Okay, I'm swallowing my pride...

...how do you folks with big boards do it? I'm proud of the two sites I created in my sig?both having won BOTM both here and at vbulletin.com despite having no active community to speak of. SpaceBuffs.com especially has some very nice backlinks pointing at it, hence the high PR. It has links in both the Yahoo and ODP directories, as well as some nice science sites and major university sites. I have a link to the site in my sig on various forums which have a topic similar to SpaceBuffs.

Still...nada. I can't convert visitors. I'm not sure what it is I'm doing wrong. The frustration has caused me to completely give up promoting the sites and adding any content, and I pretty much keep both up and running just so I can have them in my design portfolio.

I love working on forums, both my own and for clients. I'd love to one day have a successful forum of my own, instead of abandoned eye-candy. Any tips on how to drive traffic to the forums and convert said traffic would be GREATLY appreciated.

[El Burro]

Two brilliant skins. The best I've seen.

Perhaps you should concentrate on Graphic design.

I'd love you to make a skin for my forum !!!

[sanjay369]

Here are some suggestions that I have found to work:

Find every relevant link site like http://www.thespaceplace.com/links.html or http://www.assabfn.co.za/spacetides/links.htm and ask for a link, offering a backlink on a separate subdomain will greatly increase your chances

Search social networking sites for like minded people and invite them to your forum

Integrate a wordpress blog into your site using the vbulletin bridge and write articles with pictures and video embedded. Then go and comment on other spaceblogs with your blog URL displayed. Your blog entries will serve as the first-post of a separate article subforum, so if anyone wants to comment on your blog- they are automatically registered on your forum. If you need help with the writing solicit great posters from other forums- with your design skills, they will want to be involved.

good luck and feel free to PM me for community building help- I am sure the size of my community would qualify my advice as valid.

[QsKGlobal.com]

The only reason my community has been a success is because of our work. We make Halo videos which drive traffic to our sites, we also host videos, offer editing support, and have affiliates that are high trafficers. Halo3Forum.com announce many of our videos which increases our stats every time.

My advice is to advertise more, maybe start some contests, or offer moderator positions. Maybe talk to high traffic forums about getting sponsored links on their site. In my opinion, search engines don't do enough for a forums unless they are HUGE resource sites with over 50,000 pages indexed on each search engine.

Even though my forum isn't a 'big board' for 3 months and 934 members...we do pretty good.

[SmashinYoungMan]

I was actually contacted by the Science Channel tonight. They want me to help promote Space Week that is coming up via Space Buffs. They're giving me access to clips from the series to display on my site. SB, by virtue of having some very authoritative backlinks, draws some high profile attention, but I can't get the damn forum off the ground. Heh.

Again, thanks for the pointers, all. I'm definitely going to put some of the stuff suggested here into action.

[axg]

I agree with the others, it takes time to get noticed. It is definatly not over night. So be patient, and stick with it. They will come slowly.

On another note, the skins are by far the very best i have ever seen.
Hmm, if you do this on the site, contact me. I may want a skin made for my board.

[trifive]

I looked at your spacebuffs and here are some suggestions I have.

If I had your website here is some of the things i would do.

First deside who you are targeting for members, it looks like it targets kids, then it actually has content that may interest older members.

I would ad more content like a hack for space news etc, that is updated daily.

I would ad the games hack to give people something to do.

I would design interesting topics, such as word association questions.

Latest nasa headlines.

THe template looks great but it is wider than your brouser so you constantly have to chrol to the right .

Maybe a section for best telescope photos contest etc.

and the best thing to do is forget about search engines, just go to other websites with people of like interest and trade links

Hope this helps

Otis

[soletrader]

Definitely try paid posting to make your forum active and up.

[bbcentral]

The skins look amazing, so much so that I'm inspired to "borrow" some of the elements for my own forum's skin
(I'd like to go with a background image, but then I realise that I'll be adding a gradient on my new skin anyway, so it's a bit pointless).

As far as what trifive is saying above, he's completely right.
I've been struggling with a lack of posts for a while, and I've been working on rebuilding my site to better integrate with my forum.

