved etc.

Good luck with this however you proceed.

[Comspec]

Yep - as you say there are plenty out there.

We try to offer a smaller, more complete solution and hopefully this is what entices people in.

I have included the forum in some direct marketing I have been doing lately, so hopefully that helps us get some local input.

Not really sure about the content - it seems to be decent enough, but I suppose this one may just take a while to get going completely.

Cheers all.

[DotNetWebs]

Originally Posted by Comspec

Yep - as you say there are plenty out there.

We try to offer a smaller, more complete solution and hopefully this is what entices people in...

If your forum offers something that is different from the existing forums maybe you could get some traffic from them via signature links etc. (assuming the other forum rules permit you to do this of course!)

Many forum users are happy members of multiple forums covering similar subject matters. Maybe you could turn around the fact that there is a lot of competition and attract some of these members.

[Comspec]

Good idea that really, cheers.

I have been looking at some other forums, but got to be careful I don't get canned for spamming either. Difficult to get my forum into the conversation without spam.

[JustOneUK]

To fill up the forum a bit............

Pay per post... either literally or with some kind of recognition.

Just set out the rules as you want them to be.. and offer a prize to your members.

James.

[Comspec]

The 'pay per post' idea - what way has this been done in the past, or have you seen any more info on something like this. Sounds like a good idea.