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.

[RetroDreams]

It takes too long to get to any meat on SpaceBuffs between the header and then the welcome box. Have you thought about adding a CMS like vBAdvanced so that folks can see the site content quicker?

[epoc fitness]

I would suggest Vbseo it made a huge different on my forums

My newest forum is 2 weeks old, look at these stats
Threads: 851, Posts: 13,060, Members: 153

[Nikke]

Yeah, a month or two is nothing in this business. Just keep getting more and more content to your site, that will do it over time!

[karlm]

It's taken me two years (1yr phpbb & 1yr vbulletin) to get 600 members. In the beginning, I was trawling similar minded boards, with my site in my signature, posting a lot on those boards and then replying to almost every post made on my own board. I allowed guest posts for a while (to 'introduce' my forum to the world) and as time unfolded, repeat-guests became members. Then, I added a 'links hidden to guests' and at a different time a 'guests see only 1st page' hack to my vb powered forum.
That bumped up membership somewhat. I guess the best thing to do is entice guests by blocking a little content, give them something worthy to sign up for (extended capabilities), and just keep being pro-active on your own board AND on likeminded boards (to keep your signature popping up everywhere).

HTH

[Foulish_Mitch]

Dunno if this works, but alot of people advertise using Youtube nowadays... A couple of conspiracy theories and you'll get some attention.

[gengar56]

I'm thinking about writing an eBook about how to start and run a successful forum. I feel I'm qualified to do this because, among other things, I've built up a forum from zero to over 35,000 members. I believe you guys would be my target audience - would you be interested?

[jawatkin]

Depends on how long it took you to build that.....?

[gengar56]

Does it really depend on that?

I started my forum in 2004, so it's been about 3 years.

What do you think now?

[Brandon Sheley]

I would strongly suggest vbseo, and creating some good content for link bait. It will get you more visits and maybe some members.

Then ofcourse, give your users a reason to sign up

[Hornstar]

Originally Posted by delmarva

I can tell you one thing, this guy can design EXCELLENT templates! He turned mine from crap to gold: http://www.atlanticanglers.com

That is a nice design! I like how the background image stays still, that is the first time I have seen that done on a forum. Something which I will try and do from now on as well.

Originally Posted by gengar56

I'm thinking about writing an eBook about how to start and run a successful forum. I feel I'm qualified to do this because, among other things, I've built up a forum from zero to over 35,000 members. I believe you guys would be my target audience - would you be interested?



Does it really depend on that?

I started my forum in 2004, so it's been about 3 years.

What do you think now?

I started in Aug 2005 and now have over 100 000 members. I still am not an expert, and am learning so much all the time by reading what is already out there on the web.

If you feel you are an expert, by all means, make an ebook, I may even read it, but I dont think stats really qualifies anyone as an expert.