Review: Travel forum + budget to spend

[prawn_86]

Hi All,

My forums brief story: I launched it about 5 years ago when i was still in Uni. It has been total organic growth (no paid SEO) and then work/day job got in the way. It has been stalled in a holding pattern for about 18 months with no real growth in members or posts but similar traffic figures

I now have some time and money to put into it.

So aside from an overall review my question is, what would you do if you had $1000 to help build and promote this site?

http://www.aussietravellersforum.com.au
Forum for those travelling to and from Australia

I will be launching a travel competition where users can win a $50 voucher per month (on top of the 1k) budget. And i also plan on upgrading to VB4.x but am unsure if i will get a custom skin or try and find soemthing in green and gold

Any help/advice/feedback will be much appreciated as i am kind of looking for a mentor. I know how to build sites etc, but getting traffic (and posters) is where i struggle

[Sage Knight]

First of all, get a better, shorter domain name probably .COM extension 10 USD. I'd start from scratch basically. Buy a premium theme should cost about about 30-40 USD. Remove the ads opportunity cost would be less than 5 USD. Never add Ads on new sites. Get some friends to first post quality content on your site or just have a good discussion with yourself, if you know what I mean ;]

And yeah last but not the least you need more modern community software. You should try demos of various software, even free forum software IMHO. When you're all done with that go for promotion, hire some members as mods so that they can also pitch in. Organic is the way to go, great content will lead to better search results. You can also find on various sites "Ad Boards" just post a motivating intro there, remember content is king and focus on a niche never spread yourself too thin and NEVER make loads of sections which are empty.

And while you're at it save up the money for something more useful and unique such as a custom plugin.

[prawn_86]

Thanks SK,

i already have a .com extension that redirects to the .au so no problem there.

I actually make enough from the ads to cover hosting for this site and my others (run 4 other small sites) and i dont think the couple there are detract from the forum

I have been looking for custom themes but cant seem to find any with green & gold colouring.

Any idea where i can hire members to post? All my previous experiences has been terrible, with people just cutting and pasting info so it doesnt look organic at all

What sort of plugin would you suggest?

[Reycer]

* Took me forever to figure out how to get to the forums as there is no link. The only thing you see on the front page is recent threads. I finally found the forum list on the left down towards the bottom.

* Two login boxes on the front page, Why? Kind of seems pointless.

*Really can't figure out what the Giant map is for. It's just kinda there. IMO, there should at least be an instruction stating to click on on a continent to go that section.

* On one side you have "Recommend Sites" and on the other "Top Rated Sites" why would you want people to leave your site? Or are those paid for ads?

* The Banner is cool but doesn't really fit with the rest of the board. You have a Globe, a Kanagroo and Palm Trees. I don't see any of that on the board itself. I guess that's just me, but I like to theme by boards and icons to match my banner. Also the banner extends past the board. Same with the ad on the other side.


If you want to look into getting more posters, try going over to www.theadminzone.com there you can find people who are willing to exchange posts with you to help build up your board.

[prawn_86]

Thanks Reycer, very helpful.

1 & 2. Have fixed this now with a bit of a comment about the map, and moving the forum list above the fold

3. Yes these are paid. It may be a hobby site, but i still need to cover costs

4. When i upgrade to 4.x i intend to improve the visuals a bit so will try and mix in with the banner.
When i view it, the banners dont extend past, will have to spend some time and figure out what is happening.

Once again, thanks for your help, very insightful and the sort of thing i need

[Sage Knight]

Some decent premium theme sites;

http://www.completevb.com/

http://digitalvb.com/

http://www.purevb.com/

Make .COM primary, how would your potential members know that? Also shorter URL, believe me it'll be easier to remember.

Use http://forumpromotion.net/ for the Posting Help.

But upgrade to whatever platform soon then do all this and that. And as for plugins it depends on you and the members, don't add any at start. Make your content be the appeal.

[prawn_86]

Thanks SK,

Being an Australian site i'm going to stick with the .au Lots of Aussies prefer a .au extension as then they know it is an Aus site and not some American pretending to be Aussie. Weird i know but i have seen business websites do better here with a .au ext than without

[New Joe]

Maybe stick with the .au then, but make the whole url sorter, a domain name is not really taht important nowadays, it's the content and seo which is the main points.'

The colors really aren't great on the Skin, the yellow (gold as you say) looks bad, and too much white.
Spend a little money on a really great Skin when you upgrade to vb4.
And try to get the Logo to blend in more with the Skin, a Centered Logo might look better too.

Separate the Forums with Categories.

Change this into a more personal thing for guests to read:

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

add things which spiders/bots will pick up in it too, helps with engine rankings too.

[prawn_86]

Originally Posted by New Joe

Maybe stick with the .au then, but make the whole url sorter, a domain name is not really taht important nowadays, it's the content and seo which is the main points.'

The colors really aren't great on the Skin, the yellow (gold as you say) looks bad, and too much white.
Spend a little money on a really great Skin when you upgrade to vb4.
And try to get the Logo to blend in more with the Skin, a Centered Logo might look better too.

Separate the Forums with Categories.

Change this into a more personal thing for guests to read:
add things which spiders/bots will pick up in it too, helps with engine rankings too.

Thanks Joe,

Yes plan to spend a bit and get a custom skin that goes with colours and logo etc. Do you do that sort of design work?

The forums are seperated by location as opposed to category.



Would also love to hear other members thoughts as to how they would spend the $1k... (even if its just basic figures)

[KProjects]

Hey there prawn,

First thing i'd do is extend the title total characters in your vbadvanced 'recent threads' module so you can read more of the title before it gets cut off. (vbcms --> edit modules --> recent threads --> maximum characters of thread title to display)

If you're looking for fresh content, go to postloop (Postloop.com). You can hire paid posters to come to your site daily... from 5 posts/day to unlimited.

Go to completevb.com or other theme site and pick up a nice professional looking theme.

Rob