Please help...no members
 

i have tried everythign egtting my friends to register putting it on google buyign adwords advertising all over other sites...nothing works please help! its as if ive wasted my money i ahve no active members...

In my opinion, you need to fix a few things before people will start signing up. The top of your site's kind of a mess man. You have a monster image taking up the top 1/4 of the screen, and your google ad blocks are side by side which is doing all sorts of bad things to your actual forum tables. Check the attachment to see what I mean. The first thing you need to do is get it looking uniform on smaller, non-widescreen resolutions. 800x600 is kind of out the window nowadays, but even at 1280x1024 your site doesn't scale. (see attachment)

Another thing you might want to consider is trimming the number of subforums down a bit until you get more traffic and more posts.

The last thing - just be patient. Get your site looking good and visitors will come. My current site (after running two other sites to the 2M+ post mark) was very slow for quite some time, well over a year. Now I average 250+ online and ~50k posts a month. Stick with it, get the bugs worked out and it'll happen for ya. :)

at first, you took control of your forum the wrong way around...

adding ads before having a single member is useless... adding a header so big is not interesting for nobody... you have too much forums without having a single post made... do the opposite... minimize your forums so you have some central places and you will expand when needed, find a custom style that look like you want it to look... and submit your site at http://dmoz.org ...

google will not crawl your site if you have nothing on it... this is an intelligent engine, not a dumb blonde.

Agree 100%. The actual revenue you'll make off a new site with no content will be pennies a day at best. Putting Adsense on your site doesn't get Google to spider you - they use a different agent for adsense spidering. Nexi's right - kill the ads and get a clean looking site that people want to be a part of.

I agree with what's been said but also wanted to add a few points...

Get rid of, or drastically change, the current logo you have. It's hard to read and just doesn't look professional.

Fix whatever is going on with your members list. The usernames aren't lining up with the info for the member.

You have two "Search" links in your navbar.

Your FAQ link is broken.

And you say that you can't get anyone to sign up, yet your stats say that you have over 1000 members. Cheating the stats, are you?

If you need inspiration for a skin that kicks all sorts of ass, look at dismas's signature.

Now that is the kind of skin I need. Chris, whip one up for me. ;)

thanks so much guys. Ok a few things. I have a great logo and i want to put it right above the navbar...how do i put it there?

2 ive had that navbar problem for quite some time...any indication on how to fix it?

3. Should i keep stuff liek psp ps3 and stuff or should i start out with something like just mmorpgs...which will meen itl start with a theme and ppl when they come il increase it...though that means all the forums will be gone lol

4.what should be in faq

5. the problem is noone is visiting my site. No guests so when this is all fixed how will i get members? Ive done everything. Ive submitted it everywhere and i even have adwords goin.

To answer your questions,


1 your logo already is above the navbar?

2 ask for help in appropriate forum, you probably just need to edit the template and remove a double instance of the link, although the rpg drop down doesnt seem to be working. If you cant fix it and you know its broken, Seek Help! People here wont bite... hard ;)

3 Have One or Two forums for gaming and branch out later.

4 faq needs to be done after you restructure the forums & categories

5 no one will be pulled in to joining you because your site is very plain, seeing as you've spent money already, why not try one of the free skins here first and see what happens? Make it a good one though.



Here are some more suggestions:

Ultimate Talk Forum:
-Announcements
-Development
--Forum Progress
--Technical Support
--Suggestions & Feedback

Gaming Forum:
-Gaming Discussion
-Arcade

General:
-General Chat
-Fun Stuff
-Computing
-Avatars / Sigs

Short and sweet is better for small boards. The above is just a suggestion/example.

in gaming discussion would i ahve all psp, ps3 etc stuff? like child forums

also i dont meen obove the navbar where it was i meen whre it sais like how many emails u have between there and where it sais Ultimate Talkk forums...how can i do this

Nope. If you must have more, put maybe Subforums called "Consoles" "PC" "Multiplayer"

But i wouldnt go console specific like you suggest

Trust me its worth it. I know youve spent alot of time making your site and i am not putting it down, even the very best sites must re structure from time to time and make improvements, sites that are starting out are not exception from this.

and about the logo?

For the logo your going to have to either 1 customise the navbar or 2 customise the header to get it where you want

i hhave no idea how to do that...

I have made a list of all things to do to my forum to get new members. I have changed re
style
made did forums and still I'm getting no members. I've submitted it to hundreds of searches. Please help why am I not getting members. Www.ultimatetalkforums.com

general talk forums are the hardest to get members to sign up and post for.

there are already billions out there, and your's doesn't look anything special to the others.

so how can i attract users i cant just say oh no ic ant do this and waste all the money ive spent and time

see i did everythin u guys said and nothinmgs different. Still no ppl comin to my forums and still no ppl registering

What do you offer that noone else does? What is the incentive to join your site?

well...umm...sigh... nothing...and i danno what i could have :-(

Threads merged, please do not start multiple threads on the same topic.

