i.e. take my US History site for example - it has a forum but only like 140 members out of the couple thousands uniques I receive daily.

I don't want to force people to register to download/view the notes because that can be a PITA and can cause people to stop coming back, but I do want to get a semi-accurate idea of how many "members" I currently have.

Any ideas?

Give them an incentive...I'm not sure what on would be in your site's case.

If they want the notes bad enough, they'll register :)

Originally posted by CLKeenan
i.e. take my US History site for example - it has a forum but only like 140 members out of the couple thousands uniques I receive daily.

I don't want to force people to register to download/view the notes because that can be a PITA and can cause people to stop coming back, but I do want to get a semi-accurate idea of how many "members" I currently have.

Any ideas?

don't do forced registration cos that will make most new visitors leave, just give them time and if they are regular vistors, they'll join in time!

Originally posted by saghir69
just give them time and if they are regular vistors, they'll join in time!

The site has been up for almost 2 years now :stickout:


The registration would definately be short and sweet though, i.e. username, password, email - anything else would be optional. They wouldnt need to check there email to activate their account or anything along those lines.

Offer a competition or something free, it's probably the easiest way to attract people.

hmm - thats a good idea

maybe if I made a contest to win some Course-Notes.Org stuff (t-shirts, pens/pencils, etc) where you had to sign up to win?

You should probably list all your archived content readily available and then show snippets of the new content which they'll have to register for?

Promotional items would be nice too, you can get a Cafepress shop or even give away gift certificates from Amazon or something :)

Or how about a submit your report card get a free blah blah blah lol

Good luck!

Wow - you have just give me some awesome ideas not really on how to get people to register (although the snippets is good) but the cafepress shop... I don't know how much of an interest there would be but I would be able to create data CDs with all my information on 1 CD, a study guide with all my information published to 1 book, and other merchandise items promoting the site.

That is a bigger outlet, you can publish volumes and such of your information. Good luck to you! :)

You could still make the forum "members only" and basically force your visitors to register if they want to see what's behind...
I still don't think its the right way to run a discussion forum but for some people this works.