How to gain members and get them to post?

[insanctus]

I do not let them view anything until they sign up, and post once thus getting a sence of who they are.

I know alot say 'I do not join sites I have to sign up to view' to those who feel that way on my personal site, good go to the next site.

Usually those who sign up on mine post once, see that they are welcomed and post back.

[Rick Sample]

Originally Posted by insanctus

I do not let them view anything until they sign up, and post once thus getting a sence of who they are.

I know alot say 'I do not join sites I have to sign up to view' to those who feel that way on my personal site, good go to the next site.

Usually those who sign up on mine post once, see that they are welcomed and post back.

Yeah, my members are good about that. When someone posts for their first time, no matter what they post, the members always welcome the newb. We even have a new members area. A lot of the Newb's post in their to get welcomed.

[lifesourcerec]

Get some of your friends to register and post. Once people see conversation going, they join in.

[msimplay]

Originally Posted by muscle-mustangs

Yeah, but don't you like have to have prizes and stuff to give away when the users get so many points, etc?

Plus, down the road if we do get like 10K members or something with hundreds online. I wouldn't want to mess with that kind of a system. I think it would be to confusing. JMO though.

for me i'm using as a way to set up the features for premium members later on
as i'm starting up i want to lure my users in with features and slowly take away x feature for premium use only

the free experience will become dry but by that time users will become hooked
and pay for the premium

ps its not hard work looking after the store its all on auto anyway

ps the ushop hack doesn't have physical prizes its just things like
glowing names
change user title
change others etc

but i guess if you really don't want to thats your call there are plenty of successful sites without it also but then you have to be providing something that other sites do not

[msimplay]

Originally Posted by insanctus

I do not let them view anything until they sign up, and post once thus getting a sence of who they are.

I know alot say 'I do not join sites I have to sign up to view' to those who feel that way on my personal site, good go to the next site.

Usually those who sign up on mine post once, see that they are welcomed and post back.

i personally do not agree to that because then its like u don't know what your signing up for
i remember having signed up to some place and then realising i been duped into it just out of curiosity

its probably only a couple of times on a site like that i've bothered to post or even go back there

[Tony G]

There's no real easy answer for this question. Create a concept/threads that potential guests will be interested in. Advertise it. Hope for the best.

[Watson]

just had a look at yer forums there, they seem to run very slow.

But how about taking away some of the forums, and keeping it smaller to start with, then expanding as it gets bigger.

Saves people forum hopping to read 10 threads

[Ryan Ashbrook]

This might've been suggested but if your forums is a sub-section of your site, then having tons of content on your main site that is spiderable would help, because it'll put you on some thing like say Google numerous times.

Every one of my sites pages is on Google right now. Although it doesn't really help none considering I only have about 6 pages done of around 100+. ^.^;

[Cold Steel]

Originally Posted by msimplay

for me i'm using as a way to set up the features for premium members later on
as i'm starting up i want to lure my users in with features and slowly take away x feature for premium use only

the free experience will become dry but by that time users will become hooked
and pay for the premium

I thought about doing that (and actually did it for a few trivial things) and there was a big uproar.

A better way to do it might be to add features for premium members, instead of taking away features from regular members.

Just a thought.

[TECK]

I would strongly recommend also to post some interesting technical reviews for cars, etc. Google will take care of the rest.
I remember when I used to have the teckwizards site, I used to get tons of hits from Google, just because I posted how to slipstream a windows CD or SimCity to accept no cash limit...