Boosting a community?

[GREGO]

Hello Everyone,

Mods, please forgive me if this is the wrong forum topic for the lounge, but I couldnt think of another place for this.


I want to have my own little community forum. My website recieves around 200 unique visits a day, but nobody ever joins the message board.

Does anyone have any tips on how to get some visitors to join.?

I know html forums is very successful, I enjoy it here and I would just love having my own little community.


Thanks all,

[Mage]

My message boards never really got going on my web page, so I just took it off :P One thing you could try is something to draw people in, like some sort of competition, or monthley draw or something, once you get some active members, more will follow :P

[KWJams]

First off, when I pulled up your site I had to close so many pop-ups that I closed your site by accident and had to pull it up again to look closer.

Message Boards are a dime a dozen. :(

There are so many out there that unless something really catches a visitors attention right off they wander off.

Folks are so paranoid to just give out an e-mail address to join a message board unless it is a happening place.

I am not an expert but the first thing I noticed was there are to many forums on yours. To many and it just looks confusing and visitors go adios.

Cut them down to a bare minimum, they can always be added back if and when needed.

Create aliases and carry on conversations with your self to make it look active--dead boards will not interest visitors.

:rocker:

[GREGO]

Thanks forthe reply KW jams.

I know I hate pop up Ads. I just switched my banner ad service with one called focusin. I put the banner code in and for some reason it is making popups come up. I have emailed them about it but so far no reply. I will not have popups on my website because I myself dont go to websites if they have more than one. If i dont get a reply in another 24 hours im going to switch back.

Anyways,

I have been having conversations with myself, of the 20 memebers i think im like 10 of them. I will make the forums less confusing and take out the un needed ones.

I remember when i had a forum where you just type a name and a message. I got ALOT more posts with that because no registering was needed, but those kinda boards just dont look good. maybe i should find one like that that looks good that I can host myself?

Thanks KW, you have been a big help.

[KWJams]

The thing that you have to ask is,

What is the purpose for a message board?

Generate traffic to your site right.

Board traffic is usually return visitors who enter--hang out--drink your beer and rarely buy anything.


Managing a board can be a full time job taking up too much of your time and energy.

The only boards that seem to survive are ones which have a dynamic on going subject that it revolves around.

Like here at HTML Fourms :cool:

Here is a joke for you :D

The owner of this drug store walks in to find a guy leaning heavily against a wall.
The owner asks the clerk "What's with that guy over there
by the wall?" and the clerk goes "Well, he came in here this morning to get something for his cough. I couldn't find the cough syrup, so I gave him an
entire bottle of laxative."
The owner goes "You idiot! You can't treat a cough with a bottle of laxatives!" and the clerk goes "Of course you can! Look at him; he's afraid
to cough!"

[fredricknish]

The main page of a website is the key for attracting ppl into a new forum.First make a big graphics that says somethin abt the forum in the main page.

Second (most important) Start some hot topic in the forum and give a link to it in the main page of your website with a small intro.

Example of a main page intro to a topic

What kinda music really rocks? Pop or Rock ? Dicuss it with others at out forums :D

The above tips were given to me by a guy from another forum which has over 15,000 members when I was starting threads and makin posts using diffrent usernames in my forums as no one made any posts.(I later shutdown the forum :D )

[Mage]

Yeah - I didnt atcually look at your site the first time :$ lol - but they are atcually pretty confusing looking, and if you have to register for something I usually wont unless it is something I am going to use lots - and with only 20 memembers I wouldnt join unless there was something interesting there, but I would think that once you start getting a few membmers you will get more people joining.