Please provide your valuable inputs on my site www.meracarforum.com

[madhu_nair]

Hi All,
I have a forum which I set up about 5 days ago.
www.meracarforum.com

My set of issues
1) I have about 50 members - But 70% of them have zero posts
2) So far, I have received around 2800 hits, but only 50 members.
Is this too low?

How do I encourage participation from those who are only lurking or signed in once
and never came back?

Should I set the forum such that they have to register inorder to read posts?

How do I promote the site?
This is just as a hobby (for now) - Hence can't afford to pay for advertising.

As of now I am just relying on friends to spread the word - Which I know is not effective.

Any advice would be highly appreciated.
Thanks,
Madhu
madhu_nair@yahoo.com