Why the slow growth of this site???
 

My site is about 2 months old and only has 178 members.... I have added so many options and hacks everything but it is taking so long to get members....

Can you all please take a look and make suggestions to help me get new members??? www.talkandmore.net

The members I have love the site and post often but I need to get at least enough members to pay hosting fees etc.....

Any advice would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks

There are some articles at theadminzone.com which talk about growing your forums. One thing I personally dont like about your forum is the placement of ads on the forum index.

I think there are too many forums. Though your site is a general discussion forum, I think till more members join or to get more members to join to imitate the illusion that your board is active by merging some forums together.

My site is about 6 months old and only has 160+ members..

Be patient and stop expecting miracles.. :)

my site is coming up to its one year anniversary next month and we have 175 members and over 5,000 posts and almost 1,000 threads. Miracles don't happen over night and as your board grows more and more people will visit. Just keep your forums active and discussions frequent and interesting.

Hacks and mods are not drawing more members to your board, your members are.

Being a General Discussion site youll have a harder time till you hit it big.

The adds all over your site are not helping either :/

1. Style and hacks have virtually nothing to do with making a community expand.
2. You have far too many forums. My site has nearly 7,000 members but I haven't added a new forum for months.
3. Your site has no specific focus. Only a site with a specific target audience can truly succeed.

I appreciate all the advice..... I'm not sure I agree with some of it but thanks... I dissagree that a site has to have 1 specific theme.. The whole theme of my site is to have a little of everything.. hence the name.. talkandmore

Any advertising tips???

I did condense some of the forums though....

Thanks

Yes we understand that its a general forum, but many bigger forums also have general discussion, and attracting people to a general forum is really hard. Advertising wise you will have to state your budget. We can probably help you with advertising methods :)

For free advertising tips. Add yourself to links directories as much as you can, optimize yourself for optimum search engine results, and since you are a general board you might want to try advertising locally (flyers and stuff).

When I checked out your site all I saw was "You are not logged in or you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons"

People are lazy and hate registering to see a post unless there's a really good reason. I suggest allowing anonymous users to view, and then making it so they must register to post (or see pics) If a visitor likes what he sees, he will come back. If he (or she) has to register just to check it out, and doesn't like what he sees, he's not coming back anyway.