Here's what I'm doing, not sure how many of these will help you:
1) In order to download any files on the main site (videos, mp3s, etc) you'll need to login first (not too applicable to your site)
2) Whenever I post a news item, there will be a link to "Discuss this in the forum". Some will have a dedicated thread, others will simply link to the most relevant forum category.
3) Don't worry about a chatroom, resist that temptation. I had people begging for one for 2 years, I finally caved in and now nobody uses it. I will be hosting some scheduled chats later on though, which may help.
4) Send a welcome PM and welcome email to every new member that registers. Mine basically says: "Welcome to the site, we're happy to have you here, please introduce yourself in the introductions forum, don't be afraid to ask any questions here, we look forward to having you around, if you need any help don't hesitate to ask. Sincerely, your new friends at Forum Name" I've automated this using the "User Registration Options" page in the AdminCP.
5) I can't do this for my own site because I have an "obscure" topic, but you'll probably be able to get some decent traffic by submitting to Digg.com whenever an interesting topic comes up. Those guys are all tech-heads, and many of them love space stuff. Here's a topic that was posted today: http://digg.com/space/M81_Galaxy_image . You can either manually submit the topics yourself, or install one of the many "Digg This" mods available here, then you can leave it up to your members to submit your stories. Just be warned, you'll need a good server if you're going to submit to Digg, or else you'll suffer the "Digg Effect" from all the heavy traffic :P
6) "Discussion" and "Astronomy and Space Travel Forum" might not be the best names for your forum. "Forum", "Message Board", "Discussion", they're all very generic names. I renamed mine "The Soul Food Cafe", and it gives it a bit of "oomph" What about something like "The Space Place", or "The Launchpad", I'm sure you can come up with something much cooler though. It's cool when my members receive emails from "The Soul Food Cafe", sounds like some exclusive club!
7) Make sure you enable the feature to send Happy Birthday emails, and even try customizing the email body. I get 3-4 emails a week from members I've never even heard of saying "Thanks for the Happy Birthday email!". I haven't got the heart to tell them that I didn't send it, it was automatic! I'm going to change the text to include some links back to the forum, hopefully to show that we'd like them to come back.
8) You're already doing this here, but make sure you keep your site in every forum signature you can.
9) Instead of linking to your home page on other sites, keep it relevant, so if you can link directly to a related topic on your own forum then do that instead.

And finally:
http://www.nasa.gov/rss/breaking_news.rss
You could set your forum to automatically create topics based on the items there (RSS Support is available in vB)

I hope this helps you or anyone else who is trying to boost their activity.

The only other thing I sometimes do, which may or may not help you, is I run a lot of links to Amazon.com products. I earn decent commission for sales generated through them, and a few times a year I have enough available in gift certificates to run a competition for my members. I send a mass email to every member letting them know, with a link to the competition page. The page itself is a list of prizes (all Amazon.com products), and a simple form that allows them to select the answer to a multiple choice question, and enter their username, real name, address, country, and select which prize they would like.
When the competition is over, I just select a random winner from the list (who has the right answer), and then send them an email to let them know. I confirm their details and choice of prize, login to Amazon.com and buy the prize using the gift certificate, and have it shipped directly to their address.
Whenever I do this my Adsense traffic shoots up, I get more traffic (people forward it to their friends and family), more new members, and ironically I end up earning more back from Amazon than I spent on the prize!
It's a neat little trick that makes everyone happy

[SCRIPT3R]

IMO, again (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....26&postcount=7) - i would drop the ads. i WILL NOT visit a site with ads unless the content is a major interest. besides, what good are google ads if you have no visitors? again, wait til you get more traffic. only my opinion.

[masons]

All it takes is some zealots...
Get people involved.. make them mods ... its a sure way to see some increase right away.
Call some of the independent publishers on the topic... get them involved as they might like the platform to launch some new publications.

Visit every single science forum each and everyday... and simply tell them about your site... not to often, as your a guest... but make them aware of your site, not just in your signature.

Make flyers (at kinkos yourself) with some catchy UFO title and information.... and plant these at the UNIVERSITIES in your area... go to bookstores that sell your subject and ask if you can put some flyers there..

Print some posters and hang them in speciality shops...

Spot a UFO and post it on your site, then call all the newspapers and let them know.

Awesome sites, but it looks like the astron site is a GAMERS site on the first visit.