It takes too long to get to any meat on SpaceBuffs between the header and then the welcome box. Have you thought about adding a CMS like vBAdvanced so that folks can see the site content quicker?

I would suggest Vbseo it made a huge different on my forums

My newest forum is 2 weeks old, look at these stats
Threads: 851, Posts: 13,060, Members: 153

Yeah, a month or two is nothing in this business. Just keep getting more and more content to your site, that will do it over time!

It's taken me two years (1yr phpbb & 1yr vbulletin) to get 600 members. In the beginning, I was trawling similar minded boards, with my site in my signature, posting a lot on those boards and then replying to almost every post made on my own board. I allowed guest posts for a while (to 'introduce' my forum to the world) and as time unfolded, repeat-guests became members. Then, I added a 'links hidden to guests' and at a different time a 'guests see only 1st page' hack to my vb powered forum.
That bumped up membership somewhat. I guess the best thing to do is entice guests by blocking a little content, give them something worthy to sign up for (extended capabilities), and just keep being pro-active on your own board AND on likeminded boards (to keep your signature popping up everywhere). :)

HTH

Dunno if this works, but alot of people advertise using Youtube nowadays... A couple of conspiracy theories and you'll get some attention.

I'm thinking about writing an eBook about how to start and run a successful forum. I feel I'm qualified to do this because, among other things, I've built up a forum from zero to over 35,000 members. I believe you guys would be my target audience - would you be interested?

Depends on how long it took you to build that.....?

Does it really depend on that? :)

I started my forum in 2004, so it's been about 3 years.

What do you think now?

I would strongly suggest vbseo, and creating some good content for link bait. It will get you more visits and maybe some members.

Then ofcourse, give your users a reason to sign up ;)

That is a nice design! I like how the background image stays still, that is the first time I have seen that done on a forum. Something which I will try and do from now on as well.

I started in Aug 2005 and now have over 100 000 members. I still am not an expert, and am learning so much all the time by reading what is already out there on the web.

If you feel you are an expert, by all means, make an ebook, I may even read it, but I dont think stats really qualifies anyone as an expert.