In my 7+ year life as a webmaster, I’ve only had 1 successful forum website. I am currently still running it. Forums are GREAT, they are awesome, but you have to remember a few things to ensure success on a forum.
#1) Original Content - Sure a forum is all about user interaction, but you also need to have some original content on there at launch. You MUST have something to draw visitors and get them interested in actually commenting and posting. For example, I had one article about men’s hairstyles on my forum that drew a LOT of attention from search engines. It was just a simple post (and I didn’t even write it actually), and because of this article, there were links to me from Yahoo answers, search engines, google, and even other forums.
#2) Dedicated Forum Staff - Without getting a couple buddies to help you out, it’s impossible to get a good forum started. Users DO NOT want to post in a dead forum. You need that initial activity. If you can’t get the friends needed to get activity, then you should try paid posting. I’ve personally never tried paid posting, but I heard it can work wonders. Once you get a dedicated user base, it will be easy to promote some users to be moderators and super moderators.
#3) Benefits for the registered - Give them some kind of benefit to being registered other than just posting. For example, on one of my forums I had given registered users access to a lot of hidden areas. I also had contests open to only registered members. Furthermore, I had downloads, freebies, media, etc. These are the kind of things that you need to draw new members. Also be sure to MAKE IT KNOWN that these freebies are available to registered users. What I did was post a little message on the top of the forums if the user wasn’t registered telling them about the benefits of registration.
What DOESN’T Work AS Well as it Should
Contests - Believe me, I’ve tried. Although a contest is an OK way to get some visitors, MOST of them will not be interested after your contest is over. Although you might get some new, dedicated members, contests are not the great way to get new members as some sites will say.
Post Exchanges - This also is not a great idea since it will not only take up YOUR time (by making you post on other’s forums), but it will also give you another dead user once the post exchange is done.
Thanks for reading guys, and MORE in PART 2 coming later.