I think you're worrying too much over nothing. Give it some time and continue on and don't fret it. As soon as you get to the point that you aren't driving yourself crazy trying to figure out a new way every other day to get members, they will start showing up in droves. I have a small site and I love it. It gives me time to [s]screw up[/s] code my vbulletin and add things that I don't really need [s]and couldn't code if my life depended on it[/s]. Hang in there, it does get better. ;)

do you think theres any point in puttin a paypal donate button on the site?

No.

--------------- Added [DATE]1204387881[/DATE] at [TIME]1204387881[/TIME] ---------------

Work on your content - members will come.

A paypal button never hurts a site. I have one. It never gets used but it is always there in case any ever one feels the need.

Well I like mmrpgs and there are many mmorpg lovers out there. How can I let people know its a forum for everything but it has a section for mmorpgs that is a very important part. If they see ultimate talkforums they won't think of mmorpgs but I want them to know once they come to the site that its a general forum but it... I danno how to explain. It has a section for mmorpgs that could be the main area for them... Like there's all mmorpg info tips and pigs also talk and clans for many mmorpgs

OK I just had a look at your site, the skin you've chosen has made it look so much better, well done. I actually opened your site and thought wow it looks great now.

as for members, dont sweat it. Like Boofo said members will show up, just give it time.

As someone mentioned earlier get rid of the dark gloomy style, to me it looks like a medival role playing site and seeing the style turned me off even before seeing what you had in the way of forums and what your site was about.

Start with a plain jane style first or even the default and get things working right and then slowly work on a different style or two.

I just worry that because its a general forum...nothing is ever gonna happen with it and its never gonna get anywhere

as for the style...i personally love the style but if the community doesnt il change it. I dont want a plain style i like styles that are like black dark and scary. Something that catches your attension can you suggest any?

I used to think that way until my Super Mod said to leave the style the way it is. It took some getting used to but I can concentrate on other things now and upgrades are a snap. If a forum has a life of some sort, even a small one, the skin is just eye candy to a few people. Most users really don't care as long as they can post, play in the arcade, and other things. I think we, as Admins, put way too much importance in the wrong areas.

what do u think of my style beefo? would u register to the site? why/why not

Beefo isnlt here so I will stand in for him/her/it.

It has an interesting look but no real direction. You might want to add a current topics or current news area. And a good debate area, if properly managed, can do wonders to draw peole in and keep them interested. But you hasve to be careful to stay away from 2 subjects...1. Religion and 2. Politics on a deep level.

Is there anything that YOU yourself are interested in?

You dont really have anything really interesting, honestly.

(If your interested in gaming)We set up a dedicated gaming server and posted on a server list, we had over 30 people playing and then it just climbed, 10 registrations per minute at least.

If you want active members, fast, you can always take that route and spend a little money each month or whatever and then make a donation rank (users like to feel special xD) and regain the money, then put the ads back on, you could be possibly making money then.

You can always seek help of another site owner if you know any, they probably have some really good tips, if you are into programming you could probably make some programs people will start to like and come and join.

Like boofo said, you need a direction.

Oh yes, also, in memberlist, you need to get rid of that map. Its really big and pointless.

You need to re-add the memberlist link onto your navbar.

Good luck to you.

OK well im interested in mmorpgs and i also know c++ but only up to making text games/programs. i would love to make it interesting but i just dont know how. how can i make a debate area properly? any other tips?

I have a Fathers' Rights Site and I have a total of 14 members right now. I've only been up since Jan 21st, but I get a lot of guests viewing the site and reading the articles and not signing up. The members I do have are mostly friends that found out about the site or I invited. The reason I'm telling you this is because of the depressing subject of the site, I already know it will never had a lot of members. But that is fine by me as I set it up out of a need that I didn't see being addressed anywhere. I also have an arcade but the mods are in there more than anyone else so I gave up on trying to get them to do anything. We are very relaxed there and don't get too upset about a lot of things. We have guests dropping by at all hours, reading what the need, and then they're gone. I have no real maintenance to worry about other than keeping articles refreshed. Now, I know the minute I get relaxed and start enjoying it, they are going to start showing up. That is a big part of it. Just staying cool and going about your business until it does pick up. And it will, it always does, eventually.

One thing you will never see on my site is ads. That is the single biggest turn-off you can have if you expect to get a lot of members. Once you get the membership built up, then you can do the ads and it isn't as annoying as it is when you don't have that many members, if that makes any sense at all.

yeh it makes alot of sence. What do u suggest for a debate thing. like...a whole new forum for..."debates"?

Nah, just use the Lounge area. I have Bear's Den area and under that I have The Lounge, a Jokes and Anecdotes area and the Poll area. Throw a debate area in the same main forum that you have the Lounge type area in. But... and I stress this... make sure you have set rules for the debate area and do NOT let them deviate from those rules even once, or you will have anarchy. People love a good debate as long as it doesn't get too personal, or get thrown into name calling and things like that.

so for my site i dont REEEALy have a lounge area but i have general chat and under that are articles fun stuff and etc should i put it under general chat

My lounge is the general chat area. Same thing.

so how do you get them to start posting debates? and are there like 10 at a time...? is there a main one? are there teams? what?